First, many thanks to Seth Abrams for running down Mark Cramer and getting an elucidating 30 minute interview. He reminded me of the whole point of betting horses: find value. So I’m going to post some of the stuff I’ve written previously on value.

Which brings me to this. Anyone who says, I’m going to try to beat Horse A with Horse B because Horse A’s odds are “too low” doesn’t understand value. It’s one thing to say, Horse B has a higher probability of winning, or Horse B has a 20% chance of winning but his odds will be 10-1, but it is misleading to suggest you should pass Horse A just because Horse B has higher odds, and you’ll see exactly what I mean in one of my examples below.

This is one of the great fallacies of horseracing – that you can’t make money at 8-5. You may not be able to make a lot of money in one fell swoop, but if you think that a horse at 8-5 (39% chance) has a 60% chance of winning, 8-5 represents a pretty nice overlay. And even if your “second choice” is at 5-1 (17% chance), unless you think that horse really should be 2-1, your only legitimate win bet is to bet the 8-5 horse.

Look, every horseplayer has an unshakable opinion on a race he is interested in. Just because I think one horse is better than another and you think exactly the opposite, doesn’t make me right or wrong. Only the running of the race can do that. There is only one way to bet to win, and that is to FIND SOLID OVERLAYS. Period.

The mathematics of betting are very simple. If you are a good handicapper and you can assess a horse’s probability of winning (or finishing second or third) and you limit your bets to those races where the difference between the tote odds and your odds reaches a certain threshold value, you will make money.

The outfits that say, I’ll only bet this horse at 4-1 or greater without telling you what they think the horse’s probabilities are, simply cannot understand the mathematics of winning. A horse that is 40% in your opinion is a great bet at 5-2 or higher. He is at least a reasonable bet at 2-1.

Believe me, the good public handicappers either do that overtly or in general. When they try to steer you to a 20-1 horse, they better say, this horse has at least a 15% chance of winning the race, because in my opinion at less than 15%, you just aren’t picking reliable animals.

Let me use some races from the Thursday July 3 card at Belmont to illustrate some points.

The third race wound up as a 4 horse field. The favorite, La Verdad, was 1-9, a 90% probability according to the crowd. He was an impossible and foolish win bet, even at those odds because HE WAS NOT AN OVERLAY. And if someone said, we’re going to try to beat La Verdad with Willet, Willet would have only been a legitimate win bet if you honestly believed that he had a higher probability of winning than his tote board odds. If you hear something like, if La Verdad doesn’t win, Willet probably will, and you don’t hear what they think the probabilities are, they aren’t doing the right amount of work. Willet in that race went off at a little over 7-2 (22%). Now if you believed La Verdad was 60% and Willet was 33% (2-1), by all means you should have bet Willet. Otherwise, maybe you could have looked at a cold exacta which turned a 1-9 shot into even money, actually a pretty substantial overlay. If La Verdad was 90% to win, Willet might have been 90% to place, meaning any exacta that paid more than $3.00 was a good parimutuel play. Whether or not Willet was a win bet was wholly dependent on what you thought his odds of winning the race were, not only that he was the only horse with a chance of upsetting La Verdad.

Let’s look at one other race from that day, the 6th. Here was my line.

Horse                Track Odds               My Odds

1.                              39-1                           50-1
2.                                9-5                               5-2
3.                              SCR
4.                                4-1                               6-1
5.                             12-1                            20-1
6.                                3-1                               7-5
7.                                2-1                               3-1

What’s the play here? A win bet on the 6 horse and a reasonably healthy exacta, 6/2. The 6 was at least a 100% overlay for me. If you wanted to bet a trifecta, it would have been   6/2/4,7. The 6 won the race by a comfortable length and a half, the 2 gave me some nervous moments but closed to grab second by a head, and the 4 finished third. (When you read my blog post entitled Risk Intelligence, you’ll understand why you should use the 4 and the 7.) The winner paid $8.20, the exacta was $35, and the trifecta was $95. This was a six horse race with a winner at 3-1 and the favorite second, and it was a prime bet for me.

Now your line could have been different, and I am certainly not right every time (or even most of the time), but you will never hear me say, I’m going to try to beat the 2 with the 6. I’m going to say, the 6 is the value. And on my line, no other horse was.

I’m going to give you two pieces on value betting in my next two blogs. Trust me. If you don’t know this stuff, your chances of being a winning player go down considerably.

Intangibles

You know what they say. The rain in Saratoga falls mainly on the turf.

