That was a puzzling result today in the Sam F. Davis with #5 No More Time getting the win at 3-1?? It’s quite remarkable that a horse who had only a maiden win until this point was able to best this field of eleven, including three horses that had won graded stakes races. No More Time had hardly anything statistically to show before for the win with a winning percentage adjusted for stakes of just 4.7% (19-1 equivalent). On the other hand, #6 Agate Road finishing second was more believable because of his class (16.4% winning percentage was the highest in the field) even though most of the horse’s wins had come on the turf previously and not on dirt. The race illustrates that sometimes even with the best modelling random walk occasionally does happen, even in the big races with horses you would think would be reliable with their performance based on past performance. The riskiness of the race is evident in the elevated average CV ratio of the field, which was 9.57%. Eight of the twelve horses had CV values of 9% or higher. In high dollar graded stakes races with mature horses, that average risk indicator is lower, meaning the horses are more predictable quantitatively. Two variables that the handicapper always needs to be mindful when handicapping is data integrity (the amount of data present) and risk or the CV values of the horses.
Pro-Handicap Analytics 