Horse Racing's Fake News

There's, once again, plenty of chatter about late odds moves on the twitter; in this case, 8-1 to 3-1 from the gate to the finish.  

Similarly, like "community notes" this gets challenged or modified through more information. This time added by Crunk:

"BSP 4.5-1. PPWAP 3.7-1. Never traded anywhere near 8-1. It doesn't have to be this way for the normie horseplayer."

The horse was never, ever, ever going to be 8-1. He was never 8-1. On no planet was he 8-1. It's good for everyone to know the 8-1 price wasn't real. 

In horse racing, the tote board is fake news which is of course bad and I don't blame people for complaining, but it goes well beyond that because everything that follows isn't real either.

In the third race on Friday at the Meadowlands, McNuggets' odds, off a 5-2 morning line, were 2-1 for most of the betting. The horse was obviously a contender, and in fact she was Greg's best bet at the DRF.

 Dave and Jessica doing the commentary were talking at great length about the horse, and why wouldn't they. Dave Little even surmised with the early betting the horse may end up below even money, as she's taking supposed steam. 

I can't blame him. The horse opened well bet, the exacta pool showed similar early and everyone seemed to dipping in on McNugget. And, our trusty friend - multi-leg wager will pays - were not available that race. 

McNugget, the horse that dominated all the pre-race chatter on the feed, went from 2-1 to 6-1 at the gate and closed as the fifth choice. 

We walk into a diner. We've heard the burgers are the favorite of many. We read the menu, we order. Then our bill comes and we noticed they changed the price of the burger from $5 to $10 and it turns out it tasted bad. 

Like Crunk noted. It doesn't have to be this way. Horse racing can stop spreading fake news. It can stop commentators from spending five minutes of their time talking to customers about the fifth choice like it's Seattle Slew. It can stop the tweets, the articles on the Bacon Report, the commiseration, the "they cheat" narrative. And it's really not that difficult. 

We often hear people lament that horse racing is run in an alternate universe. When the menu that people use to wager the sport is completely and utterly incoherent and they don't seem to want to fix it, that statement probably isn't fake news. 

Have a nice Monday everyone. 

Unpredictability Drives NFL Eyeballs (and by the same Principle in Racing, Betting Dollars)

Data scientist Kevin Cole put out his adjusted quarterback rankings yesterday on his substack. This is numbers driven, and not a ranking we'd see in the mainstream of sports analysis, where those folks seem to focus on prime time records or whatnot. 

What's striking about this list is that quite frankly, in my view anyway, no one knows anything in this sport called football. 

Before the season, or even in week three or four, if someone told you in three months:

• C.J. Stroud would be ranked below Bo Nix and Maye
• Daniel Jones would be ranked above Dak Prescott (who just signed a $60M/y deal), and be waived and picked up by the Vikings, not to be their starter but to be a practice squad player
• Patrick Mahomes doesn't seem to throw the ball past the sticks and is near tied with Russell Wilson, who was left for dead six months ago. 
• Kirko Chains would be tied with Aaron Rodgers as achillies-brothers-in-arms and benched after being NFC Player of the week twice, and setting a franchise yardage record. 
• Justin Herbert would be in an EPA battle with a benched Jameis Winston
• And sure fire, can't miss, generational talent #1 consensus pick Caleb Williams would be below bench warmer Bryce Young battling for David Carr's all-time sack record  .....

Well, I'm pretty sure you'd think the person telling you this has six heads. 

While NBA ratings tank and some sports are in a real bind for ratings, there's the NFL. It's more popular than it has ever been, and it has nothing to do with Taylor Swift (or that gal Josh Allen is going out with, who the NFL seems to think is the AFC East version of Taylor Swift). 

I think the juggernaut we see with this league is that it's a reality show where you have no idea what the outcome may be. You have to watch the season unfold to see what's what, and what's what can be completely unexpected and confusing. 

This should be nothing new to us in horse racing. We're not driving eyeballs (as much as the ABR and Stronach side of the sport wishes it so), but variance and unpredictability rules the roost when it comes to our betting dollars. 

