Yesterday's results certainly showed the sometimes wild divergences between the morning line odds and the actual odds. Ruff's winning pick of Hollywood Talent was 20-1 in the ML and yet went off at an eye popping 108-1! Amazingly, he was not the longest shot in this 9 horse field - the last two runners both were 170-1 and ran like it.
I happened to make a no-brainer win pick of Jackie's Warrior in the next race. Jackie was 4-5 in the ML but was crushed to about 1-20 in the win pool - may have been even less than that but they don't go any lower.
I have to wonder whether either of us would have made the plays that we did if we were looking at the infield tote with two minutes to post. I probably would have said that Jackie was by far the most likely winner but an insane bet at those odds and either passed the race or looked to a bet other than win. I just don't know what a bettor would do when seeing a horse that they had considered at 20-1 on the board at 99-1. Would that horseplayer have run to the windows and gotten the bet down or said at those odds there must be a reason why they are so high and looked elsewhere. Interesting to consider.
|