You never know what kind of year it will be. It could be like 2011 when Hurricane Irene moved in, or it could have 25 days of good northeast New York weather. In any case look for these things:

1. Find turf horses that have been able to maintain their training and race schedule. Trainers carefully map out a turf season, and when rain intervenes it can create setbacks for a horse.
2. Everyone knows that the inside posts are an advantage on the Saratoga inner turf. They are also an advantage on the Mellon Turf.  On both ovals the highest winning post position for routes was the 1. Interestingly, the five post had the second highest win percentage on the Mellon and the third highest percentage on the Inner turf. Perhaps the five hole allows horses that break alertly to easily get position, and horses that pull back to place themselves where they want.
3. In sprint races on the Mellon Turf (the inner turf doesn’t have sprints) post position did not seem to be much of a determining factor. The highest win percentage came from the 4 post, with the 8 post second and the 7, 2,3, 5 and 6 all about the same. This says that in turf sprints, find the best horse. It was the case that post positions outside of the 8 had poor winning percentages.
4. Pay close attention to where the rail is set. For those of you who use Formulator, it gives the rail distance and the run up for turf races. As I mentioned in my turf post, a nine foot rail translates to an extra 30 feet in distance, or about seven tenths of a second. That can be the difference between finding a solid win bet or settling on a different horse.

Post position on the main track seemed close to irrelevant. For sprints, other than the 4 post at 20%, all the other posts down to the 9 were about the same. The sprint angles are pretty obvious. If you horse is a front runner, closer to the rail is an advantage. If your horse is a tracker or closer, one of the middle post positions will probably keep the horse out of trouble. On the other hand, the inside posts could be a disadvantage to more sustained horses.

For route races, It was the 5 post that stuck out. Otherwise the same principles as for sprints were in play.

Finally, let’s talk about the “Graveyard of Champions.” Ever since Man O’War’s defeat at the hands of Upset, the media stamped the Spa with that label. The great Secretariat was beaten by Onion, adding to the legend of Allen Jerkens as the Giant Killer. Indeed, local scribe Bill Heller even wrote a book called Graveyard of Champions. You know what one of life’s major truisms is, don’t you?

If I read it on the internet, it must be true.

The fact is that Saratoga is about average in terms of winning favorites, and it is about 1-9 that this year favorites will win 32-35% of the races. Will there be upsets? Of course. Will there be monumental upsets? Without a doubt. But don’t bet against a favorite just because of some moniker pasted on the track by the media.

My Saratoga preview is not exhaustive. As I’ve mentioned, there are a lot of instantaneous statistics available in the Daily Racing Form, Brisnet, and Timeform. I just wanted to give the bigger picture and maybe give you a leg up on the crowd. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to ask them.

Trainers and Jockeys

In the movie Moneyball, there seemed to be two kinds of baseball people. Incurable stat geeks and grizzled, listen-to-my-gut baseball veterans. I would have been somewhere in between. Is the past the perfect predictor of the future? Sometimes but not always. Do most racetrack goers have the patience to recognize arcane patterns (Trainer X has won the third race on the third Thursday of the meet three years running)? Generally no. All the statistics in the world aren’t going to beat a horse with no name connections who throws a 1:08 and change first time out of the gate. The point is, use the statistics, but don’t become a slave to them.

Saratoga always doled out first-rate money. Even low-level NY State-breds could depend on $20,000 plus purses. But now that the slot machines are ringing at Aqueduct, daily purse money was up $250,000 in 2012, $500,000 in 2013 and will increase again this year. Owner John McMahon even quipped, “it’s actually possible for someone to make some money in this [owning horses].” Competition for barn space remains fierce. Well-known out of state trainers are looking to move entire operations to New York. Saratoga always had many more applications than spaces, and demand will only increase. Expect the day to day quality and the competition to be unequaled at any other American race meeting. Look for fuller fields with fewer “fillers.” Expect to see new faces from tracks up and down the east coast and Midwest trying to hop on board the new gravy train. This can only represent a boon for horseplayers.

The question isn’t who will be the leading trainer –Todd Pletcher seems to be the indisputable answer – but just how dominant Pletcher will be. In 2011 he started almost double the number of horses his closest competitor, Chad Brown, did, so it wasn’t surprising he finished 16 wins ahead of him. In 2013 the gap between them had closed slightly and Chad Brown actually had a higher win percentage than Pletcher. None of the Pletcher statistics is breaking news, and frankly a long analysis into the gory details of Pletcher’s work isn’t going to change the fact that it’s hard to make money betting Pletcher and even harder betting against him.

