First Saturday in May

This weekend Churchill Downs opens Pool #1 (of four separate pools) of their parimutual Kentucky Derby future wager, with wagering open for three days from Friday, November 28th to Sunday, November 30th for this pool. Someone out there will now be saying: "That's nuts; this is November fer Crissakes." Well, yeah. Of course it is. They're still two year old juveniles. Many of those listed won't end up anywhere near this thing for many individual reasons, in most years the most probable outcome is that the race is won by "none of the above" (the always short-priced "field" wager), by a horse nobody is thinking of at this point, possibly even a colt that has not yet seen any starting gate. So? Are you saying "nuts" is a bad thing in this game? House-banked non-parimutual fixed-odds future wagering on the Derby has been available for about a month now from several major Las Vegas books.

Below are the Pool #1 wagering interests, with the betting number for the pool, Churchill's "morning-line" oddsmaker's guesstimate of probable odds to a dollar, the colt's name, and my calculation of average winning distance from the colt's pedigree based on weighting the AWD of the progeny of the sire x 2 and the sire of the dam x 1. I find this consistently useful both for projecting ability to get the distance and also for their probability of continued improvement as they mature over the next six months. I consider 7.0 furlongs to be the minimum cutoff of potential suitability for this. Anything from 7.3 up is excellent for both distance proclivity and a long continued development curve, while anything below about 6.8 should carry strawberry jam if he ends up in the gate for that race, because the poor beast is most likely gonna be toast in mid-stretch no matter how flashy and fast he was in some earlier and shorter preps to get there. I hope some of those do get there, and take a lot of money, as usual.

1 12 American Pharoah 7.0
2 20 Blofeld 6.2
3 20 Calculator 6.4
4 20 Carpe Diem 7.9
5 50 Classy Class 6.1
6 20 Competitive Edge 6.3
7 20 Daredevil 7.1
8 50 Dortmund 7.0
9 50 Eagle 7.1
10 50 El Kabeir 7.1
11 50 Frosted 7.5
12 50 I Spent It 6.4
13 50 Imperia 7.3
14 30 Lord Nelson 7.5
15 50 Lucky Player 6.7
16 30 Mr. Z 7.0
17 20 Ocho Ocho Ocho 7.3
18 50 Ostrolenka 7.0
19 50 Punctuate 7.0
20 15 Texas Red 8.1
21 30 The Great War 7.4
22 50 Unblunted 6.3
23 20 Upstart 6.9
24 3/5 All Others (Field)

I gave this thread an esoteric name because I really don't know what I might be expecting of it, maybe it will become a general thread for a variety of differing opinions and observations on the crop coming up this year, maybe it will devolve into only a sporadic blog of sorts, or maybe none of that, and I don't think the existence of this thread should prevent anyone from creating any others that might have "Derby" or "Triple-Crown" more explicitly in the title as this season's colts move along.

Most years the field has been the bet in Pool 1, which tells you all you need to know about 2 YO performance . That said, if you can find a winner out of this group, there is money to be made.

I usually make money on this bet, and I'm hoping to do so again.

It is lame that they limit it to 24 betting interests. They surely have the technology to expand this. If they had 150-200 I might throw a few bucks down on some names I like for grins.

A couple of the Las Vegas books had well over 100 betting interests listed, with several pages of named colts quoting fixed odds that went well into triple digits for most of them. As we get closer I'd expect more books to open their own house-banked future wagers and usually keep them available (with line movements depending on when you got your ticket of course) at least until we get to the final Pool #4 from Churchill. If someone is in town and is looking for that I'd suggest trying "Westgate" (formerly named "LVH" and formerly "Hilton" before that), or the Wynn, in that order, for the earliest and longest menu of this kind of future wager, as well as on the Kentucky Oaks.

Twas the night before Pool #1, and all through the house, 179 Derby fixed-odds future wager creatures were stirring on the William Hill app & their Nevada brick & mortar sportsbooks & kiosks, none of them named Mouse. For comparison to Churchill's pari-mutual future wager here are their current top (low odds) wagering interests. There are 25 of them that are in double digits, but the list differs quite a bit from those wagering interests that made the CD Pool #1:

15/1 American Pharoah
30/1 Blofeld
75/1 Bold Conquest*
65/1 Calculator
25/1 Carpe Diem
50/1 Classy Class
30/1 Competitive Edge
50/1 Cozmic One*
30/1 Daredevil
30/1 Dortmund
80/1 El Kabeir
50/1 First Down
60/1 Frosted
80/1 Golden Actor*
80/1 Imperia
60/1 Lord Nelson
75/1 Lucky Player
80/1 Mr. Jordan*
35/1 Ocho Ocho Ocho
80/1 Prime Engine*
75/1 Punctuate
75/1 Savoy Stomp*
60/1 Souper Colossal*
25/1 Texas Red
50/1 Upstart

Starred [*] names indicate those that are not in the Churchill Downs pool that opens tomorrow, except as part of the field as a wager on "all others."

