Have a longshot system that I wrote down (not sure if this is my own or someone else's) but here it is

The system is called "Chaos System"
can play all types of races as long as stats are all there you need
1) ml favourite 5/2+
2) 7 or more horses in the race
3) Contenders are between 6-1 and 10-1
4) Eliminate if
trainer ytd is less than 10%
jockey ytd is less than 8%
the trainer shows stat with win % of less than 10%
5) If more than 1 contender final selection is the horse with the best connections and ml odds
take higher of the trainer or jockey ytd win % and add the horse's ml odds; the highest total is your pick
NOTE: If part of entry (1 and 1A 2 and 2B etc) it only counts as 1, not 2

Thanks for sharing, Conley.

Has anyone given any thought to maybe our traditional handicapping is only geared toward low odds horses? Maybe we need to do something entirely different for longshots?

Thanks Conley

Ranch-
Interesting thought. For myself I look for opportunities when a favorite looks vulnerable. For example, I typically post a vulnerable fav at Aqu or Bel every day. The vulnerable favs are winning at about 24.5%. But when they lose the average win price on the winner of the race exceeds10-1. I see these races as a good place to look for price horses. But I do use standard handicapping in this process.

I also remember reading an article regarding longshot horses. I always meant to followup with some research but never did. The premise was to build a list of positive handicapping factors. The factors could span any part of handicapping, trainer, pace, speed figures etc. The idea was to count the number of 'positive' factors each horse accumulated and bet well priced horses that earned a certain number of them. I will go back and do some research to find that article.

Excellent points, Tony. We certainly can't have a longshot winner and a favorite winner at the same time. So, finding a vulnerable favorite is sound.

But how do we get to the longshot? In some cases, I think we need to be somewhat of a contrarian. We know horses with high Quirin speed points will receive some support. But if early speed devolves to chaos, it's often a horse with low Quirin speed points that will get up at a high price.

Anyone have any other thoughts on how to actually get onto the high priced horse?

And, how do we avoid math sucking us into an odds estimation instead of a winner predictor?

If we have the early horse with high speed ratings and good class factors and a good jockey and trainer, the money will almost always be drawn to that horse. Now, I know many of you can find the false favorites out of these types, but how do we get to the actual winner?

My longshots are geared toward positive form cycle patterns going into doing something different. New surface, new distance, new track, etc

I believe it's important to recognize that most longshots have plenty of negative factors in their form (or they wouldn't be longshots). We have to look past those negatives and search for the positive factors. Look for a reason(s) that the horse 'could' win. This type of horse should offer some value so I would make sure the odds justify investing.

Thanks, Dustin. I agree that form cycle is important. Horses can win on the "wrong" part of their form cycle, but I find that horses are more likely to win on the "good" part of the cycle.

I know Davidowitz liked the sort of changes you endorse. First on turf is a popular play.

Ranch, a real life example of how beating a vulnerable fav can stack the odds in your favor. Today I post 2 vulnerable favs at Aqu. Both favs lost and the winners of those races paid $10.60 and $60.50. Neither winner looked great on form but were reachable if you looked deep into their form. If you delved 3-5 horses deep in horizontals on the races some nifty gimmicks were available

On R6 at AQU... I can see where #6 & #8, the two favorites, were vulnerable. They were not dependable for the front and they were less dependable late.

But #5? I see that he was likely to see them all going in to the turn, which is okay if the race goes to chaos. I just have a hard time getting him home from there. The one thing I see is that he had a lot of recent activity, so maybe he built up his strength. Other than that, I am missing it. Can you help me on this one? I'm not even on him going deep.

#5 would have been a tough one to get to.
My back argument might be the significant improvement on both 4F pace and Final figure between his last 2 sprints as well as between last 2 routes. Possibly just waking up or recovering from minor ailment and kept moving forward here. Began as a turf horse which teaches energy distribution and promotes education in late acceleration so perhaps those dynamics played a part as well when he got the right set-up to go 7th to 1st here.

Thanks, Dustin. Good points. He did have the third highest speed rating on an off track (dirt).

