Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Big Pick 5 Payouts Are Not Always Inscrutable

If we see a $25,000 pick five in the throughbreds we can often look back at the sequence and make a case for a hit. Thoroughbred racing often has fields where four or five horses can look completely logical in a sequence, yet it can pay boxcars. 

Harness racing is different. The fields are rarely deep, and the racing is often formful, with 50% or higher chalk hit rates occurring at a track near you. Often players make scores in harness racing with $15 pick five or $10 pick 4's hit with chalk or near chalk, and twenty cent tries are completely fruitless. 

Last night at Mohawk, however, I think we had a $0.20 pick five hit for $5,100 that was completely logical. 

Recognizing them might help us hit one of these again. 

Race 1 was what I would describe a bit of spread race. The ten was taking money off a driver change from Renaud to James MacDonald - this angle as a key is fine, but as we'll see, we wouldn't hit this pick 5 if we applied the same logic. Regardless, if we're trying to hit a price, we're not using an angle that everyone at the OTB is using, so we'll spread with three horses. 

The second race is a puzzler, but if we're sharp we're probably going to look at doubles. What we would've seen is a horse not picked much anywhere, off terrible form, being bet. This barn is known to bet, and if this horse is ready he has a class advantage. For 20 cents we can swing. 

In the third race we had a horse who everyone on replay said qualified badly, but the horse - who started in the Hambletonian last year - was better than all of them if sharp. And, the trainer just sent a horse off a meh qualifier last week that crushed; was seriously 20 the best, and dropped a few seconds of time. 

The fourth was a spread race, a cheap claimer, no angles, with three contenders I could see. 

The fifth - and here's where we're at it again - was a Renaud to James MacDonald driver change on a nice horse, but one who is woefully inconsistent. Since we didn't key this obvious change in the first to gain value, we could look elsewhere here. 

Interestingly, there were a couple of others in there, including the seven horse, who has been great but hasn't been put into play in the Opens. In my view, this is because the Open's have had two huge speed horses who the driver has not wanted to challenge. Tonight, maybe he tries this sharp horse, although beating the two horse at 1-5 seems tough. 

So, we might go 1710-6-2-156-2 for $2 ($18 total)

And 1710-6-2-156-37 for twenty cents ($3.60 ticket)

The setup, steam horse in two won. The off qualifier horse in three dropped time and won, just like the same barn did Friday, and in the last leg, the 1-5 shot got off several lengths back and the seven horse did take a shot to the lead, and went wire to wire. 

Our second ticket for $3.60 hit for $5,100. 

The sequence was two chalk, a $9 winner, an 8-1 winner and the seven in the last leg at $30. 

One mistake players can make is to look back at a pick 5 or 6 and reverse engineer and backfit, but in this case I do not think we're doing that. 

This was a logical way to hit for huge money for $4 or $5 in a pick five by being just a little creative. The teams were playing $20 pick 5's and those can be perfectly fine in chalky harness racing. But if there's an angle to be had against them and it can cost us only a few dollars, the leverage can make a boom goes the dynamite. 

I hope everyone is having a nice Tuesday. 

 

Sunday, February 25, 2024

Recognizing Market Moves in Racing Are Never Easy

Crunk noted the offshore pricing on Tarif in the Rachel Alexandra at FG a couple of weeks ago in an informative tweet; namely, the horse was never 6-1 like she was on the tote. 

Learning how a game is played in today's world is really important to our ROI and it's important to work on these things, in my view. 

But, it isn't easy, even if mediums like Betfair and others are available. Markets do all sorts of things, because in the end they're still a collection of opinions. 

Around 13 or 14 years ago when I was playing seriously, I would get ready every year for the Woodbine meet opener. It was a collection of 4.5 furlong affairs. 

Going through back data I found that pace figures worked because most races went gate to wire. You needed early speed. CJ's old pacefigures were a good input, as the Timeform ones would be in the present. 

I had a proprietary workout score - something @dennycaps talks about being important even today - and that was indicative of success. 

Last up, old trainer data was important, because some barns had their horses ready to fire and some didn't. 

It was a simple model, but it did work fairly well in previous years. The ROI was in the 1.20's if my memory is right. 

One year I handicapped and had the collection of horses I liked. I opened Betfair and started playing. 

Almost immediately the markets were really weird; unlike I've ever seen before. 

A horse I had as a slam dunk early leader that fit my criteria was 6-1 on the tote and 15-1 or higher at Betfair. Keep in mind there weren't rolling doubles or pick 3's to check pricing. Regardless, I wondered if I had done something wrong or if the horse was a dud. 