Start here. You’ll need a healthy dose of insight to go against Todd Pletcher, Johnny Velazquez, and a short priced favorite. Pletcher had a typical year, winning at an overall 26% clip. Pletcher favorites came home in front a powerful 38% of the time. 2-1 on a Pletcher horse seems to pass for good odds these days. Sure, a lot of his medium priced (3-1 to 6-1) horses, especially two-year old firsters are overbet, but it’s not like they won’t ever win.

What else can be learned from studying Pletcher’s 2013 Spa record?

• 63% of his starters were on the dirt as were 72% of his winners. Pletcher on the turf is slightly more vulnerable.
• His two-year old win percentage is good at 30%, and his win percentage with maidens and claimers is almost as good at 29%. Only Chad Brown and Steve Assmussen had a higher success rate when racing less expensive horses.
• Pletcher actually had a lower percentage of sprint winners (24%) than route winners (30%). Normally you would expect this to be reversed because of the high number of two year-olds he debuts at the Spa.
• This may be due to the fact that his two year-old winning percentage was down from previous years, fourth behind Assmussen, Linda Rice and Chrtitophe Clement.
• On the other hand he did win a third of the stakes races in which he had a starter.

In a case of local boy makes good, Mechanicville (barely a stone’s throw from Saratoga) native Chad Brown, who has only been training on his own since 2007, just keeps getting better and better. It may be only a matter of time before he surpasses Pletcher at the Spa. Brown actually had a slightly higher win percentage than Pletcher (28% to 27%), and a barely higher average win payout than the leading trainer, both of which are testament to his burgeoning following. His overall in-the-money percentage was a sparkling 64%. He excelled on the Turf course and in maiden and claiming events, winning at a 31% and 33% clip respectively. Unfortunately, the locals have been betting him like you would expect them to attach themselves to the native son, and the rest of the world has caught on to his ability as well, but he clearly has earned the respect

Steve Asmussen may not bring a full contingent to the Spa, even given the higher purses, but pretty much all his starters are live. Check out these statistics:

• His overall win percentage was 21% down significantly from his eye-popping 33% figure in 2011. His in-the-money percentage remains strong though at 56%, second only to Pletcher..
• The vast majority of his winners (77%) are on the dirt.
• He remains a powerhouse with two year-olds, winning at a 35% clip, and slightly more than half (53%) in-the-money.

Who are the other trainers to watch? Stalwart New York trainers David Jacobson and Kiaran McLaughlin had excellent meets, with each saddling 16 winners. Jacobson had better success on the dirt (12 winners), while McLaughlin had the majority of his winners on the turf (9 winners). This was a big turn around from 2011 when McLaughlin was a miserable 1 for 15 on the lawn. Jacobson also won with a sparkling 55% of his runners that achieved favoritism.

If you are looking for a trainers who return some healthy prices, check out George Weaver and Christophe Clement. Weaver’s 9 winners from 41 starters returned an average mutuel of $16.60, while Clement’s 8 winners average $16.70.

Jonathan Sheppard is getting older but can still get it done on the turf (I regularly would bet any Sheppard horse going from steeplechase to the regular turf because almost no one understood the angle).

Horseracing lost a hard-working and colorful trainer when Dominic Galluscio passed away this March. Galluscio never got the best horses, but he made the most of the ones he had, especially the New York breds. His presence will be missed on the New York racing scene.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Once you’ve made it to the majors, and Saratoga is about as major as it gets, you’re a talented rider. Jockeys in the second tier of Saratoga’s riding colony, riders such as Cornelio Velasquez, Rajiv Maragh,  and Jose Lezcano, could probably lead half the race meets in the country. That being said, I worry far less about the jockey per se than I do about whether the trainer/jockey combination is productive or whether the jockey, regardless of where he is in the standings, has had success with any respective horse.

With the modern racing form you don’t have to depend on me to point out the obvious. Jockey/trainer statistics will be on the bottom of the past performance for everyone to see. Instead, I’ll point out some of the less obvious things.

The leading riders – in 2013 Javier Castellano, Johnny Velasquez, and Joel Rosario stood well above the rest of the colony – got there because they ride for the best trainers who get the best horses. Nothing succeeds like success. And they stay there not because they manage to keep from falling off talented runners, but because they don’t make the kind of mistakes that lose races. They work hard, they pick up mounts from all quarters, and they are fearless to a fault. Still I always subscribe to the theory that the best horse will usually win the race as long as it gets a competent ride.

Are some riders better on the turf? Yes, and in the case of Saratoga in 2014 their names were Castellano , Velasquez and Rosario along with Jose Lezcano. That’s right. The best dirt riders were also the best turf riders because, frankly…well I already said they ride for the best trainers who get the best horses.

