Top 8 jocks win 80% of races

[gestalt]

This stat is hard to overlook, has held up for years. Rider appears to be a most important part of trainers winning effort. What do you think?

[vintonotb]

I have a friend of mine who looks at trainer and very little at jockeies ............... most of the time he could care less .........................

[ken]

How many of those 8 are bugs? often it may tell much about decent jockeys who get along well with trainers and do not go on losing streaks?

[Jerfi]

Well... hmmm... to quote one old timer from 30 years ago, on this issue, "I"ve never seen a horse ride a jockey .... it's the other way around. A bad jock can make a good horse lose, but a superior jock cannot make a bad horse win."

To me, this is like saying that 1/3 of favorites win across the country. It's a truism... but what can you do with it? If you bet only favorites, all the time, you will get back $1.85 for each $2 bet .... and that's the road to ruin.

If you toss out all the odds-on favorites, and just bet the rest, your winning percentage suddenly drops to around 25% ... and if you throw out every favorite less than 2/1 your hits drop to about 16%.

Same with Jockeys. So, why not bet just the top jocks at each track... which is a readily available statistic? You will be an overall loser, because so many times, you would be betting 6 to 8 horses in the same race, and that type of dutching, while it may provide you with wins 80% of the time, will still not prevail.

There are even jock/trainer combos that DO produce a flat bet profit ... for disciplined bettors who may be content to bet only a half dozen bets a week. And that is where bettors usually fall down.

Action! We want action! We bet this horse because it 'may' win, rather than waiting for one we 'know' should win. A huge difference! :)

[ken]

You can bet using any statistic you want, but you still have to find the overlays in individual races because underlays are a loser by definition and in the USA lays are not legal to bet!!

[Jerfi]

The problem I have with overlays is "which one to bet?!" In point of fact, I suppose that almost ALL favorites are underlays ... which means that most of the rest of the field are overlays! :)

I'm sure there are those who do well in selecting the right ones... but I've not become adept at that.

There are just so very many factors in determining which horse is going to win, TODAY! :)

[Jerfi]

Ken: Are underlays legal to bet, anywhere in the world?

I assume you mean to select a horse and bet that he does NOT win, and get paid a few cents on the dollar when he does not.

In effect one CAN do that, though, by structuring his bet on the rest of the horses.

Example: a race with 5 entrants

A: IS 2/5 OR 65% OF THE POOL
B: IS 4/1 OR 16% OF THE POOL
C: IS 6/1 OR 10% OF THE POOL
D: IS 14/1 OR 5% OF THE POOL
E: IS 20/1 OR 4% OF THE POOL

Just bet the percentages in terms of $$

Bet $16 on b payoff $80
bet $10 on c payoff $70
bet $5 on d payoff $75
bet $4 on e payoff $84

So, your total in is $40 and your payback is an avg of about $80.

How's that for an underlay bet, when you are getting even money that horse a will NOT win ... when a winning ticket pays only $2.80 if he does win?

In any race where the odds on favorite is 2/5 or less, the underlay figures to be about 1/1 ( even money ) on the lay.

If you are really brave, you can save a few more $$ by handicapping some of the long shots out ....

[ken]

Overlay= any runner whose Morning Line (or considered separately, toteboard) odds or other listed payoff is longer than their % probabilty of succeeding.
Underlay= any runner whose odds are shorter than the % probability of succeeding at that type of bet.
laying a horse= to bet that the horse will not win the race. Not legal in the USA.______
Example: a race with 5 entrants

A: IS 2/5 OR 65% OF THE POOL
B: IS 4/1 OR 16% OF THE POOL
C: IS 6/1 OR 10% OF THE POOL
D: IS 14/1 OR 5% OF THE POOL
E: IS 20/1 OR 4% OF THE POOL
Pool is either total bet including the takeout and breakage, or tote odds, which takes into account those 2 things.
Your tote odds add up to 100% of payoff, which is correct; total pool and Morning Line odds add up to about 125% to allow for takeout and breakage.
A is 5 wins in 7 tries, which is 71%; B is 1 win in 5 tries, 20%; C is 1 win in 7 tries, 14%; D is 1 win in 15 tries, 7%; E is 1 win in 21 tries, 5%. Total 107%.
If only A, B, C, and E were racing the % would be about right.
Since the tote board shows payoff win odds, any horse that is 1-1(50%) to win on the tote is 1-1(50%) to lose if you bet all other horses.
The bigger the payoff, the less the breakage. If you have breakage of 10 cents or average track ripoff of 5 cents, your $2.80 would have been about $2.85 before breakage. Breakage cost you about 6% profit. A $7.00 payoff ($5.00 profit) 5 cents breakage takes away onmly 1% of your profit.

[ken]

Example=
If 10 runners, andyou have a horse whose tote odds at 2 minutes to post (and the odds do not change after that) is 1-2, and another horse has odds of 2-1, that adds up to 3 wins in 6 chances, or 1-1 or 50% of the tote pool.
That automatically means that the total odds on all 8 other horses is 1-1.
If the race is a cheap, muddy claimer and the 2 favorites are on outside posts and closers in a sprint, I knopw the 8 horses I consider overlays!
(last year Proud Accolade went off at 1-5 tote odds in an 11-horse race in the mud at Keeneland with a NY jockey, Bailey. The winner paid $78.00!)

[Trifecta Dan]

A lot of good points. I think each track needs to be evaluated on its own when looking at Jockeys. At some tracks like Monmouth and Churchill a couple of jocks really dominate, I would be no more likely to play a jock 8th in the standings than one who was 25th, without great odds that is. At NY with the deep colony, a rider down in the standing can be expected to give a good ride.

[ken]

At my home circuit, Northern Ca, and I believe at most circuits, you may want to look at certain jockeys who are best at certain situations; Baze is the bigshot, Gonzales the gateboy, Warren was the turf guy, Rollins knows the track conditions well, Martinez is the hot bug. Of course there may be more than one who is best at certain things.