I started betting the 15-1's and the bots - a precursor to the CRW models of today - kept lining up offers. I took a few more of them and fought this market. 

The horse won. 

In the second and third and fourth races the exact same thing happened. The "CRW" bots hated my horses, and they won. 

I telephoned a friend who had a sizeable bankroll (over $500,000) at Betfair and told him what was happening. The bots were freaking out and I could get more and more money down, but I rarely overbet a bank. He could join in. Knock himself out. 

By the fifth race this was still going on. A filly from the outside which was my best bet of the day was 5-1 on the board - locals sure knew who was live. We got filled at 18-1, then 20-1, then 22-1. The bots just kept putting money up and we took it. The horse won by daylight. 

If I remember correctly, ten of eleven first call leaders won that day. I can't remember what I ended up, but I do know my friend talks about it as his first $100,000 profit betting day. 

We fought the market, we fought the CRW's, and somehow we won. 

Meanwhile, the bots and other sharps are never that bad. Something very weird was going on in this market and fighting it is normally almost impossible. Case in point - I kept track of my wagers religiously at this time. When I fought a market - outside this one time - in the exact same way (with CRW's lining up to take my cash) my ROI, which I quickly checked for this missive, was $0.52. I fought them, and they kicked the living shit out of me. 

We've all been at this game for a long time. In my view, in today's game, market moves to fade or hop on or ignore completely are some of the toughest decisions we have to make as bettors. 

As a rule I listen to the market more than I ever have. I check everything I possibly can. I'll never be an expert, but if I feel if I am not doing my homework to at least understand what's happening in the markets, I'm never going to be able to win at today's game.  

Thanks to Crunk for sharing his two tweets. There was a lot of wisdom in them. 

And ya, I bet Tarif even though I didn't like her much and had no intention of betting her. I had to abandon much of what I've believed over 35 years or so of betting to place that bet.  I listened to the market and that time it was right. 

Have a great day everyone. 


Friday, February 23, 2024

NFL Salary Cap Increases, Kinda Like Purse Increases, Not Really

They announced the NFL salary cap has ballooned to $255M in 2024, an increase of about 100% since 2014. It's staggering. 

This increase has its pluses and minuses. 

The good:

  • Teams can spend more on their star players that were destined to leave, if they wish. If there's enough cap room to sign a Gabe Davis or Danielle Hunter who are very happy with their teams and city and life, Buffalo and Minnesota fans can be happy. If it adds to stickiness of rosters, it's all good. 
  • Athletes can choose many sports to play. If growth is happening it means more opportunity. Growth is always good. 
  • A rising tide floats all boats. Viewership up, ticket sales up, everyone benefits. The salary cap growth helps the $1M per year player, and the $50M per year player. 

The bad:

  • Ticket cost has increased, TV deals are splintering the viewer landscape angering fans, player jerseys cost an arm and a leg. 
  • The higher the labor cost the lower the spend on the ancillary, some of it very important. 

The bottom line with the NFL, however - things are growing, the ecosystem is healthy, and it's reflected in the cap. 

In horse racing, we've seen purse increases which many may think means things are okay, but these have not been driven by a healthy, sound business. 

Handle is not increasing; revenue from handle has gone down, not up. 

Outside the Triple Crown, the sport pays television to show it, not the other way around. 

We don't sell Irad Ortiz jerseys. The sport's popularity is not rising. 

Maybe we should just be happy purses are up, because they have to be doing something positive, right? I really don't know about that. 

On the low end, inflation has been deadly to the small trainer. They can't make enough money. Purses have not gone up enough, and sadly, if the purses do rise to high levels - say where a 5 claimer has a purse of $15k or $20k - the supertrainers swoop in, crowding out the small timer.

On the high end, how many barns with fifty or more big priced horses does the sport need? Clearly more than one or two. Hong Kong horse racing has barn caps for a reason. If horse racing was the NFL, and Todd Pletcher was Patrick Mahomes, he'd be making a billion a year, and Joe Burrow four million. 

The NFL has ended up with a growing business fuelled by revenue growth. Its foundation is not without problems, but it is sound. 

Horse racing has not put that money to good use, because the foundation is not sound. In some spaces it's downright unbelievable. 

The answer to all of this is beyond my pay grade. But, the NFL's model of revenue up purses up is what horse racing has to show some semblance of. Purses up handle down means the present is okay, but there is no future at all.

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