After having some good years in New York and at Saratoga, Julian Leparoux moved his tack to SoCal in 2013. He married Mike Mitchell’s daughter, and given Mitchell’s health status after brain surgery to fight cancer, California was a necessary move.

Who else was sneaky good in 2013? Joseph Rocco, Jr. had 5 winners in 18 starts in stakes races.  Junior Alvarado had half the starts of Javier Castellano but hit at a 16% win clip, slightly lower than Castellano’s 20%. Irad Ortiz, Jr. finished fourth in the standings last year, but given his continued improvement could crack the top three.

Finally, a fond farewell to jockey Ramon Dominguez whose head injuries from a spill at Aqueduct in 2013 forced his retirement. Dominguez was just shy of 5,000 career wins, and was the Eclipse award winner for 2010, 2011, and 2012. He was always competitive at the Spa, or wherever he rode. I know everyone wishes him all the best.

Whether you have been betting horses a long time or are relatively new at the game, one thing has been consistently true for decades. You are wasting your money with horses that tease you with close second and third place finishes but can’t seem to get to the line in front.

I do not favor rote rules when it comes to handicapping, the kind that seem to accompany “systems.” You know, throw out any horse who hasn’t started in the last 45 days or something similar to that. But sometimes it helps to have some general guidelines.

Lots of handicappers avoid maiden races because of uncertainty, but they are often as bettable as other races. When it comes to maidens, once a horse has more than 10 starts, it either needs to be

• in an incredibly weak field
• up against a group of other horses who have more than 10 starts
• making a major change, like going from a major circuit to a minor one or dropping substantially in class

to be considered as a win bet.  In maiden fields, I like to look for horses  with a few starts and something to show, especially lately.  In the two maiden races for 3 and up at Belmont on July 3, one was won by a horse with only three starts and the other by a first timer. Look for horses in maiden races that haven’t shown themselves to be on the road to professional maiden. They 18 start maidens will occasionally win, but just not often enough to justify the investment. Yet year after year they suck money like a Dyson inhales dirt.

This is just as true in NW2 races. Let’s look at the 7th at Belmont on July 3. Distorted Dream’s line was 16-1-4-1. He was a very low win probability yet he was the second choice in the betting at 5-2. He would have been a bad win bet at 10-1, primarily because he hadn’t shown the ability to “close the deal.” He sucked a ton of money from the public that saw he could finish within a few lengths of the horses that won the races. He barely held on to second behind the clear winner Official, a horse that had only started six times and had a first and a second.

In that same race the #5 Ginger’s Joe started with a record of 41-1-1-2.  That many starts and that many out of the money finishes puts him in the category of “no hoper,” and as expected he didn’t outrun his 50-1 odds. I think you shouldn’t even put that sort of horse on an “ALL” ticket.

Let’s go to the 9th race and look at #1 Desert Bliss with a record of 26-2-6-7. The first thing that jumps out? Less than a 10% win percentage, but almost 60% in the money. The crowd conflates the win probability of a horse for the in the money probability, and they’ve been doing it forever. At 9-2, Desert Bliss finished 4th.

These kind of examples abound. Here’s some general guidelines.

• In maiden races be suspicious of any horse that has started more than 10 times at the approximately the same level and has shown an ability to be in the hunt but never enough interest to pass all the horses. They are unreliable win bets.
• In maiden races for the most part look for horses with six or fewer starts and have shown some interest in running. Obviously you still have to handicap. If a horse has started six times and has faded every time, you need a really good reason to decide today he isn’t going to fade. Same sort of thing for NW2 races. Horses that broke their maiden and have been at the NW2 level for a lot of races are generally bad bets in the win pool.
• One of the most consistently productive angles in racing is the straight maiden dropping into a maiden claiming race. The levels of competition between straight maidens and maiden claimers is exactly like the difference between allowance horses and claiming horses.
• Any horse that has less than a 10%  lifetime winning percentage should be scrutinized very closely before being put in the top spot.
• Any horse with three or four times the number of 2nd and 3rd’s as wins is a weak win play, especially at lower odds. Desert Bliss was probably 10% to win the race and 60% to be part of the superfecta.
• Any horse that has more than 20 starts and less than 2 wins,  30 starts and less than 3, or 40 starts and less than 4 should generally be discarded from win consideration.

There’s certainly more than what I’ve said above, but it gives you a start. Make some comments, ask some questions. I’d be happy to have a discussion.