Orb's win in the Derby has caused thousands of people to say "I told you so," which is one of the great satisfactions of horse playing.
However, the backers of Orb were wrong in one crucial way.
They backed the favorite in a chaos race. If they keep doing that, they will go broke in a hurry.
About one third of all races are "chaos races." The favorites win at a rate of 28%. They typical race is won by favorites at a 35% clip.
The reason this is disastrous for the horseplayer: the favorites in chaos races don't fail, they simply win at a lesser rate. The difference is too subtle to be noticed if you're playing ten races on a Saturday afternoon. But over time, it will destroy your bankroll.
Ready for some simple stats?
We have a sample of 286 chaos races held since the Breeders Cup in November. In those races, 2775 runners left the gate.
* Blind random bets returned 83 cents on the dollar.
* Bets on every horse that went off at better than 5/1 returned 87 cents.
* Backers of the favorites got 76 cents back per dollar bet.
Sure, the favorites will sometimes win a chaos race, but the wins are deceptive since they can't be sustained over time. Orb's backers won on Saturday, but their strategy is very poor overall.
The Loose Horse handicaps two or three cards at top tracks around the nation every Saturday. We identify chaos races. Obviously this could help in the win pool, but exotics players can also benefit by going deep in chaos races and shallow in normal, non-chaotic races.
Good luck.
Monday, May 06, 2013
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