A Class Dropper Trick

I handicapped a race last week and found a class plunger that was going to be well bet, and it got me thinking a little bit about the phenomenon. 

From datamining, it becomes pretty apparent that class droppers i) tend to win races at a higher than average level and ii) they're well bet because it's simply a very easy angle that anyone can spot. 

In the Skeptical Handicapper, author Barry Meadow illustrated this, where droppers (in purses between 20% and 40%) showed a fairly decent ROI of $0.79. Databases I use show similar. But it's very obvious that it's impossible to make money with this angle. 

What we've learned is that not all class drops are the same, so subsetting these horses into live drops versus not live drops is paramount for profit. 

One trick I've learned has nothing to do with datamining, and I'll share it with you for those interested. 

I like to look at a horse's previous replay at the higher class - which is often a poor in the pack finish  - and zero in on other horses getting a similar trip. If those horses are quality animals who would likely be chalk or near chalk in this class, and my horse out runs (or paces or trots) them, I consider this a very live drop. 

If my horse is struggling against them (regardless of the final time or speed figure) it tells me he is probably off form, and one I want to avoid. 

If you've never done this "race within a race" handicapping on drops, I think you'll find some pleasant surprises. It's remarkable to me when a tout blindly talks about a horse dropping in class and makes him or her a green light bet. Oftentimes the horse didn't fire at all the previous start, yet they are still hammered in the pools and run pretty meh. Class drops blindly drive money. Lots of it. 

Zigging and zagging is important in a high takeout game. Sure we can use databases to model trainer stats, degrees of class drops in an algo fashion, and a few other data tricks to subset these horses (to some degree of help). But using our eyes and races within a race is a neat way I've used to learn something that the data doesn't tell us. 

Have a super weekend everyone.