I highly suspect that the whales have a grip on what they are doing to the pools. Enough so that that is not their worry. They wouldn't be betting millions of dollars without an understanding of how they are impacting the pools.

Their worries would be like a girth not being cinched properly, a goose flying into their horse (I have seen it happen), a jock falling off, etc. Those are the things that they must compensate for long-term but have no control over short-term.

They don't view their liability as the other money in the pool. Their liability is something weird happening.

Hope this helps. — Dave Schwartz

It doesn't help any. lol

But I really appreciate the explanation. Thanks, Dave.

My point here is that today the tote board doesn't help us much... certainly nowhere near as much as it once did. So, our best defense of ourselves is to have a line that protects us from being surprised that a horse goes to 1/9.

I just watched a video on YouTube that included a part on how Bill Benter hired a person to watch race videos where horses unexpectedly lost so he could figure on how to reduce risk... antifragility, though no reference is made to that term. The video is called How This Man Profited $1 Billion Betting on Hong Kong Horse Races by Economics Explained.

I don't have that product. I know that after Dave taught me how important PROCESS is, my handicapping improved dramatically. So, I expect that Organize Your Handicapping is probably a very good product. I know I had no idea how important process is, but now I would say it may be the most important part of handicapping.

We can't control the prices. We just have to know when to zig and when to zag.

My Dog, I hope I'm not getting dyslexia! — Tom

Are you tishing me?

It's exciting to see you delving into the realm of "What If". The realm of the "possible" rather than the "probable". It seems that our imagination is the one factor that cannot be quantified.. — William Zayonce

Thanks. I've been doing horse racing what if's since I first read Quirin. I wrote my first handicapping computer program in 1982. If I can stimulate others to ask "what if", I consider that a good thing.

An example:

Handicapping one leg of a P4. 7 horses. 1 Need-to-lead with 8 Quirin speed points. We determine this horse is the likely winner, but our stats say it is not quite good enough to be a single. We need one more horse. Of the other 6 horses, three have 3 Q points and three have no Q points. Our normal strategy says that in this circumstance, we assume the horses with limited speed will get run off their feet and we should play one of the zero point horses. That may or may not be a valid strategy, but it is just an assumption for this example.

But what if something unpredictable happens? The NTL horse doesn't get out of the gate or stumbles or the jockey falls off. Now the rest of our premise falls apart. The horses with 3 Q points are now the front runners and one of them will likely win. Again, this is an assumption for the example.

So, what should our strategy be? Where do we assign our risk avoidance? Do we select a 3-point horse or a 0-point horse or do we add a third selection, escalating the cost of our ticket?

The idea here is to offer up another way of looking at wagering. Just another thought process.

I got into this thought process in two ways. Dave has a product on what wins in winter. That doesn't really have anything to do with this antivolatility, but I thought the two play well together. The other was watching some antivolatility videos on YouTube.

Very good! And I agree.

But I have also been looking recently at a much different approach... antivolatiity. Looking at what is not predictable and considering how we might use those possibilities. Handicapping always has risks and rewards.

Had all 8 winners in my 4 contenders again today at FG. Nobody hit the P5 or P6 (again).

Racing is good at FG and usually gets even better after Christmas.

There was a chaos race at AQU today with a 48/1 winner, coming from next-to-last to win.

Lots of Cs at FG today, sloppy, yet a pretty formful day. I had all 8 winners in my contenders. Yet nobody hit the P6. Highest win pay on the day was $8.80

One thing I am seeing so far is a good way to just say a race is not worth the rest of the work and move on. — Tom

Good point, Tom. I find the grades to be helpful. I am still having to do other handicapping, but it is a great way to evaluate form cycle.

I am looking at this, but it may be a while before I have much. With this being Thanksgiving week, I have a busy schedule right now. I have a friend in town from overseas.

I am only half-way through reading the thread, but already my mind is jumping through hoops thinking about form, class and pace scenarios. lol

Tom, I also read the boards and I check out a lot of what I find. Some of my best calculations come from messages posted publicly In fact, nearly all of my best numbers came either directly or indirectly from message boards. Of course, I do have a few adaptations and a few that I created on my own and some emulations of other sources..

When there are a lot of people singling particular horses in horizontals, it is essential to make the right move as to whether to play the single or spread.

I saw a guy play all-5-all with the 5 being Easy Go'er at 2/5 and he won big, playing all-5-all twice, all-5-3 twice and all-5-4 twice. He hit 4 times for fairly big bucks.

On the other hand, it you can beat the single that "everyone" else is playing, you can also win big.

My point is that my perception is that the horizontals are likely to outperform the parlays.