You've heard me refer to a favorite or potential favorite as a "bad" one or "vulnerable" one in various different ways … in deciding whether or not to use "ALL", I look for a favorite who is beatable. In doing my detailed analysis for a given race, I will always identify the horse I believe should be favored. But just how do we find a vulnerable favorite?

There are 2 types of bad favorites: First, is the horse who should not be the favorite in the first place, who is made the betting choice; second is the horse who deserves to be favored, but who is bet down way below where he deserves to be, based on his chances.

In order, here are the aspects that make a favorite bogus and worth betting against:

1. The favorite is clearly out of shape - again, there are not too many of these, but enough to keep anyone satisfied with playable races if you have a little patience. I do not care who is driving, what class the horse is dropping into, or anything of the like - if a horse is in poor shape, he cannot be a favorite - period.
2. The favorite is in average or medium shape - the vast majority of these are also poor favorites. On occasions, you will find times when a horse appears to be in more of a medium condition, but due to a change in competition, driver, post position or something else, he qualifies to be the favorite. THIS IS DIFFERENT THAN WINNING - while these horses win a fair amount of the time, they rarely actually deserve favoritism. Sometimes yes, but very infrequently.
3. The favorite is in good shape, but is in a field where several other horses are also sharp and is being bet down too low. Also included here are horses who appear sharp and appear to be making lateral moves across class, but are, in fact, facing substantially tougher fields this week due to the overall shape of the competition.

THE OUT OF SHAPE FAVORITE
This is the best type of favorite to bet against, but also the least frequently occurring. Why? Because usually, the crowd does a reasonably good job of identifying the horse with the best chance to win, and it is not that often that these horses are plum out of shape. The most frequent violator here is the horse who is moving down in claiming price or in conditions. REMEMBER: OF ALL THE REASONS THAT A HORSE DROPS DOWN, THE MOST COMMON IS LACK OF SHAPE.

The other candidate for this type of treatment is the horse who has been off for quite some time, running faster times during a different time period, who is returning to the races with a race or 2 under his belt, but has yet to show any positive signs. Sometimes, the betting public just assumes that he ought to be tight now, and bets him down off times from months ago. I always insist that the horse show some kind of life - anything, even if it is a brief showing of speed, or a belated close - something to indicate that improvement might be expected. These horses are okay if you are expecting improvement. Hoping for improvement, however, is a different story. You wanna bet on hope - go buy lottery tickets. You can hope for improvement at 15-1, not at 5-2.

Let's review this past Saturday at Garden State:

This is not an exact example, but because I said it, let's take a look at this past Saturday, October 10, Race 7. In my analysis, I stated that DR REG deserved to be favored. I thought that SAYTHATAGAIN might actually go off the favorite and if so, this would be a very poor favorite. Why did I say that? Let's look:

Here, there is no question as to the shape of DR REG. He returned after a break, showed a little bit of pace in his first start back in a decent final half. In his 2nd start, he closed nicely for second. In his 3rd start, he made a good go of it on the front end, missing only to the pocket sitter, improving with each start.

SAYTHATAGAIN, on the other hand, had been showing all the signs of a tiring closer. He should have got it done on 9/19 off cover into a slowing pace, but didn't. On 9/296, he went off the favorite again and had nothing off perfect cover. Last week, he needed every bit of the perfect trip to prevail over Dr. Reg.
This horse qualifies for "out of shape" status. A poor choice for a favorite.

Not just that, but if we look at last Saturday's race, DR REG was a luke warm favorite at 5-2, while SAYTHATAGAIN went off and 7-2. This seems odd as DR REG is clearly sharp, and SAYTHATAGAIN is clearly dull. Watch for these type of inequalities - even if they get the right favorite, which they did here, SAYTHATAGAIN took far more money than he deserved to, thus leaving DR REG as a luke warm favorite, versus the pretty solid favorite which he deserved to be.

The epilogue of the race is that DR REG was a 3-move winner … SAYTHATAGAIN had the cover trip and had no pop.

The 12th race on Saturday was a very good example, with FRANK KASH. First, let's take a look at his program lines.

This was a case of a medium-shape horse who was dropping in conditions, into a field which contained several in-shape horses. Why does the crowd like this type of horse? Several reasons. First, his fast final time in the last 2 races, which as we know by now, means nothing. Second, is his season's mark, which is faster than the rest of this bunch, but that was months ago at the Meadowlands. Mike LaChance in the bike is another reason, but that is an over-rated issue, since Jim Morrill is just fine if the horse is sharp. In fact, this horse wins with Ray "Smiley Face" Schnittker when he's right. As for his performances in the last two - he did as expected, not more. The #1, #2 and #4 were absolutely in shape from inside. Finally, is the horse's racing style - when a dead front-runner such as Frank Kash is racing from off the pace for quite some time, they usually need at least one race where they leave out of there a little bit to get them tight again for the front end. Beware of front-runners who have raced off the pace for many weeks in a row who go off the favorite strictly on the class drop. They are usually racing off the pace because they are not in the best of shape.

As for the remainder of the races which we handicapped Saturday night, the crowd had it right: KATES NUKE was a good favorite in the 2nd race, BAD BERT was the right horse in the 6th; DR REG was the right horse in the 7th, as discussed above however, he was a lukewarm choice, versus the solid choice he deserved to be; they got it right again in the 8th with CORY'S BIG GUY; in the 11th, they made an error with DUKE OF ABBY, but he actually raced like he deserved it - maybe they were right here and I was wrong; in the 13th, they did not bet anybody down, though HONEY FITZ raced like the favorite he deserved to be.

So, here are some rules to follow in identifying bad favorites. Of course, good shape-determination skills are key here (am I making you nauseous yet with this shape thing after 2 years?):

Hopefully, this will help you to siphon out deserving favorites from non-deserving ones. Remember - there is nothing wrong with playing or including favorites. In fact, one of your key weapons in this game can be combining live long-shots with live favorites. You can pick up some nice prices this way. But the real profits come from knowing WHEN to bet AGAINST them - and in order to do this, you have to know when a favorite is a bad one.