By Here are the stats from the 9th race at Gulfstream, a $8K claiming race at 7f on the dirt for three-year-olds. The race is a good example of one containing a “false favorite” with #5 Cardon Settlement, who was the program’s first selection at 9-5. When sizing up whether Cardon Settlement is a solid favorite, attention should be paid to its risk, which in this case was very high for the horse with a Coefficient Variance of 45.73%. This makes the horse a toss. The pool did not even account for the higher risk in its pricing of Cardon Settlement. The other horses also had elevated risk, with only three out of the nine horses having Coefficient of Variances below 10%. These elevated risk figures make the race bad and unreliable from a quantitative view. And this is exactly what happened in the race, with Cardon Settlement failing down the stretch as the overvalued underlay. #10 Bold Looker, as a horse that had been away for 184 days and one that had a low Win Percentage at 8%, was the winner at 5-1. Sometimes with the races one has to be careful not to chase bad races with bad horses (it was only a $8K claiming race) and wait for the next right spot.
Pro-Handicap Analytics 