I wonder if maybe a factor is just the math of payoffs. Throw in some big odds horses when there are significant issues with the favorites.

If by "math of payoffs", you mean "value", then yeah. It's always about value.

Think about a horse moving forward quickly overall with faster pace and faster final. Is this good or bad?

Well, if he's 4/5, I'm going to argue it could have took too much out of him and he may be due to regress.
If he's 20/1, I'm going to argue he's just waking up and set to continue the improve.

Value is ultimately the deciding factor in whether something is good or bad. At the end of the day, no handicapping factor is 100% positive or negative, we just want to guess which way it is often enough to have a positive ROI.

The average of win payouts is $11+, which is down from about $12 or $13 from 20 years ago. There are value plays below 5/1, but most of those plays are "gettable". No problem. Of course, the median price is down somewhere around $6 or so.

So, if we want to average an average price, we have to hit some winners well above 5/1. These plays are not so "gettable". Many require a certain amount of a contrarian approach. The front running, high speed figure horse with a great trainer and a great jockey and is right on its form cycle just isn't going to pay over 5/1, almost never.

So, I am looking into picking some of these higher priced horses. Something other than just a WAG based solely on price. A combination of factors that has some positive indication, even if it is a level of the factor that is normally considered negative. For instance, horses with low Quirin speed points do win races. But, not usually. So, when? That's the sort of thing I am looking at.

The public sets the price so perhaps you're looking for positive handicapping factors the public values the least.

The public sets the price so perhaps you're looking for positive handicapping factors the public values the least. — Dustin Korth

I am thinking more that there are circumstances where the public gets it nearly to completely wrong. And not necessarily what we have traditionally considered positive factors. Possibly certain combinations of factors that work.

Right on. I'll re-read our back and forth and see if I can get on the same page with some thoughts.

Initial thought though here would be that most of my longshots that were completely out of the public's eye were made completely blind of connections. Trainer/Jockey/Owner, throw it out maybe?

Ranch- regarding my post about leveraging the vulnerable favs here is why I decided to include Ocean Deep on my P5 tickets.
1) I felt I had 2 races (5&6) with pretty vulnerable favs.
2) I felt I had 2 races (7&8) which I had narrowed down to 2 horses.

Ocean Deep did not offer very attractive form. I was leaving both top choices off my ticket in this race so I decided to spread using 4 horses. Ocean Deep and Top Effort both exited the same last race with Top Effort beating Ocean Deep by 2 1/4 lengths. I had noted the track on Dec 30 as one that heavily favored horses on or near the early lead. I felt that Ocean Deep may have been compromised by the track on Dec 30 and may have been good enough to finish with a length or so of Top Effort that day. I was also intrigued by the sudden improvement for a lifetime best sprint on 12-11 with todays rider in the saddle.
Ocean Deep had plenty of negatives but I felt he had a right to improve at big odds.
There was nothing scientific about using him. Just a race that I felt lent itself to a pricy winner. I've lost plenty of races and I'm not afraid to lose a bet. I just hope that in the long run I win enough of them.

I don't look at owners at all. I only look at trainers and jockeys for first and second time starters because we don't have much to go on with those anyway and they are often pushed to their ability to impress the owner. So, I think you are onto something there. The "for real" horses will show their ability without even considering the connections, in most cases. And, we don't need to toss a potential winner just because the connections don't impress us. Many big price horses have lousy stats for their connections.

I am in the early stages of examining 17 factors. Most are strong for favorites, but relying on them traditionally only gives me not much more than a good betting line. To get longshot winners, I need to know which combinations work and at what levels. That's what I am working on. It's a fairly big project. It will take a while to get dependable sample sizes. Tracks, surfaces, track conditions, season of the year, field size, off turf, etc. all make it a challenge to get a reliable sample size. And I am just getting set up. No data actually extracted yet.

Tony, thanks for that analysis. I really appreciate your input.

I did notice that Ocean Deep had the 3rd best off track speed rating, which is impressive for a long odds horse. It did suggest a mud ability.