After watching this past Saturday night action unfold, I decided at the last minute to shelf the original boring shape stuff that was ready to go, and instead, put together my thoughts on the past 2 Saturday evening Meadowlands cards - I thought this would be more immediately relevant and useful, especially since they are taking a break at the Big M after this Saturday card.
As an exercise for this weekend, those who would like to participate may email their responses to me - we can compile them and compare. This will help us to pounce on any obvious opportunities that may come up. You can do this for all the races, or any specific ones you like. Simply write down the number of the race, who you feel SHOULD be the favorite, and who you feel WILL be the choice at post time.
These 2 Saturdays offered dramatically different pictures and racing, offering an excellent opportunity for us to do some ‘differential analysis’ and see how this affects our feelings about the shape of various horses as we move toward this Saturday. After watching and post-card chart analysis, here are my general and numerical observations:
| Element | ||
| Racing Style | 4 races were won wire to wire. Additionally, in 6 other races, the horse carrying the lead lost by a length or less | 2 races were won wire to wire. In 2 other races, the leading horse lost be a legnth or less. |
| Only 2 horses were further back than 4th at the 3/4 pole who won | 5 horses were placed 5th or worse at the 3/4 pole and managed to win | |
| There were a total of 6 lead changes before the half, in 13 races | There were also 6 changes of lead between 1/4 and 1/2 | |
| In 13 races, at the half, in only 3 races was the lead actually under contention immediately before, at, or immediately after the half. | In 4 races, the lead was under a duel at about the half | |
| At the half, a total of 32 horses in 13 races (2.5 per race) were already on the rim approaching the half | At the half, a total of 43 horses in 13 races (3.3 per race) were on the rim at the half | |
| In 13 races, a total of 3 horses were 3-wide at the 3/4 pole | In 13 races, 6 horses had commited 3-wide before the 3/4 pole. | |
| In 13 races, the horse with the fastest final quarter won 2 | In 13 races, the horse with the fastest final quarter won 3 times | |
| In 13 races, the horse with the fastest final quarter was out of the money 5 times | In 13 races, the horse with the fastest final quarter was out of the money 3 times | |
| 8 different drivers won races | 6 different drivers won races | |
| Wagering | The favorite was victorious in 5 races | The favorite was victorious in 2 races (1 of which was an entry) |
| In 5 races, the favorite was a horse who had a high likelyhood of being on or near the lead | In 9 races, the favorite was a horse who had a high likelyhood of being at or near the lead | |
| 3 of the 13 betting favorites were even money or lower | 2 of the 13 betting favorites were even money or lower | |
| The average odds on the favorite were 8-5 ($5.40 pay) | The average odds on the favorite were 9-5 ($5.80) | |
| Fractions | In relative proportion, the final halves were the fastest, first halves 2nd fastest and middle halves slowest | In relative proportion, the first halves were by far the fastest, last halves next and middle halves were extremely slow. |
| The fractional speeds were by and large, more even or level than normal | The fractional speeds were more diverse and varied. | |
| There were NO individual halves which were extremely slow as to discount a meaningful move. | There were several individual halves which were extremely slow, as to bring into question moves made at that point. | |
| The final times were faster | The final times were slower |
Since, especially on Friday and Saturday nights, many of the same horses run next week that run this week, it is a good idea to find a day that you can get to the track, and be available for several weeks in a row to take advantage of various patterns which carry over from week to week. People are basically momentum players - they like to jump on bandwagons, and if you are willing to be contrary, you can take good advantage of it --- it’s kind of like Seinfeld or WWWF Wrestling - you enjoy it more if you have seen the last few episodes so you know what is going on. It’s not like Star Trek, where each show stands on its own.
These two back-to-back Saturdays offer the very best pattern for value players: week #1 - lot’s of speed, week #2, tough on the front end. April 18th was a typical speed oriented track. You cannot just count the number of winners, but even those who did not win, many raced very well and were very close. The first halves were not particularly fast, in relativity (they were very fast in absolute time), paces quickened approaching the half, and the middle halves were, relatively, much faster than normal, in particular, the 3rd quarters. All this makes it tough on the closers. You can see some of this evidenced in the chart above. Look over the "racing style" and "fractions" observations on the above chart.
Now all this is nice, but the relevant question is: "What impact does this have on my competition - the other bettors?" Here’s how people typically behave. The see the last lines on the program of the first week, see the faster final times, see the horses putting what appear to be good efforts in on the front end, and jump on the bandwagon. They assume, and are willing to wager, that this condition will continue. So, the second week, instead of betting 5 obvious front-runners down to favorite status, they bet 9 down. And what kind of an evening is it? Well, it could end up being a repeat, in which case, they win. But if the front end is even slightly less user friendly, the value contrarian will hold the trump cards. On April 25, the good-performing front runners from the previous week were very overbet. Only 2 faves won versus 5, the average odds on the favorites was higher, allowing you to potentially use them more profitably. Furthermore, the favorites were predominantly horses who could be counted on to get out there, versus the first week, which was more balanced.