In addition to these Wm. Hill is quoting odds for another 154 more Derby future wagering interests at odds ranging from 100/1 to 200/1, for a total of 179 betting interests available. They have quite a few currently priced at 150/1 or 175/1, and 200/1 is most common, but they are not quoting anything at odds higher than that.

EDIT to add: Here are the weighted AWD calculations I have from my database for the pedigrees of those [*] colts above that have been taking enough action in the Wm. Hill future book that they are in double digit odds territory from them, but were not part of the CD Pool #1 Derby future wager list that was in the thread starter post:

Bold Conquest 7.0
Cozmic One 7.6
Golden Actor 7.8
Mr. Jordan 6.8
Prime Engine 6.9
Savoy Stomp 7.7
Souper Colossal 7.6

Quote: FinsRule

I usually make money on this bet, and I'm hoping to do so again.

How so???

Quote: speedycrap

How so???

When the well dries up, I'll let you know how I was doing it. Hope things stay like they were last year.

I love the horses and the K. Derby. I find it challenging to keep up with all the recent news about horses on the "Trail" to the Derby.

IMO, C. Diem looks the value in this first pool (before it opens). At anything near 20-1, I will certainly entertain a wager on him in this very early pool (only the second year for it). I might even consider an exacta wager including him.

The Jockey Club Stakes @Churchill and the Remsen @Aqueduct are run this Saturday, and the winners (or runner ups) will probably take some action in this first pool.

I wish I had more time to keep up with day to day racing. It can be helpful to find trends out there. For instance, I would love to know how Keeneland runners (on the new dirt tack) have performed on the Churchill Downs dirt track recently.

Not a lot in Churchill's future wager pool today; with wagering this thin $100 would blow away the number on the board for some of them. But I'd expect most of the wagering to occur after the relevant Saturday stakes races that Keeneone mentioned, since of course in this pari-mutual pool the potential payout for any wager will be for the final closing odds as of the moment wagering in this pool ends. In the past I've found the existence of both a win pool and a separate pari-mutual exacta future pool interesting. And I prefer to leave it at that without going into more detail about what can sometimes get interesting about that circumstance.

Live odds tote board: http://www.brisnet.com/cgi-bin/totedb/tracks.cgi

Track Race Post 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
KY Derby Future 9 37 57 10 82 34 40 17 55 92 35 49 39 50 84 24 18 55 66 9 37 99 34 6/5
Win Pool $23,008 1845 490 327 1682 226 541 459 1047 338 203 520 377 471 367 221 759 977 337 281 1737 488 146 542 8627

The formatting comes out screwy in copying this, so you'll have to line up the columns on your own to read it.

EDIT: Corrected link to Brisnet's live odds toteboard. Doesn't work as a direct link; you have to go through their main page, then select "KY Derby Future" from the track list on their "SuperTote" page for their broadcast of streaming real-time wagering pools, and log-in. Looks like DRF Tote isn't putting it on their menu.

Here is another link to the 1st Pool with no log-in required:
http://www.kentuckyderby.com/racing-wagering/future-wager/future-wager-pool-1-final-odds

Quote: Keeneone

Here is another link to the 1st Pool with no log-in required:
http://www.kentuckyderby.com/racing-wagering/future-wager/future-wager-pool-1-final-odds

Thanks, that's much more useful for this purpose.

The card at Churchill today is a juvenile fest. They are raining two year olds all day. I would mot be surprised if some apparently obscure race on the undercard ended up being seen a few months from now as an early "key race" on the way to the Derby.

The field bet is 8/5 currently. That is like you are being given free money. I'd say fair odds are 1/2. I think it's playable at 3/5 or better.

Someone just made a $10,000 field bet. It's down to 3/5.

Quote: DrawingDead

The card at Churchill today is a juvenile fest. They are raining two year olds all day. I would mot be surprised if some apparently obscure race on the undercard ended up being seen a few months from now as an early "key race" on the way to the Derby.

Dortmund (Baffert) is getting some play in Pool #1, after a very nice performance at a mile today.

I watched the Remsen/Jockey Club and have numerous thoughts on those races, but I keep coming back to betting on this first pool. The question I find myself asking: Is the Derby winner listed as one of the first 23 in Pool #1?

There is not much time to decide the answer before the 1st Pool closes at 6pm (EST) Sunday. I am leaning towards an exacta at this time....

