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                                      WHEN IS A CLASS DROP
                                                    SIGNIFICANT
                                                                
                                                    By: Ed Bain

Talk to any handicapper about a claiming race and they will always mention the horse that is dropping in class. They will bet this horse if he is a favorite, attributing the drop in class as the reason the horse has an advantage.

A class dropper is only a good bet when you know what trainer can make the drop and win. The best type of class drop is when it is performed with another trainer move, for example: A 1^st After a claim plus a class drop.

Michael Gill has a very successful mortgage business in New Hampshire; it supplies him with the funds to be the most prolific claiming owner in the racing game. He tells his trainers which horses to claim then instructs them to drop them in price, so he can get the win. Most owners claim horses and try and show a profit winning purses. Gill is not concerned with making money that way. His goal is to win an Eclipse award as the owner who made history by winning the most races.

It is improbable that he will attain his goals because he cannot get past his bad reputation; In 1995, when Gill took out a trainer's license, he was suspended three years by the New Hampshire Parimutuel Commission for the finding of injectable drugs and hypodermic needles in his barn. He has a callous approach to racing and is intensely disliked for his treatment of the horses he claims.

Gill is getting out of racing because his questionable past will never allow him the recognition of a great owner and an Eclipse award. 

Mike Mitchell, a trainer from Southern California, makes me laugh with his class droppers because he is so good at it. Mike likes to claim, then drop his horse to get a score from both the purse and the mutuel window; then on 2^nd After a Claim, drop the horse 2 class levels and win again, usually losing  the horse to a claim. That is called making money in the claiming game. Mitchell is a born again Christian and says, “God tells me what horses to claim.”

Horses dropping 1 or 2 class levels are not as common as handicappers believe and because of the drop it is guaranteed the 1^st After a Claim dropper will be over bet.

It is three times more likely a trainer will claim a horse and then raise him 1 or 2 class levels to try and score than to claim a horse and drop him for the score.

Horses making a 2 level class drop on 1^st After a Claim went to post 2,525 times and won with 604 for a 24% win rate; the average win mutuel is $6.98 and the $2 ROI is $1.67.

There were 2,542 trainers who claimed and then raced their horse up 2 claim levels and produced 462 wins for an 18% win rate and an average win mutuel of $10.79 and an ROI of $1.97.

Combined claimed horse moving up happened 14,024 times which is 24% of the 58,146 horses that were 1^st After a Claim Up 1 or 2 class levels, 313 won which is 25% of the 9,209 winners.

The difference in horses moving up and down in class is, the ones moving down 1 or 2 claim levels have a higher win percentage than horses moving up, but they lose more money. Players will always look for and over bet on the class drop. Trainers moving horses up are trying to score for there owners.  They win less than the droppers but they have a higher win mutuel and they are closer to being profitable.

Players don’t put much importance on the horse moving up and therefore under bet them. The win mutuels tell us how the public perceives class rises. Up 2 claim levels is a surprise in that it is only 3 cents from break even from 2,542 runners.

The best approach to betting class drops or class rises is to know what trainers use it as a training technique to produce a win.
  
William Spawr from Southern California has claimed 115 sprinters and won with 42 for a 36% win rate. From those 115 sprinters 9 moved down 1 claim level and 7 won for a 77% hit rate. The average win mutuel is $7.80 the ROI is $6.06.

Steve Asmussen who races in the Mid-South and Mid-West has claimed 153 Routers and won with 51 for a 33% win rate. From those he moved 24 up 2 Claim Levels and won with 12 for a 50% hit rate with an average win mutuel of $7.38 and a ROI of $3.69.