The most profitable thing you can do in any type of wagering is to know when to go against the majority and take the contrary view. The best time to be at the track, say on a Saturday night, is to be there the week after a big speed bias and hope that a more normal bias develops - this will give you the type of situation we had last Saturday, with 3 or 4 horses who clearly should have been solid favorites, but were not. They may not win on that night, but let me tell you something: YOU KEEP MAKING BETS ON HORSES THAT SHOULD BE SOLID FAVORITES, BUT ARE NOT GOING OFF THAT WAY, AND YOU WILL MAKE MONEY AT THIS GAME - I GUARANTEE.
Now, let’s take a look at how this affected and affects the horses that I am watching the next week. Let’s take April 18th first. If you do not have the chart, you can email me and I'll send one over to you - too much to upoad on here. As noted above, because the fractional components were more even, there were fewer key parts to the racing night to hone in on. Certainly, because the night was so friendly to front runners, I was not inclined to go looking for sharp front runners off that card. In fact, the only front-ender that evening that I noted in a positive manner was DR REG in the 13th, who won back the following week as a slight favorite, when he should have been a solid fave. The only middle portion of the race that stood out from a fractional standpoint was the first race, where RED STAR TRIX made a winning move, and CORY’S BIG GUY held the lead and ran out the second quarter yielding after the half - but TRIX clearly used the most energy most effectively (he drew the outside post the following week and was a clear no-go). As for the final halves, 2 races stuck out to me, the 10th and the 12th. From the 10th, MAGIC HAPPENS, KASH EVER AFTER and DISTINCT GENTLEMEN being most effective. The following Saturday, "MH" rallied from dead last to finish 2nd, "KEA" was used early and boxed for his life, "DG" was scratched. From the 12th, LARGER THAN LIFE and BROADWAY MOMENTUM were both used very effectively in the final panels - "LTL" won back at $17, "BM" has not raced.
Now, the next piece of the puzzle is stepping back, and seeing how strong this front end bias was, re-evaluating the performances of the closers who where negatively affected by this, and who might represent significant value the following week. I noted SOLAR GALAXY’s first over 2nd half grind; FEARLESS RAIDER’S monster close and HONUS HYLIGHT’S deceptively steady 3rd over close from the 3rd race; BEACH OF FAITH pacing steadily on the rail; PARSONS DEN’S rush to just miss; CA CONNECTION racing conservatively but gaining strongly from way back.
Racing back this past Saturday, taking our contrary trump card with us and waiting for value, SOLAR GALAXY when off as a favorite, but raced very well. Both FEARLESS RAIDER and HONUS HYLIGHT should have been favorites, neither was, both won. BEACH OF FAITH left from the outside, and had to use a lot of energy to get the lead and park the challenger to the half. PARSON’S DEN went off the huge favorite and was stuck first over in a very fast final portion; CA CONNECTION was shuffled back to last and came charging strongly for third.
So where do we go from here - moving forward to this weekend? Well, things looked a bit sticky for the front runners last week - forward halves weren’t that fast, mid portions slower, final portions not too fast - they should have done better. Let’s give an eye to them.
First things first: The front-end winners were Magnetic Killean and Shady Character. Missing narrowly was Usher Hanover. Of these, Magnetic Killean had the stiffer fractions, but no pressure ( remember last week’s edition on DUELING). Usher Hanover retook easily at the quarter and also was not pressured.
Off the fractional analysis of the charts, the following appear to be the key spots for front runners on April 25: 1st, 11th and 13th races.
In the opener, HANDSOME HUNK raced clearly super to hang in there after being parked and facing a head-on challenge for the entire second half, missing only be 3 lengths. CORY’S BIG GUY left, but would need a softer field now. In the 11th, MASTER MILES was used hard to get the lead at the quarter but did not face pressure from that point. KASH EVER AFTER left hardest off all parking him, and was overloaded with horse in the lane. In the 13th, marred by and accident, Sharp Attack rattled off very quick fractions, but all on his own, so tough to tell.
Other front runners who were reasonably hard used in reasonable fractions: NIAWATCH in the 3rd and FRANK KASH in the 12th.
I HAVE SPECIFICALLY NOT TALKED ABOUT THE SERIES THAT WAS RACED.
We have to be a little pickier about which closers we are impressed with this week, versus last week. From a fractional point of view, BAD BERT, clearly a no-go was also clearly the fastest in the lane during the fastest closing race of the evening. In the 10th, HONUS HYLIGHT and SOLAR GALAXY repeat as potential bias busters. RED STAR TRIX must be considered as he was disinterested from the word go.
There is no way to tell what is going to unfold, but we have to enter this upcoming Saturday with an eye toward some of those leavers who had such a tough go last week and see what develops.