The buzz in the Las Vegas books now suddenly is all about Dortmund, not about the stakes races or any other colts. And I am not interested in betting him at this time.

Nobody in Nevada can bet into or accept wagers on Pool #1 of the CD pari-mutual future wager. Briefly for the moment, and being as totally objective, dispassionate, and evenhanded as possible about about the dispute causing this: It is because the executive suite of Churchill Downs, Inc. is currently infested by mentally deficient scum sucking cockroaches who urgently need to be disemboweled, hanged, shot, and burned at the stake.

I have however wagered on several prospects in the local casino's fixed odds future books. And I have a peculiar tale to tell about doing so on one of them from one book.

More later.

Dortmund sounds like a Derbyish name. Maybe they confuse and associate the horse with the beer Dortmunder Gold from Great Lakes brewery. I'm not in depth on horses, but Imperia also seems branded with one of those names to me too which I would have been tempted to bet blindly along with Dortmund and Blofeld.

Quote: FinsRule

When the well dries up, I'll let you know how I was doing it. Hope things stay like they were last year.

You mean????

The Jockey Club was run faster than the Iroquois, but with Lord Nelson's funny step at the start, the shape of race changed. I feel El Kabeir's win actually flatters some of the New York raced runners Daredevil/Upstart and then the horses who competed well against Daredevil/Upstart @ the BCup (Texas Red/Carpe Diem). I would give a pass to Lord Nelson due to his start and I also liked how Eagle ran and galloped out.

The Remsen was a bit of a merry-go-round and was a bit slow (actually slower than the fillies @ the same distance). Only horse that caught my eye was Keen Ice. He closed into a slowish pace, on a speed favoring track, and galloped out very nice past the finish.

One issue in betting Keen Ice for the Derby is his running style, he is closer. He comes from off the pace and has good late running ability. He has a similar running style to Texas Red at this point. So if you like Texas Red, you may give Keen Ice a look (at better odds). Closers in the Derby usually have to deal with major traffic issues.

I now have three colts parked in my personal Derby future book stable, and one of them turned out the lights and pulled the plug. More about closing the joint in a moment. I usually end up with about six future book tickets (or more accurately a multiplicity of tickets on about six betting interests) in the range of 30:1 to 100:1, with half of them making it to the race.

After the storm & freeze that came through this week AQU was a very "dull' surface producing slow times on Saturday, and even making allowance for that the Remsen did end in a relatively slow final time compared to others, such as being 0.2 slower than the 11-1/2 length rail-runaway winner in the fillies preceding it. It was a speed favoring surface, but related to that, all day long it was a particularly extreme version of the "golden rail" condition that AQU is sometimes known for. If you were not hugging the rail or within about four or five feet of it along the inside, you were alternately swimming in tar and skating in gravel. The only way to cross the line first was to gun out of the gate and grab that rail. Swinging out to the middle of the track to overtake something that was running on the rail was impossible, bordering on a suicide mission.

In chasing 3 to 4 wide under the conditions to just miss getting by the beneficiary of the rail-skimming win, I thought Frosted ran a very good race, more so than it might seem from the low speed rating the race will get, and I now have a high-payout fixed-odds future book position on him.



I also liked Imperia's race at CD, getting up to take the KY Jockey Club after moving from turf to his first dirt start, and I took a smaller future wager position on him as well. I'll insert a video replay of that here also, when I have one available that can be embedded on the site.

Dortmund got his resticted first-level allowance race that was run right before the KJC stakes the old fashioned way: he inherited it. The race fell apart in front of him in a suicidal pace melt-down. The pacesetter spit out the bit to finish up the track in 8th and the 2nd pace-presser tossed it in to stagger home in 9th, after scorching a half in 46.0 and three-quarters in 1:10.9, and it is amazing that those 2 year-olds actually finished at all. The final two fractional splits in Dortmund's allowance race were 12.4 and 12.6. Earlier on the card a short field of six 2 y/o fillies ran their first level restricted allowance at that distance with final splits of 12.4 and 12.7, after a cushy soft pace. Something significant to bear in mind is that it was a one-turn mile at CD, technically considered a "route" race because it is 8f, but not really, when they only have to negotiate one turn. Blah, I am not impressed. I have Dortmund's pedigree at an AWD of 6.8f. It could be figured lower than that, but due to Big Brown still being a relatively new sire with limited data on his foals racing to date, I reduce the weighting of his progeny and give him some benefit of a little more stamina from his grandsire Boundary at 7.1f, helping a little with his sprint/middle-distance producing damsire at 6.8f. So, after stretching the data just a little to his benefit, we can get it to just over 6.8f altogether. Or, using an alternate method of calculation and weighting, I got his pedigree AWD at up to the 7.0f I posted earlier. Either way: Ehhhh. He's possible, just barely, if he really gets everything his own way on the day, but him getting 10f about 5+ months hence is not the sort of thing I'd really care to bet on with my very own money.

