Anothertwistafate

[ScottJ]

Originally Posted by moses

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

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

Originally Posted by Dahoss

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?

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.