My top 4 picks 8-1-2-5.

This is insanity lol. — Dustin Korth

Mattress Mac?

I'm so confused. Fenwick bet down to 7/1??? — Dustin Korth

I'm so with you on that one. I will be amazed if he finishes higher than 7th. I have him worst by nearly every metric. And his trainer is not impressive.

Epicenter should still have gas in the tank and he is the best horse in my opinion. I think he'll take the Preakness. My other choice is SImplification.

Here's my line:

1: 22.2
2: 28.9
3: 83.3
4: 7.6
5: 1.7
6: 83.3
7: 10.1
8: 2.0
9: 8.7

Top 4: 5-8-4-9

I have #4 as a DTOP.

Yes, in my odds line top 3.

Not betting today. I can only watch on YouTube (I'm in Texas). The only thing I found at the time was a Spanish language broadcast of Pimlico and Gulfstream. I tuned in when the results of this race were showing, so I researched it. They don't always pan out, but when they do, it is worth the play.

I just watched one with potential at Gulfstream, but it was on the AW with two closers and one of those was a fairly solid horse who ended up second. The speed held. The other closer came 4th. I don't like to consider a race a chaos potential when there is a solid horse, especially one that closes. I don't watch enough all-weather races to know much about the chaos threshold. It may be akin to turf, where there is no chaos in the same sense as on the dirt. Nearly all of the horses on turf have a low %Median... they expend their energy late.

Switching to Belmont.

Off the turf is also not a good situation to look for chaos by my dirt method. Again, most of the horses have a low %Median.

Race 3 at Pimlico (5/19) was a chaos race. The speed nearly held on, but the closer got up by a nose to pay $47.20, longest shot on the board.

I was trying to stay high level.

Dave talks about vulnerable favorites in the Kentucky Derby video.

My favorite angle is a little rare. If you maintain a profile on %Median of winners, horses that fall outside the winning range are very vulnerable. Rather than maintain a profile, I calculate the median for the field and then set a range based on that median. Horses that are outside the range 4 times in past races are vulnerable. While it is rare, I recently found a 7-horse race where the favorite and three other horses qualified for this elimination and none of them won. I think %M is one of the most under-utilized tools available. It discloses a lot. You can read about another use I have for %M in the Chaos thread.

If you are familiar with Dave's strength par, horses that haven't achieved that speed rating are usually vulnerable. If they're below 7/2, they're a Bet Against.

I am sure there are a lot of other approaches.

Thanks.

I am curious as to how Pizzolla defines value. If he's measuring against the tote board, the whales can eat him up. If he's waiting for a horse that will obviously go off at a good price, he'll need to have a lot of patience. I do have some unplayable races, but not many.

You mention your standards. Your examples have to do with the output. I have strict standards in writing the code... always the same indentation, capitalization, white space, line continuation practices, variable naming conventions, etc. It makes the code much easier to read. When I was a programmer, we would have code walk-throughs and if you wrote outside the standards, you'd really get raked over the coals. That was an even tougher situation because someone else might have to read the code, but it s very important that you be able to read it yourself.

An even bigger problem is to not look for the code at all, writing it again. That means it isn't tested and may not function exactly the same.

With most coding, our initial objective can be fairly well defined and the program can be designed.

With handicapping, we can easily find a BBD (bigger, better deal) and through a major shift in our thought process have major changes to our objective. Managing the code gets really difficult.

It is easy to come up with more ideas than can be implemented efficiently within time constraints. I ALWAYS have more ideas than time. And, every day I think... man, when I finish this, it will finally be caught up. Then there's another epiphany and it all starts again.

I have been writing more or less the same program for over 25 years. It is not nearly as organized as I would like after all the changes. The original program cannot easily be found within what I have today, major changes. I really need a total re-write. But when? I keep coming up with and implementing new ideas, some of which I consider great, at least in my own mind.

So, I guess my best advice, which I need to take more seriously, is to slow down and keep everything tidy and self-documented.

Sorry as I dont believe I had the answer you were looking for. — Tony Kofalt

I like that your answers are based on your experiences and not what we are looking for.

OK, this one:

https://objects-us-east-1.dream.io/hstreet/NewVideos/HSC-KyDby%2BHow%20I%20Play.mp4

How do we find the BA LO horse?

By the way, apparently you don't have to be a genius to make the right bet. The reason I got involved in structuring that wager was that the guy didn't know how much a $1 10x1x10 wager would cost. Well, I did give him the winner in leg 3, too. So, for anyone arithmetic challenged, he spent $440. So, I guess the key was to have $440 and to know the potential was BIG. Legs 1 and 3 were on the turf. Leg 1 was won by a 25/1. Leg 3 I think paid about 9/2, the 4. This was a LONG time ago, so I hope my memory is ok. I do remember I got a free beer out of it.

I just ran across this quote:

The distance between your dreams and reality is called action.

Hope this is not seen as hijacking the thread, but I think it fits here.

Very true, Dave. We should all read your message every wagering day.

It appears to me that most people are doing one (or both) of two things:

1) Betting the "best horse", regardless of whether it is logical as to winning TODAY.
2) Betting against the tote, as you allude.

Both make a profit very unlikely. Your strategy is the better path.

I once helped a guy structure a P3 ticket:
All-5-All twice
All-5-3 twice
All-5-4 twice
He hit it 4 times. The horse in the middle leg was Easy Goer, who won with win odds of 2/5 against 3yo's after beating older two weeks earlier (as sure as it gets). The P3 paid $1,600 (x4). So, this guy got better than 13/1 on a 2/5 horse.