Morning Line

[dean smith]

I may have exaggerated just how exact final odds end up to morning line odds, but it just seems to me that if a horse is 20/1 in the ML, he's going to wind up somewhere in that range at post time, if he's 8/1 he's going to wind up in that 6/1-10/1 third or fourth choice grouping, etc. If you are truly seeing all sorts of 20/1s going off at 4/5, then I'd have to ask you what color the sky is in your world.

Just kidding. You know you're the man. But don't you think the morning line affects your personal handicapping? I think it does mine. Isn't that what we come to a lot of our decisions by? I find myself more willing to give a 20/1 ML the brush in a Pick 3 or 4 for instance, where I might give a 4/1 ML a second look if I didn't like him the first time just because he's 4/1 and I want to find out what I'm missing.

Maybe I'm way out in left field and the whole world is laughing at me, but that's my theory which is based on nothing more than my comparitively limited observation: The ML has a lot to do with how the final odds shake out, and if the ML did not exist, final odds may be radically different.