Daily strategic MUSTS:
1. Must NOT let any LONGSHOT win without your bet riding on it(at the very least your most hawkish perusal beforehand).
Scour all double-digit ML odds longshots, starting with the largest one first. Classify into one of the following categories:
A. Main contender-- would merit automatic bet in almost all situations...as to be expected, rarely occurs though.
B. Unknown / undeterminable-- merits automatic bet in most situations, as long as you have a safe bet in one other contest race and no other more probable longshot exists.
C. Possible-- is automatic bet again...depending on your required strategy. If out of life preservers, and fairly early in the calendar month, you might require that the other two contest races BOTH have safe choices.
D. Possible but unlikely-- desperation time. Once in a while you may find yourself in a situation where strong / unbeatable favorites rule 2 or 3 of the contest races with no playable longshots in sight. Such a situation would actually make this an automatic bet, even if you have no preservers left. You would have very little to gain by betting 3 favorites(or any single-digit win price entrant for that matter) in one day-- especially because:
2. The bulk of contestants select AND are eliminated by losing favorites-- you want to not be in that crowd when the misfortune occurs and/or a converse situation where say, a bad trip or start allows an unlikely cheap speed longshot to shake loose and bury you deep in the standings. So, determine if consensus ML & Contest favorite(s) is legitimate or vulnerable in order to proceed accordingly. And more important:
3. Is there any sure in the money horse irregardless of odds & chance for the top spot? This type of horse is a much more valuable opportunity(esp. when not too favored), than a mortal win lock favorite. Remember: two other horses will finish in the money and / plus you would hope some calamity befalls the favorite. This doesn't occur that often at Monmouth though-- be careful of trying to beat a strong favorite with a marginal contender(esp. if not even offered at double-digit odds) that might not allow you to survive the contest day unscathed.
Some thoughts on longshots:
A. Longshot bets are particularly powerful when none of the entrants have run before and/or do not figure to "run to the par time of the race"... EVEN when one or two entrants tower over the rest of the field. In such cases the winner is often the horse that feels the best that day(least injured and/or best juiced up), maybe an often far-outrun-early horse that now projects to sit fairly close to today's expected pace, maybe one whose last or best figure that was posted while seriously outrun is within single digit lengths of its contenders today--such a horse was supposedly not pushed to its best effort / has potential to improve more today. And that brings us to THE ONE MOST IMPORTANT & USEFUL HANDICAPPING TENET:
when handicapping a race, do NOT try to find the most likely winner based on the past numbers of the entrants; BUT RATHER on the horse most likely and/or 'potentially' capable of posting a new career monster figure and/or decimating the field by open lengths. The reasons for such an effort can be many-- but if you handicap like that, which is the opposite of the general betting public-- you will win more often AND at larger prices.
B. Try to disregard all bad pacelines where the horse was outrun at all points-- particularly the last part of the race. Even if you have to go back 10-12 pacelines, try to always use the highest-fig running line to handicap the race(barring of course some logical reason that would preclude this) AND manually adjust it for any trip eventualities. For sprinters, search for internal fractions of route races that best all other sprint figs. With young horses coming off extended layoffs and/or adding another year of age, one thing you can do is to manually construct a projected 'robo' paceline utilizing each best internal fraction from among all races.
An also ran finish(even multiple consecutive ones) at longshot odds does not mean a horse could not have run better / is off-form, most connections will not want to needlessly push a horse with little chance for the top two spots... better to wait until another day... at juicy odds to boot.
BTW Luis Carvajal just struck again(Sunday in the 4th race, just like in Saturday's 8th): with another Fuhgedabouit horse. This 1 for 38 @ Monmouth / 0 for 34 on Turf trainer the past few seasons(& under 5% win rate 2008) has now won two consecutive days in a row-- taking advantage of the latest front-running Turf win trend in identical fashion by sending a speedster wire to wire on a clear lead right from the gate.
PS We could not find time to post a detailed analysis for Sunday(we do need to bet to put food on the table, this contest is more like a capricious hobby or unpaid volunteer work) but even better-- we will do so for Wednesday's card in step by step gradual & unhurried fashion: taking you thru everything we do from the day before to the morning of the contest.
Be prepared for the most useful & practical analysis you have ever seen-- in marked contrast to what most public handicappers give out: we handicap & invest exclusively for a living, and that is what we intend to do for YOU, albeit in remote fashion.
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