Odds and Payout

A young horseplayer, who is becoming more versed in handicapping, recently asked 'How can I display the Odds instead of the Payout amount within Horsegrader?' It is fairly simple to do so and I'll walk you through the steps. Keep in mind that, by default, Horsegrader shows the Payout for a $2.00 bet. Let's look at a screen snippet for an illustration:

In this example, a $2.00 bet on Tu Endie Wei would pay out $24.00 for the 11-1 odds (2 x $11.00 + the $2.00 bet = $24.00). The first step to show Odds instead of Payout is to click on the gear in the right-hand toolbar:

The following pop-up appears:

Next select the Odds Format pulldown and select Odds:

Click Save and here is the result:

I'm going to bring this blog entry to a close with a tip on how to easily display the Payout. Just hover over any value in the Odds column and the Finals Odds and Payout and Morning Line and Payout appear for that horse:

Tu Endie Wei Final Odds were 11-1 with a $24.00 Payout and Morning Line Odds were 15-1 with a Payout of $32.00.

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Race of the Week II - Hollywood Gold Cup

July 7th - Race of the Week II
Betfair Hollywood Park (Race 9) Grade One: The Hollywood Gold Cup Handicap

Professor here again with the second of the two the Horsegrader's race of the week Experts picks. This week we're featuring two races, the second one is the Grade One Hollywood Gold Cup Handicap at a mile and a quarter on the dirt from Betfair Hollywood Park. I am backing last year's runner up Game On Dude, who has top speed figures with an upward speed figures trend. Trained by top trainer Bob Baffert who is winning at 34% for the current meet and has a 27% win percentage when teaming up with jockey Chantal Sutherland.

Diamond Dave likes Richard's Kid who possess positive Key Factors. Both trainer, Bob Baffert and jockey, Rafael Bejarano, excel at today's distance and surface.

Lexington also likes Richard's Kid. Richard's Kid's trainer and jockey have pretty much all green for their Key Factor attributes. Jockey Rafael Bejarano is winning at a 30% clip when he rides Bob Baffert's horses.

Long Shot Larry likes Spud Spivens who ran his best Speed Figure in his last race. With a positive record on today's track at the Gold Cup distance and surface, 15-1 looks like a solid bet for Larry.

Click on the image for an expanded view

Race of the Week I - United Nations Stakes

July 7th - Race of the Week I
Monmouth Park (Race 11) Grade One: The United Nations

Professor here with one of the two the Horsegrader's race of the week Experts picks. This week we're featuring two races, the first one is the Grade One United Nations from Monmouth Park. I am backing the Colonial Turf Cup winner Turbo Compressor, top speed figures with an upward speed figures trend. Winner of two out of three starts on the turf and all green Key Factor attributes Turbo Compressor should be the favorite.

Diamond Dave likes Al Khali who possess positive Key Factors and a positive post position for the Monmouth turf course. Both trainer, Billy Mott, and jockey, Rosie Napravnik, have excelled at today's distance and surface.

Lexington is also a Turbo Compressor fan. Trainer, Todd Pletcher and jockey Joe Bravo have pretty much all green for their Key Factor attributes. They have been winning at 30% and 26% respectively in the last 30 days.

Long Shot Larry usually has to look a lot harder for a long shot but Al Khali's attributes are obvious. A Competitive Speed horse with both a top notch trainer and jockey is more than Larry usually finds. With morning line odds of 15-1, Larry is thrilled. Look for Al Khali to be running late in the race.

Click on the image for an expanded view

Post Position - The Simple Way

I’ve put together a short post this week to demonstrate a simple way to determine the Post Position for a horse. Last week I provided details on how Post Position enters into Track Bias and handicapping, and showed examples on how to get Post Position from the Horsegrader Race Shape screen. Recently, I was reminded that all you need to do to get the Post Position is to hover over the Program Number of the horse on any Horsegrader screen. The following pop-up will appear:

Note that although the Program Number is 4, the Post Position for Knight Train is 3. My trick for getting Post Position for a horse is to hover over the name of the horse so the following pop-up will appear:

Post Position appears in the header along with a ton of useful information including the trainer, jockey, record, etc. Now, wasn't that easy?

