Sighthound suspension

[Themig]

Nice post Papa. Watch the replay of Keen\'s last race yesterday(Thur). I have a nice Tri with the 1-4 on top, about 30 yrds from the wire. Tell me what you think of the ride on the 4 horse at 44-1. I hit a smaller tri with him third, but......and I\'ll be back...I\'ll play today and when I leave the house, I just may look at my ipad, iphone, iwhatever to catch the last bet that I put in. Cheaters be damned....I will be back

[TGJB]

Stewards already said that jock will be penalized for misjudging the finish line, and yes it was blatant.

[FrankD.]

Roger,

A well thought out cerebral post as always. That\'s why you can\'t hang with Richibee and I at the brew pub for too long!

Other than Triple Crown, Breeders Cup, a few big race days and opening days around the country; the live product is dead, buried and not coming back at any venue except one.

The Spa will get a full fledged casino down the street at the harness track and Saratoga will become even more of a destination than it already is. It\'s the only venue with a semblance of a marketing plan and looking to draw new clients.

Living room downs, poker rooms, etc... increase the handle but do nothing to grow the sport and interest of anyone under 40. My own son at 21 has never been to the track not once. He expressed a curious interest a few times in going with me but something more alluring always has come up. Granted its not anything I ever promoted or encouraged but other than a Friday twilight card with entertainment and hot young girls ( TGAB groupies) wandering about his interest is nill.

The lot of us 50 plus somethings grew up without I-pads, computers, game boy\'s,cell phones and I tunes. We had baseball, football and basketball to play, spectate and watch occasionally on tv.

In my area it was the corner bookie joint, the guy in the 7-up hat that went from corner grocery store to luncheonette to any and all local businesses collecting the numbers and daily horse bets. Everyone in the local bar on a Saturday talked about the feature race in NY, the racing form, poker games, daily number and local bookies and loan sharks were part of everyday life. Blue collar guys who worked at GE or one of the other factories took their vacation during August to go to the track or a week in the winter to go to Gulfstream or Hialeah. Horse racing was a part of everyday life and something everyone had some basic knowledge of.

The sport as a whole missed the boat in the 70\'s with the emergence of OTB, it should have been one entente from day one. The tracks resisted and the politicians had a field day while the Phipps, Whitney\'s and blue bloods et al stood by fiddling like Nero as Rome burned.

It will never be the same again and what we have today is about as good as it\'s ever gonna get again.

So in the spirit of Covel\'s previous post about adjourning all problems until post DERBY!!!

Churchill opens tomorrow night, its Derby week, short fields in the first 5 tomorrow night but its under the lights, the Derby Trial with Paul Horning trying to get in and I\'m off to the Harness track for dinner, simulcasting and Vapors afterward in an attempt to keep some TGJB type late hours tomorrow.

Good luck,

Frank D.

[JimP]

\"2-- Cheating doesn\'t make TG or other data meaningless. Only inaccuracy can do that.\"

Accuracy of the data is not the issue. Predictive value is the issue. The most accurate data in the world is of no value if it lacks predictive capacity. If one accepts that the outcome of any upcoming race is likely to be substantially determined by drug-on or drug-off actions of the participating trainers then it seems to me that the predictive value of any past performance data will be severely compromised, if not rendered completely useless, or (even worse) totally missleading. In a world of pervasive drug manipulation why should we assume that accurate past performance data contains predictive value?

[TGJB]

You have it backwards. It\'s the accuracy that lets us know WHO is cheating, and how to deal with it in our handicapping. Which in some cases means passing races, in others realizing that we have to protect our longshot with an exacta under what superficially is a slow horse, knowing that certain guys for whatever reason only get results on dirt, etc. Drugs make things more difficult-- but they would be a LOT more difficult without having accurate data.

[plasticman]

Pc, There\'s one HUGE difference between the NFL and horse racing. In the NFL, bettors can bet without having to support the show, not one penny of the \'vig\' goes to pay the participants. In horse racing, the bettors are paying thru the nose to support the show.

People are looking for a good gamble, football and sports betting are better gambles than horse racing, you get more bang for your buck with an NFL bet. The great thing about an NFL bet is that if you win, its takeout free. In horse racing, the winners pay ALL the takeout.

[Edgorman]

What is so great about betting football laying 110 to win 100 every time??  You have to be right over60% of the time to show a profit.  And since when do winners in horseracing pay all the takeout??  You need to check out how that works.  The exception is the onerous surcharge on winning bets at some OTBs.

[plasticman]

I didnt say laying 110 to win 100 is great, but its a better gamble than horse racing, its a lower takeout, its about 5% give or take.

As far as the winners paying all the takeout in horse racing, i know that technically you pay the takeout when you make your wager, but the people that FEEL the takeout on any one particular race are the winners.

[Edgorman]

It\'s a 10% vig to win everytime.  Essentially you are wagering to win less than even money.  I\'m not saying winning at the races is easy, but you have the choice of wagering or not wagering depending on the odds.  Most successful horseplayers I know will wager when they know they will be rewarded handsomely when they are right.  They also know that there will be many losers in between.  I do not know any winning horseplayers who wager on less than even money horses EVERY TIME.

[TreadHead]

10% vig is not the same as 10% takeout on a parimutuel pool, and your math is incredibly off on break-even.

The break-even hit rate for -110 line bets is 52.4%, not 60%.  Try the math, if you play 1000 games and win 524 of them, you will break even.

[Edgorman]

I was being overly simple on the math.  If you bet 10 games and split them, you lose.  Thats why I said you have to win 6 of 10.

I did not mean to infer that the vig and racetrack handle were the same.

Thanks for the math.  Im not gonna bet 1000 games!!!!

[JimP]

Ah, the NFL. Now there\'s a drug free environment.

[JimP]

\"WHO is cheating, and how to deal with it in our handicapping\"

There\'s the crux of the matter: How to deal with it in our handicapping!

Is there something in the archive on that? I would like to see your recommendations on how to factor in drug-on and drug-off considerations into handicapping future races. Is it measurable? Can it be factored into the figures? Can you adjust the Thoro-patterns for it? How do you look at an upcoming race and factor in the drug possibilities?

[TreadHead]

And I doubt most people are only going to be playin 10 games in their lives either.  Knowing whether you are winning or losing in the long-run over a large sample space is the only way to truly know if you are lucky or good, be it football, poker, or horse racing, and the difference between 52.4% and 60% win rate is astronomical for anyone playing football.

I run a handicapping contest each year where you play 6 games a week for 18 weeks (college or pro with a fixed set of lines), a total of 108 selections, and we usually have about 50-60 guys.  Each year, without fail, a couple guys are hitting at 70% for a few weeks or even half the season and many people lose hope, but by the end of the season the winners are always somewhere near 60-62%.  I always tell people to never watch the scoreboard and concentrate on trying to hit 60%, and if you do, you will get one of the payout spots in the contest.  It is rare for more than 10% of the participants to finish the season at 60%, and rarer still for people to have multiple years hitting above 55%.

Moral of the story is, touts who are playing multiple games every week and are claiming 70% or something outrageous like that had better have data to back it up.  Once the sample size gets to be around 100, it is nearly impossible to do.  And once it hits 500, 60% is nearly impossible.

[TGJB]

I have probably discussed that stuff in 50 ROTW\'s.