For a limited time, we are going to be offering free selections on Friday and Saturday at selected tracks. Here are the selections for Saturday, June 8. Click on the link under the desired track.
Arlington
Belmont
Churchill
Gulfstream
Laurel Park
Monmouth
Parx
Santa Anita
Friday, June 7 Selections
Arlington
Belmont
Churchill
Gulfstream
Santa Anita
On Saturday is the last leg of the triple crown, the Belmont Stakes, run at 1 1/2 mi. on the dirt for three-year olds with a purse of $1.5 million. The race features Preakness winner, War of Will, from the Mark Casse barn, Wood Memorial winner and 3rd place finisher in the Kentucky Derby, Tacitus, second place finisher in the Peter Pan, Sir Winston, and Preakness runner-up, Everfast. If people thought that this race would be a cake-walk for War of Will after his Preakness win, they would be mistaken, because the data indicates otherwise. After excluding Joevia from the calculations temporarily because of high variances with the horse’s E1 and E2 figures from two outliers, the race comes down to between War of Will, Sir Winston and Tacitus. War of Will has a slight edge overall because of his best-in-the-field winning percentage at 28.2% with low risk, while Sir Winston and Tacitus have edges in speed, reflected in their final speed estimates of 40.3% and 34%. Sir Winston is an interesting choice, in view of the fact that much of horse’s 101 final speed rating in the last race (the highest among last starts) was due to a high late pace figure of 114, boosting the horse’s late speed estimate to 32.4%. That factors well with the distance of this race at 1 1/2 mi. Along with Sir Winston and Tacitus, Joevia does have a fair amount of speed with a 20% final speed estimate, which is a truer figure than his inflated component estimates. According to this metric, the horse deserves a little respect when he is not getting any from his 30-1 M/L, which compares to his winning percentage of 3.9%. If you run the model and exclude component estimates (0.6 SPD, 0.4 WP), Joevia, ranks ahead of War of Will, though behind Tacitus and Sir Winston. Two other horses with the potential to surprise are Master Fencer, who’s late running ability was on par with Maximum Security’s down the stretch in the Kentucky Derby and Tax, who has shown speed in his previous races despite his poor showing in the Kentucky Derby, which could be excused for the wet track. In sum, the top selections are War of Will, Sir Winston and Tacitus, with Joevia figuring third or fourth.
We have created an update for version 4.0 that has a user setting for alpha for exponential smoothing, which is now set at 0.25. It was not available before because it was an experimental setting in testing, where the results had been positive, though inconclusive. Based on recent race results, we’re more comfortable now using 0.25 as the default for alpha as a change that enhances performance. Any users that have purchased version 4.0 are eligible for the update for free.
As an update to 4.0 users, we tested the 0.25 alpha setting again over the weekend for the exponential model compared to the 0.5 setting at four tracks, specifically, Belmont, Churchill, Gulfstream and Santa Anita, using data for five recent cards at each. The study considered all races, including maidens. The model had positive ROI results with its top selections at Belmont (+15.1), at Gulfstream (+30%), and negative at Santa Anita (-5.5%) and Churchill (-33%). Separately, on Sat., June 1, the program had positive ROI% at Belmont (+2.0%), Gulfstream (+4.0) and Churchill (+25%), while negative at Arlington (-30%).
According to this latest data, it appears that the exponential model does better with the 0.25 alpha setting than at 0.5. For more information on the results, see the bottom of the HW 4.0 Studies page.
The program had two good results worth mentioning at Gulfstream today in the 8th and the 10th. Beginning with the 10th, a $12.5K optional claiming race at 6f on the dirt for three-year olds who had won only one race other than its maiden, #5 Kong Style was the betting favorite from the minute the odds went live, going as low as 1, before settling at 2-1. Yet, the horse was not the favorite in the model, which favored #6 Fortunate Friends at 6-1 followed by #7 Glory of Florida at 6-1 also. This was one instance where the Handicap Wizard and the BPPR were in agreement with their top selections, but was not the live odds favorite. The betting suggested that the public knew something about the current form of Kong Style that was not being reflected in his PP stats. It turned out to be a thrilling race, with Fortunate Friends beating Kong Style by a nose at the wire with the last head bob. The horse paid $14.00 for the win. With that winning selection, the program had a positive ROI for selections at GP on the day.
In the 8th, a $6.5K claiming race at 6.5f on the dirt for three-year old fillies and mares, there was a mind-boggling result of the tri-fecta, which paid $365.20 for a $0.50 wager, where the Handicap Wizard had the top three finishers in its top three selections but with the 1st and the 3rd reversed. The odds of the winning horse was 5-1 for #5 Tuesday Rose, 16-1 for #10 Cotton Tooyah as place and 19-1 for #4 Dancing Noelle as show. The two latter horses had implied winning probabilities from their odds of 6% and 5% and Coefficient of Variance ratios of 20% and 15%, indicating a lot of risk with those selections. Nevertheless, the program was only one combination away from hitting a 730-1 equivalent tri-fecta straight (though it did hit it with a box), which is an astounding result for the accuracy of the algorithm. The WP setting was set at 6 races back instead of 10 back.
Pro-Handicap Analytics 