Stats

kentate

New to the forum, hopefully, I'm not doing anything wrong.....Soes anyone keep track of stats with the horses? I was told a few years back that horses of 8-1 or less win about 95% of the time. The advice was to not play animals over 8-1 odds. Don't know if that was morning line odds or bet to odds.....

I ask because my wife is looking for something to do to keep her busy....She was recently diagnosed with MS and actually loves research. So if anyone knows of things that might be worth researching, please pass it along.

In addition, who are the good cappers here? Anyone that hits about 92% would be great. And yes, I'm joking. I do know enough to know that a good capper can hit about 1/3 and that's outstanding. 25% to 28% might be more like it.......Thanks in advance for all of your help....Oh yea, if wifey did come up with something and with the approval of the moderators, we would naturally pass it along here....

Thanks and good luck with the horses,
KT

hardspun

I would say the advise on the 8-1's would be morning line favs. It does sound pretty interesting though. I like to keep stats at times on things just to pass time. If you would like we could do that together. Just pick a track and we can see how it goes using the whole morning line and the post time just to see which is truer. It would be fun in the least to check it out. I also think it is morning line cause I have hit some horses that start at like 2 or 3-1 and they have been higher at post time. It is an odd happening, but does happen.

kentate

Hardspun, thanks for replying....My wife did tell me that it was morning line 8-1 or less. She doesn't remember the percentage though. In addition, she said that she'd read in a book something about workouts. She thought it was something about a horses workout being 5 furlongs and below a certain time. She thought it was 1 minute or below. In addition, if the work was within the past 5 days and less than a minute, the results were very consistant. I've tried to track that at a couple of tracks, but have found it very hard to find a 5 furlong work listed at less than 1:00 and within the past 5 days.

DiscreetCat

I think it would be a pretty big mistake to automatically toss all the higher-than-8/1 horses. Every horse is different, and they really should be judged on their own merits. True they don't win too often, but if you're selective and creative in your handicapping, you can isolate the occasional longshot winner.

kentate

Discreetcat, Thanks again for your input. Although I've just joined, I've noticed you're one of the top cappers on the site and therefore demanding of respect. I know you don't just throw out data for fun. People like you usually have done their homework. I've played the horses for maybe 25 years, but only for fun and haven't studied the sport like you. I've been to some major tracks and been a regular at a few and made some friends. I'll have to say that although there are some opinions from some very good people on how to play, what to add and what to throw out, most would probably agree with you.....I think what most are saying is that one should really use caution when playing a horse that is higher than 8-1. My wife, a research specialist has started compiling some great numbers. She just enjoys this type of thing. While recently stricken with MS, this gives her some great pleasure and maybe a way to even make some money on the side. Although she doesn't have enough data yet to put any big bucks on the horses, some of her data is becoming very interesting. You're right and according to wifey, a horse of 13-1 (example) will win about 7% of the time. By the way, she was able to find the data on workouts and it reads that on races higher than claiming a horse with a workout that happened within the past 8 days and was between 4/5ths to 8/5ths of a second slower than the fastest horse for the distance ran on that day, showed a win percentage of 83%. It should be noted that this data was not compiled by her and doesn't say which tracks were used in the study, how many races were used, and/or how may races actually won. But still those are some great numbers. By the way, her database goes back to 2007 with some data for 2006, but not the whole year, as she's downloaded all the data that she could get from the DRF at about 40 tracks. We'd love to have some input as to a couple of things for her to research, that is if you're willing to throw her a bone to chew on. Naturally, we'd be happy to give back anything that we would find. Again, thanks for your input. It is appreciated.

DiscreetCat

Interesting note on the workout angle, but obviously that stat would encompass a whole lot of horses. Not sure how much use something like that would be. For someone with your wife's attributes (sorry about her sickness, btw), i would recommend delving into trainer stats. She would likely uncover a lot more useful information in that area than she would by looking at the overall horse population itself. Trainers are creatures of habit, and when they find something that works, they're going to keep doing it. A good place to start would be the spacing, times, and distances of each trainers workout patterns. My guess would be that a certain pattern will be winning far more often than other patterns will (for each given trainer). From there, she might break it down further into different types of races, age groups, or what have you.

kentate

D'cat, thanks for the info....I will pass it on to wifey....By the way, started looking at the workout stats. So far through the day, some nice winners including a $25.40 $10.20 $13.60 in the fourth at Finger Lakes earlier today....Granted, I'm sure most will not look like that. Actually, neither one of us are really sure that one should even have been a play....Kind of hard to read someone else's logic.....Both wifey and I are former programmers and know how hard it is to understand what someone else really meant....But still a couple of other nice winners in the $6 to $9 winners. Not ready to run to the bank tomorrow and bet the ranch, and yes, we do live on a ranch in Texas.....Thanks a ton for the feedback and the bone. I'm sure wifey will absolutely love it.....I'm actually a very lucky many. A beautiful wife that loves sports, handicapping sports and talking about sports....Now if I could only get her to talk about sports during sex.....LOL. Thanks again......