Who you got, Walt?

I'm sending it in on Gun Runner in the Haskell.

Leaning toward Destin in the Dandy.

Go Jim Dandy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJXM-ssg2Hg

Impressive field in the Jim Dandy.

I like Governor Malibu, Mohaymen, and Destin there.

In the Haskell,

Nyquist, Gun Runner and American Freedom. American Freedom could be a shocker.

They let that bum stroll around on an easy lead. What did they expect?

They let that bum stroll around on an easy lead. What did they expect?

A maiden and they let him just run away with it.

Makes you think the fix was in.

A maiden and they let him just run away with it.

Makes you think the fix was in.

Where was Creator? Not even close.

Once they got to the half so slow, Creator had no chance. Nobody is fixing a race going for that kind of money. The jocks on Destin and Governor Malibu were thinking exactly what most bettors thought: There's a maiden up front and I can go by him whenever I want to. The lead is 9/10 of the law. I know Walt knows that.

I don't even know how Laoban makes it into a G2 race, having not won a prior race.

That said, it's inconceivable to me that this horse could have beaten out four other horses, considered to be in the top 15 if not top 10 in the country, including the Belmont Winner and runner-up, and 4th and 6th places finishers in the Kentucky Derby in Moyhamen and Destin. Laoban should not have been 20-1, more like 50-1 or 100-1.

I wonder sometimes how the track offers such odds of 27-1 on Laoban. It would not seem based on mathematical computations at all. They just make a number up like that, and just let the public take it.

The race I should have bet on today was Haskell. I tried to bet yesterday, but was told by the woman at the counter that the OTB doesn't accept bets in advance of the racing day, with exception of the Triple Crown races. It seems like a lay-up that Nyquist, Gun Runner, American Freedom and Exaggerator will be in the top four based on this field, as much as there can be a lay-up in horse racing.

In response to Walt, I am getting tired of this crop of 3 year olds. Would like to see some fresh horses, where their histories and odds are not known.

for today's haskell look out for #2 Sunny Ridge (20-1), and #3 Awesome Slew (15-1). going by equibase, which picked Laoban yesterday as a runner-up (and we all know what happened there). awesome slew has paco lopez in the saddle, which apparently is a good thing. is predicted to "break the early lead". in a speed race, that could be enough.

i'm out of action so good luck, ya'll.

They paid the starting fee and went in the gate. The pace made the race. You could see he was going to be tough after he was uncontested and walked that first quarter mile.

As far as the odds are concerned, they're simply a computation of the money in the pool (after the takeout, 16% at Saratoga) divided by the number of bets on the horse. Personally, I think 27-1 was pretty generous considering there was a good chance he was going to have the front end to himself. In retrospect I'm kicking myself for not giving him more consideration. He was probably the right bet at those odds. Destin was a little shorter than I expected. Obviously, it's tough to bet a three year old maiden in a Grade 2 race.

I had been wondering how to convert the odds in horse racing to probability. Simple division does not work. And then I came across this article, which explains it and the house's edge.

http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/56701.html

What you are saying, JORR, is correct, in that you want to bet the horse that wins more than its probability. This time that strategy worked with Laoban. You reasoned correctly that because he had good front-end speed he stood a better than 4% chance in a small field.

It seems, though, that the the betting public, including the wise guys, bet the favorites so much that the odds gets skewed, where they generally win less than their probability. The horses that benefit then are the long-shots or any horse with odds better than even compared to the field nominal odds. Sometimes the betting public is smart and sniffs them out, which is what happened with Lani in the Belmont, when his odds dropped from 20-1 to 8-1 by post time; and sometimes, they're not so smart, as with Creator in the Belmont, when he won at around 17-1.

What I'm getting at is that a strategy that finds undervalued winners is the one that should be profitable long-term. A simple calculation of probability versus record should allow you to do that. Betting the chalks is a losing strategy then, because you're always getting the favorites at a premium, which you should avoid doing. But then you're betting against your own instincts for winners.

When we first go to the racetrack almost all of us are taught to try to "pick winners". There are guys at any racetrack and OTB that have been out there everyday for thirty or forty years who have no concept of value in wagering. Many don't even know what the takeout at their local track is. There are two old racetrack sayings I've heard time and time again. One is, "It's better to cash a short-priced winner than to throw down a longshot loser" and the other is, "You can beat a race but you can't be the races". And they are both wrong. It's fine to throw down a longshot loser if it was the right bet. And you can never be certain of beating any particular race, but if you manage your money the right way, you can beat the races. And you don't even have to be that great of a handicapper.

The first thing is to learn how to make an accurate line. If you have a reasonably accurate line on a race and you use that line to seek value rather than falling in love with a particular horse, you're going to do well in the long run.

This is a book I would recommend for any aspiring horse race gambler. Its focus is harness racing but the principles work for any type of parimutuel gambling:

https://www.amazon.com/HANDICAPPERS-MON ... B00GS8ANZK

Eddie O got another one wrong, taking Nyquist. Why do they even have him on these pre-race shows handicapping?

I can't remember one time he's been right.

Eddie O got another one wrong, taking Nyquist. Why do they even have him on these pre-race shows handicapping?

I can't remember one time he's been right.

Joe bets two horses to win in the same race? Which is against all gamblers logic
Very insightful, thank you. Then how do these guys at the track last for thirty or forty years, if they're always choosing the losing strategy? They would need to have good bankrolls to start with, or get very lucky, to afford such a life-style.

Really, it only takes once or twice to get lucky on the long shot and you're rolling. Respect for how you bet the Kentucky Derby, JORR, because I remember you had a few long shots that you bet heavy. Had you scored, you would have been laughing all the way to the bank and more. You'd have a boat on Lake Michigan, if you don't already.

I am going to be smarter with my betting from now on, where I'll look at the probabilities versus record. Coming into the Jim Dandy, Laoban had no wins, but finished in the money three times out of seven races. That is worth something. Laoban could have run 20 races and won one coming in, and he his winning percentage would still have been better than the implied probability of less than 4%. In this case, he was only on his eighth race and won. His minimal win odds now should be 7 or 8 to 1. You can figure this stuff out just by doing your homework. The question is, what weighting do you give for place and show finishes? It would have to be something less than one.

For the record, I had Gov. Malibu and Destin in my trifecta box yesterday, along with Creator. The jockey for Creator should be fired for the race he ran with that kind of horse. He was asleep until the half-mile pole.