Race Shape - Post Position

In the previous post I covered the basics of Horsegrader's Race Shape. This week I'll do a deeper dive on how Post Position enters into Race Shape. Let's Look at a screen snippet that shows how each Running Style statistically performs by Post Position:

Since the pie chart for outside position is 100% blue, we can easily see that only Closers win from an outside Post Position.  This raises the question 'How do I determine the post position for a horse?'.  I use a two-step process by first looking at the Post Position Impact pie chart:

I can see from the Post Position Impact pie chart shows that this course favors the Middle Post Positions with a 54% Win Percentage. Now, I perform step two by looking at the color of the rectangle to the left of each horse. I'll illustrate by showing you the three stalkers in this race since they cover the Inside (positions 1-4), Middle (positions 5-8) and Outside (positions 9+) Post Positions:

Headingtothecity has a Blue rectangle indicating an inside Post Position, Powerful Instinct has a Yellow rectangle indicating a Middle Post Position and Disco On has a Purple rectangle indicating an Outside Post Position.  We now have another piece of information that we can use to make our pick. 

One final note: Program Number is not the same as Post Position.  For example, a horse with a Program Number of 1A could have the 8th Post Position.

Race Shape Basics

In my previous post I recounted my experience at the Belmont Stakes and how I used the Horsegrader Race Shape screen to narrow my picks to Paynter and Union Rags. Not to brag but Union Rags finished first and Paynter was second by 1/2 length. In this post, I'll introduce you to the basics of the Race Shape screen. The best place to start is with a screen shot:

 Click on the image for a larger view

From the screen shot you'll note that the horses are divided into three categories - 1) Front Runners, 2) Stalkers and 3) Closers. In our example we have three Front Runners, three Stalkers and eight Closers. The question I ask is 'Does this course and distance favor a certain running style?'.  Race Shape answers that question. But first, what is the course and distance for our example? Well, just hover over the small triangle to the right of the track name and the following screen snippet will appear:

So, this turf race run on the inner track with a distance of 1 & 1/8 mile.  By looking at the following screen snippet we can easily answer our question:

From the snippet we determine that this course and distance (often referred to as Track Bias) favors Stalkers with a 45% Win Percentage.  Closers are second with a 34% Win Percentage and Front Runners have a hard time cracking the winners' circle with only a 21% Win Percentage. I found that as I increased my handicapping knowledge I almost always check out Race Shape. 

We just scratched the surface today. We'll continue to explore  Race Shape in future posts. In the meantime, let me know if you have any questions.

Belmont Stakes

Thanks to everyone that stopped by the Horsegrader booth this past Saturday at the Belmont.  What a great day and what an exciting day of racing, especially the Belmont Stakes.  So what question do you think that I was asked the most?  Well, it went something like 'Dude, who do you think is going to win the next race?'.  Two guys were adamant that we handicap Race 9 together, so I called up the race in Horsegrader.  We looked at the following Key Factors screen and saw a Lone Speed horse, #7 - Trinniberg, in a Sprint race (7 furlongs for this race):

Click on the screen for a larger image.

I said that could be a good bet, the guys went away and bet and came back with huge smiles and their winning tickets and said 'Who is going to win the 10th race?'. Once again we called up Horsegrader and went to the Key Factors screen:

Well, they saw another Lone Speed horse and off they went to place another bet before I could tell them that it is tougher for a Lone Speed horse, #4 - Desert Blanc, in a Route race (1 1/4 miles for this race).  Well, Desert Blanc came through with the win.

So after their second win they wanted the three of us to handicap the Belmont Stakes.  I took a little different approach since all the Key Factors would be almost all green for every horse since it was a Grade 1 Stakes race.  I brought up the Race Shape screen in Horsegrader:

Looking at the winning percentages and distance (1 1/2 miles) the track bias favored Stalkers (43%).  Looking at the screen we saw two Stalkers - #3 - Union Rags and #9 - Paynter.  If you watched the race you saw that Union Rags won by a neck over Paynter in an exciting stretch run.  The guys didn't return after the race, but I sure hoped that they did a boxed bet with Union Rags and Paynter!

We had a nice little run of wins, and I did tell them that if I could pick the winner of every race then I wouldn't need to be doing this.

We'll dig deeper into the Horsegrader Race Shape screen in a future Blog entry.