                                                   Morning Line/Actual
                                                   From the June 2004 Issue               
                                                   By: Ed Bain

         The American way of paying out for a winner is calculated on two dollar bets. The reason for this two-dollar sum is to make us to bet more into the win, place or show pools. The result is confusion when trying to determine the payout on two dollars and it is even greater when trying to establish real value to odds. As an example, 1/1 or even money means you win two dollars; but you receive four dollars back on this odds level because the two-dollar cost of the bet is added back in. Odds are the frequency of the out come. We do not express odds on their chance of winning which for even money is 50%. 1/1 wins 50 times out of a hundred. Multiply 50 times four dollars and it is two hundred. When you bet 1/1 one hundred times, 1/1 will break even. All odds levels designate break even.
          The way the payout of the investment is expressed in the Daily Racing Form is on one dollar. There are two sets of odds in play on every race. The first is the Morning Line where the line maker tries to guess who the crowd is going to bet. The second is the actual odds or the horse the crowd actually bets. It is like a Tennis match; they both play with the same ball, but one places it better and the one that places it better will have a larger win percentage. These facts contribute a great deal to understanding but hardly anything to practical play.
          The line maker will not commit to a large number of low odds horses where the crowd will commit on nearly every race. Every odds level produces  a payout but there is no hit rate on how each odds level performs on either the line maker, the crowd or on their ability to predict winners, yet we trust them to be accurate. Without this knowledge, it is impossible to determine who is a better handicapper, the line maker or the crowd.
                    Most players assume the lower the odds, the higher the win percentage. The payouts on two-dollar bets have a range of prices paid for each bet. As an example, 1/1 or even money can pay between $4.00 and $4.20 and can be unprofitable on the low end and profitable on the upper end. The actual win rate for each odds level can be higher or lower than the known win rate which contributes to its’ profitability.
          A good number of players assume Stakes Races are more formful than other class levels; I tracked this information in the program access and saw the morning line does have a slight advantage because of the way odds are made. By tracking the line maker, I saw they set lines at 6/1 or lower and they do not set odds at 7/1, 9/1, or 15/1, but the odds level jumps to 20/1. The actual odds from the crowd will have odds at every level.
          To find out if there is an advantage to betting the morning line, I separated all the Stakes races with 4+30s by each odds level. I then highlighted in bold which odds were performing better than their morning line  and which odds level produced a positive Return On Investment (ROI).
          The first category was very interesting when comparing morning line to actual. The 4+30 morning line had seven odds levels that produced higher than their percentages:
          2/5 has a 71% win rate, had 2 races with 2 wins. 

1/1 or even money have a 50% win rate, had 22 races with 14 wins for a 63% win rate.

          6/5 wins at a 52% hit rate but 6/5 is break even at 45%.

          7/5 also won at a 52% clip but when 7/5 is converted to a percentage it is 42%.

          3/2 has a 50% hit rate but when 3/2 is converted to a percentage it is 40%.

2/1 has a 34% strike rate but when 2/1 is converted to odds it has a 33% hit rate.

          12/1 shows up at 8%, higher than the 7% hit rate for 12/1 when converted to odds.
          All of these morning line odds level out performed their assigned percentage.
          Actual odds had two that performed higher than their assigned percentage:

           2/5 actual has an 80% hit rate where 2/5 needs 71%.

          15/1 produced a 10% win rate yet when 15/1 is converted to odds it is 6%.
          When I compared the morning line to actual, the morning line beat the crowd seven to two on the percentage.
          When I compared the morning line to actual and the ROI, the morning line produced four odds levels that had a positive ROI; 2/5, 1/1, 3/2 and 12/1 although two are not worth betting because of the small number of races.
          With actual odds, six are profitable if all were bet on a ROI basis. Actual out performed the Morning Line six to four on an ROI basis.
          The only way to bet percentages and ROI is if they are together. Bet when the morning line or when the actual odds have a hit rate that is higher than the converted percentage and have a positive ROI.
          For the Actual odds there are two, 2/5 and 15/1. For the Morning Line there are four, 2/5, 1/1, 3/2 and 12/1. There is nothing wrong with betting any odds level separate from each other or together.
          Morning line or actual odds are statistics and they can be used to make money betting on the horses. The difficulty of statistics is in acquiring them and then deciding on a way to apply them. To assume a lower odds level wins more and is a better bet can kill a bankroll.