The Value of leading at the 1st call on dirt

[The Indomitable DrugS]

In a sample of 201,268 North American dirt races on file ...

A total of 1,470,616 starters failed to make the lead at the 1st call. They yielded an ROI of $1.32 .. meaning if you bet $100 on each one you'd be down over $50 million.

The 201,268 horses who led at the first call yielded an ROI of $3.12. Meaning that if you bet $100 on each of them - you'd be ahead by over $11.27 million dollars.

In terms of win percentage - non-leaders at first call win at 10.0% - leaders at first call win at 28.4%.

Obviously, if anyone gains the ability to place bets a quarter mile into a race - they basically have the ability to print money. They need not know a damn thing about horse racing - just merely betting on the leader will prove very profitable.

I took a teller job when I turned 18 - and - at the time - tellers had the ability to cancel tickets up to about four or five seconds after the race started. I took advantage of this real well at Charles Town in the 4.5f races and at places like Timonioum. Bet the two horses you like most - cancel the one which gets outbroke.

I was always told the employee in the money room had the ability to manually cancel tickets up to 30 seconds after the start of the race - but to my frustration - I couldn't talk my way into letting them allow me to work back there because I was an 18yo who they knew was betting all the time...or even get them to show me how this tote cancel was done.

Anyway, it's not exactly ground breaking stuff that first call leaders - especially when unpressured - have an extreme advantage. Though, reading message boards, you wouldn't always know this.

Today's latest gem is that To Honor And Serve will be a better horse when he rates off the lead. They never are.