The wildness of the Derby drives money. The Breeders Cup, with horses coming from all over the world, opens our wallets. Big stakes days, especially on the turf with large fields and different pace scenarios makes us happy. 

Harness racing, along with a lot of short field dirt racing, is plagued with the opposite. So Cal racing with 5 horse stakes race fields with three Baffert's certainly doesn't get the blood boiling. And neither does a lot of day to day racing in this sport. 

As human beings I believe we're eminently interested in the unknown. We binge watch shows that are unpredictable. We read whodunnits because we don't know who did it. We watch sports like the NFL because Kevin Cole's adjusted EPA rankings can look like nothing we thought they'd look three months ago. 

Unfortunately in horse racing we know whodunnit too often and we aren't surprised nearly enough. It makes it a harder and harder game to play. I believe unlocking the predictability door should be paramount for every race office or alphabet from sea to sea. 

Have a nice Thursday everyone.

The State of the Harness Betting Game

We've all seen public money dry up over the years in all of racing, where the sharp money seems to know. We've also seen (for not only this, but for many things in the sport) harness be a leading indicator of this. 

If what we're currently seeing in the harness game is a true leading indicator, the next couple of years in thoroughbred racing might be tough to handle. 

Case in point, the Open last night at Mohawk. 

This was a battle between Amigo Volo, who was 6-5 last time in this exact same class, and Safe Conduct, who was 5-2 last week in this same class. Safe Conduct, who opened at 3-5 last week, soundly defeated Amigo Volo with ease; frankly, looking like they didn't breathe the same air. 

Last night they met again, and Rob Reid, who knows what he's talking about and has bet for a hundred years, scoped the race out in the program: 

• #1 SAFE CONDUCT was a much the best winner on December 2nd when he stepped away from his foes in deep stretch and scored by more than two lengths after sitting a pocket trip behind Fashion Frenzie. This son of Archangel will likely push out for early position with rail control and is just under $1,000 away from $100,000 in earnings this season. He has raised his game at the age of five and looks like a prime candidate to double-up.

He called it perfectly, and it was an obvious choice. There were no missed weeks, driver changes, trainer changes; nothing. It was the exact same match up. 

But, when the doubles opened up showing what the board might look like in the Open, it was curious. Amigo Volo - the horse Safe Conduct made look like a 12 claimer last time - was the big chalk. 

When the board opened, Safe Conduct was not 3-5 like he was last week, but 5-2. Amigo Volo took all the cash. 

As post time approached, those not in the know - i.e. the betting "public" - were betting Safe Conduct (as they should, because again, Rob's analysis was spot on by the program lines).  He dove down to 3-2 with one minute to post, while Amigo Volo was hovering at 4-5. The handicapping line bettors were seeing this as strong value, and how could they not?

At the quarter, after all the money came in, Amigo Volo went down to 1-5, Safe Conduct went up to 5-2. 

As Robert Reid correctly predicted, Safe Conduct pushed from the wood and got a perfect two hole trip. In the middle of the lane, Amigo Volo was asked and sprinted away from Safe Conduct - the exact opposite of last time they met. Seven days later, Amigo made Safe Conduct look like the 12 claimer. 

I use the above as an example, but I could've picked hundreds of others. That's not even an exaggeration as I watch thousands of races a year. This is the state of the sport. 

Andrew Demitrious, a professional bettor I remember as far back as the late 1980's when I was a regular, opined in Trot Magazine recently (I suspect it was him, coulda been someone else) that they "better get the cell phones out of the paddock", and he was probably onto something. 

Why? Because with so little public money in the harness pools, one phone call, one text, can set off a chain reaction. Whether that's what happened last night or not is irrelevant to me. We get a hybrid of the above, race after race, night after night in this game. 

In my view, the harness betting pools are horribly broken. They feel so broken that I don't even know what I could suggest to fix them. 

Have a nice Tuesday everyone.