Since the favorite is the horse with the most money wagered on it in a horse race, a lot of the focus of the bettors is in either winning with the favorite or betting against it and winning. If you are handicapping horse races and wagering then your focus should be to make a profit. The joy of gambling and watching beautiful runners as well as the drama and spectacle is all part of the game, but when the cheering is over and the moans of despair have faded away, having more jingle in your pocket will enable you to keep playing.
As you evaluate each runner in the race, your goal is probably to estimate each one's chances of winning and converting it into a number that you can then work with to compare to a payoff. For instance, if Horse A is going to win about 20% of the time, it must be going off at 4-1 in order for a win bet on Horse A to be a break even proposition. If the favorite is at 2-1 and will pay $6 for every two dollar win bet, then it must be able to win at lest a third of the time in your calculations.
Another way to look at it is simple percentages using the totals in the win pool. If the chalk has 40% of the win pool bet on it and in your estimation only has a 30% chance of winning, that means that another horse must be under valued by the crowd. That is a false favorite and creates a nice betting opportunity for you, if you can spot the horse that is better than it appears.
How you arrive at the actual probability of the people's choice winning the race should be based on multiple handicapping factors such as speed, class, pace, connections, post position, and form. These factors are all part of the mix and many handicappers are good at analyzing them but leave out one important step. They fail to acquaint themselves with the actual statistics for races of the same class, distance, surface, gender. In other words, there is a race model that shows how often favorites win and what running style, post position, etc., wins most often.
If you find a horse that has an edge in several critical categories such as speed and pace, you may rate its chances very high, but what if the race favors closers and this is a front runner who must be out front all the way? Its running style may seriously compromise its chances of winning and yet, the crowd may make it the favorite. Even though your handicapping has shown it to have an edge, using your knowledge of what it takes to win in that particular spot, you should spot this one as a false favorite and look for a horse that may win from off the pace.
It isn't enough to know who has the edge in certain categories, it is also important to compare that favorite to the race model and statistics for winners under the same conditions. Horses who are running against the grain are often a gold mine for handicappers who will take a chance on another horse better suited to the race and they are one of the best false favorites to bet against.
If you want to learn how a horse owner and insider handicaps just go to http://horse-racing-handicapping.co/ and get the truth. Bill Peterson is a former owner and professional handicapper. To see all Bill's horse racing material go to Horse Racing Handicapping, Bill's handicapping store.
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