Anothertwistafate
 

I see he’s running at Emerald Downs in the Longacres Mile and listed with an 8/5 morning line. Does he have a chance to lose? There is no way we can get 8/5 on him, right?

First start in 16 months. He can obviously win but I’m not sure he’s the kind of 8/5 shot you want to bet.

I’m betting a few bucks on Take Charge Deputy

I’m going to see what the odds are but his works look fine and he seriously outclasses this bunch. Main competition may be Five Star General. You might be right to look for a longshot closer though.

Returns in the pink.

I’d rather bet coin flips than that track

He went off at 6/5. I honestly thought he would be more like 3/5 or even 2/5.

Owner has been dying to win the Mile. Tired of finishing 2nd so he brought up his big gun. Had to be ready off those works. Exacta a gift $12 for 2 horses that towered over field. Pays $4.40 to win when 7/5 in the Lexington vs Owendale last year.

Kept waiting for the late drop in odds.. Bet over $500,000 in the race . Wonder if that was a record.

Too bad had only a few flakes of powder left in the account after that Bush horse ran all over our multis in the last race at the Spa on Monday.

This is a good opportunity for a discussion I hope. I get that he won, but long term is that the kind of horse you want to be betting at 6/5?

There might be instances where a 6/5 horse might seem like value based on what he’s running against....but I’m curious what people think. Is 6/5 off a 16 month layoff value?

Off topic....I’m not sure who runs Emerald but I can’t help think that they would’ve handled much more on the race if it wasn’t run at 11:30 on the east coast on a Thursday night.

You may be right. That may be why I was so terrible at my "best bets" for Saratoga. Too many horses at short odds with question marks. In this case, I just thought Anothertwistafate really stood out from this field and would win even with an 80% effort. And the workouts looked good so I wasn't worried about the layoff.

I didn't end up betting him at 6/5 but (redboard alert) did bet a double the race before - 5,7 / 4 - which ended up paying $12.80 for $1. If I had whiffed on the first half of the double, I may have taken the 6/5 odds to try to get my money back(which longterm, is probably a terrible way to play. I used to have some really bad days at the track when I tried to do stuff like this.)

Based on the double and pick 3 will pays, I didn't think the drop in odds was coming. I don't recall exactly but I think the double was around $17 if the 2 won and it was almost $13 for Anothertwistafate and something like $12-to-$8 for the Pick 3.

Emerald has been running Wed & Thurs to take advantage of not going vs the big boys. I don't have the numbers but I am pretty sure there handle is up significantly for the year.

You are absolutely correct. 6/5 on a layoff horse is not good value even if he lays over the field as in this case. You can make the argument that he should have been 1/2 so 6/5 is good value, but so many things can go wrong in a race that you can't make a profit in the long run betting odds on horses.

One of the worst bets on the weekend was the Mott's firster at the Spa who was touted all over the track after his sparkling works vs the trainer's norm. Bet to 3/5 like he was the steal of the century and everyone piling in to take advantage of the free money. Of course he didn't get out of the gate but that's irrelevant for this discussion. Even if he had romped he wasn't a good bet. There were too many unknowns for him to worth that price. If he really was that good,you could always get a chance to bet him at those odds his next start.

We’ve talked before about the best bet exercise. It’s difficult as I know you had other winners that for whatever reason you didn’t like as much as your best bet.

I totally agree with you guys that he was a total standout. I just get scared by layoffs like that. Either way, good to have another older horse back.

That’s interesting. I’d be curious about the handle numbers.

I’m glad you brought up the Mott firster. You’re right there were so many tips on that horse. He beat the Mott firster that won the day before by like 20 lengths when they worked together. He either needed one or isn’t much horse. Depending on the field I’d be interested in playing against him. Of course I bet the runner up that day.

Yea everyone made a big deal about beating that horse by 20 in the workout. However when Maggie interviewed Mott he said he tried blinkers on that horse and when he took them off she worked in 47 next time. So it wasn't a really fair comparison but most firing on the World Beater didn't know that.

EMD, the track, was bought by the Muckleshoot tribe about 5 years ago, the tribe owned the land for about the last 20 years
From Equibase - handle for Mile day this year - $2,265,152 - 11 races
handle last years Mile day - $2,231,933 - 10 races (Sunday)
I have nothing official, Wednesday cards seems to have higher handle with the 2:15 pm local post, partly riding coat tails of Saratoga and others
Thursday, with the 5 pm local post, seems to have reduced handle

In the beginning of the meet, there was talk of adjusting to weekend racing, so i guess they're happy with the handle

The key point here is that by your expectation 6/5 was value.

The key point here is that your expectation 6/5 was not value.

The difference between these two cases is that I would have changed Dahoss's question to the following : Is 6/5 off a 16 month layoff value when you expect his odds to have been X? The layoff is what created an idea of what this horse's odds should have been, perhaps 2-1, but the time off itself is not the reason to say this horse was not value.

Value is your assessment of the horses actual chances of winning versus the odds being quoted. Let me give you two examples.

On September 3rd, there was a three horse off the turf event at Saratoga in the ninth race. Foxtail, the only dirt horse, raced against two lifetime turfers who were asked to stay in the race. Foxtail won by a pole and paid $2.90 to win. My expectation was that this horse should have been 1/5 or less in that spot. $2.90 was incredible value despite being a very low price.

The very next day at Saratoga, Myhartbelongstodady was a 12-1 morning line horse in a relatively short field and wound up going off at 3/2. My expectation was that this horse would have been at least 4/1. Therefore, despite winning, I would never have had this horse since it was extremely bad value despite being the hot-horse on the tote. The $5.00 win price was much higher than Foxtail, but represented terrible value.

I was not following Saratoga that day. Was this common knowledge?

Here was the chart from the September 3rd race.

https://www.equibase.com/premium/cha...20&cy=USA&rn=9

The mismatch was discussed on the broadcast. Not sure what common knowledge would mean beyond that.

What I meant was, was it publicly known that the other two runners were “asked to stay in the race”?