By The Handicap Wizard is not as much a horse selection program as it is a probabilistic model and a system of thought about horse racing. There is no one right answer all the time, because the variables are always changing. What works in one race may not in another. But there are universal truths that remain constant. One is that speed in its various forms wins races and the other is that classier horses win more than non-winning horses. Sometimes the classier horses do not have final speed figures that measure up against other horses, because they only went fast enough to win their races and not faster, even though they are capable of a faster speed. When these horses win, they generally do so at higher than average odds. This was the case again today in race 9 at Gulfstream, a $50K Allowance race run on the turf at 1 mi for four-years and upwards. In terms of the field of nine horses, the race did not have a clear favorite. The lowest odds were 3-1 with County Court. County Court had the 2nd highest final speed estimate by the model at 27%, but its E1 and LP figures rated low against other horses. In Too Much Data, on the other hand, you have a horse with the highest winning percentage adjusted for stakes at almost 20%, equating to fair value odds of 4-1. The horse also showed strength in the E1+LP metric, though its final speed estimate was low. What was also favorable about the horse is its risk or Coefficient of Variance of 2%. So besides being the classiest horse, Too Much Data had the lowest risk in winning the most. It didn’t hurt either that Irad Ortiz, Jr. was the rider! These factors made for a good setup and the horse was getting at least fair value odds at 7-2. It took the whole race to find out, but Too Much Data delivered in the end, thanks to a burst of speed halfway down the stretch, to edge out long-shot, Valycove, at 17-1. Too Much Data paid $9.00 for the win.
Pro-Handicap Analytics 