Jim P,
I broke everything out at the lowest level that made sense. I had stats like this - stake sprints, layoff of 60-90 days, that went off the favorite etc.... It was a computer report, but I had access to all the details like the dates of actual races, race #, odds, class, distance, track condition, Logic Dictates speed figure for the race (no Beyer\'s back then), my own pace figure for every call of every race (Logic D. didn\'t make pace figures back then), the running position of the eventual winner of the race etc...
I also looked at higher level groups like all sprints, all routes, all claimers, all favorites etc...
When I had a large sample within the lowest level category, I took it at face value. When I had a small sample, I looked at some of the higher level trends to try to draw conclusions.
In the \"rare\" cases that I found something that stood out, I pulled out the racing forms and actually looked at the individual horses and races. I used to keep about 18-24 months of DRF\'s handy in those days so I could look up a horse\'s races that were already off the DRF PPs.
When I examined the stakes in further detail, I noticed it was the Grade 1 level layoffs that did the worst. The one exception was when a very good horse just happened to be returning into a field where he was an obvious stick out. Most of those went off at very short odds and did fine as a group.
It was the more marginal favorites and contenders that seemed to underperform the most even though many did run well.
My conclusion was that in that over 60 day range, the best layoff trainers could get their horses close to their best, but not 100%. Others just had problems. Being a hair short was often enough to get them beat at the Grade 1 level where there are almost always multiple tough contenders and a tough competitive pace etc... but that was not reflected in the odds properly.
It isn\'t an automatic toss out. I weigh it as a negative that sometimes does not get built into the odds properly.
I haven\'t kept any further stats since then, but I\'ve been betting against them ever since with success. As with all things, I use some judgement about whether the odds reflect the greater risk etc...
I actually still have most of the original computer print out somewhere, but the database was lost in a computer crash. (and I\'m a compuer guy)
If you know of any other stats like that, please let me know because that BC Sprint stat was very interesting to me. I always game to learn something new.