I also got in a wager on Carpe Diem via the William Hill Nevada sportsbetting app at fixed odds that are about three times the current payout showing on him in the CD Pool. And when I did so they shut it down. The whole thing. Confirmation of my wager was strangely delayed for a few minutes, and the moment it was booked they instantly took down their entire Derby future book, and there are no longer any horse related futures of any kind from William Hill available to anyone. I guess I accidentally woke somebody up in the back room of a Wm. Hill shack. Hope y'all enjoyed your little nappy time over there, and don't forget to put the Worchestershire sauce in your breakfast glass, it helps. Now, if I do happen to cash that sucker I will be pleased, but I will also tell you that it is not for such a magnificent sum that it would result in me purchasing the Mirage volcano and the Bellagio fountains to have them moved to my back yard. I found that little secondary side-effect of my wager, um, rather surprising.

So I made my other future wagers in old-school fashion, across a counter inside brick and mortar joints lit up with neon signs and florid carpet patterns, purchased with folding green portraits of dead presidents from a human wearing a nametag & punching out a ticket with his stubby little fingers. I thought it was mildly interesting that each required separate supervisor approval, which was quickly given within about three seconds. And they did not put the lights out and lock the door behind me as I left.

With Pool #1 done, I see the field wager closing at 3:5. My initial thought is that's not a bad price for "all others" in this pool, even though it was 4:5 in the same pool last year. I also see the handle listed at a total of about $184k. I wonder how much they may have lost from that due to not contracting with Nevada books to participate in it. The handle on last year's Pool #1, also in late November, was about $275k. Still a pretty modest amount in the context of the eventual total wagering volume for this event.

3-5 is a good price. If only one horse from this pool makes it in the gate again, it'll be down to 1-2 next year.

Quote: DrawingDead

With Pool #1 done, I see the field wager closing at 3:5.

It looks like the break is 17.5%, which means the field bet pays 3.30 (rounded down from 3.377).

I think it pays $3.20, not $3.30.

I made a mistake in comparing the volume of wagering in this pool. Last year's $273k & change was the combined handle including the sum of both the win wagers and exacta wagering. This year's combined handle was just over $232k after including about $48k in exacta bets. So still a decline of more than 15%, but not the much bigger drop implied by what I posted above, which mistakenly compared this year's win pool wagering to last year's combined figure.

Pool #2 of Chuchill's pari-mutual Derby future wager will be open over the first full weekend of February, on Friday the 6th through Sunday the 8th.

@Drawing Dead, nice to hear you got a decent wager down on Carpe Diem. I truly believe he should be the Derby favorite at this moment. I was considering (and recommending to anyone who would ask) a Carpe Diem w/ the Field exacta box (maybe $10-20 dollars). Ultimately I chose not to bet this pool when I noticed the exacta pool really get hit on anything including the "Field". I am a little surprised the Field + Texas Red is the lowest paying exacta @ $32.60.

Here is a question: What is the over/under on the number of horses that will make the starting gate on May 2 from this first pool?

We have about 3 weeks till the next meaningful prep @ Los Alamitos. This break will allow time to get in a few future bets if the odds look promising.

Hmmm, I've started to see a few related props around, including the sheet I have in front of me from a place that looks like a giant UPS headquarters:

Quote: Mr. Wynn's joint

The 2015 Kentucky Derby Winner will debut (run their first race) in which month?

The co-favorites for that are currently Sept. '14 & Oct. '14 tied at 3/1, apparently bet down from 4/1 & 9/2 after the prop opened with July '14 favored, and the betting market on that seems to put significant probability on a Derby winner debut as late as December before the lines start to go parabolic. But I don't know of a specific line on the Pool #1 starter number. I'm gonna take an off the cuff stab at an opinion which I think will probably be a higher number than consensus, and is definitely higher than "one" from the only prior Pool #1 that was open this early. I think my opinion of fair value on that, rather than trying to balance wagering interest as someone running a book would do, would be a line of o/u 3.5 of the 23 named Pool #1 wagering interests this year. You are invited to come back to quote this to ridicule it in about 152 days and change.

I am disappointed that I could not do anything in the exacta pool, because Churchill did not execute a contract with Nevada books for it. I've found significant wagering anomalies in it before with some major overlays and underlays from inconsistencies between it and the straight win pool, and was seeing some of the same again this time. If I have to drive to California that weekend to get down on it in Pool #2 it is gonna be time to take up a collection for the employment of some no-neck people to perform the service of going to see some guys about a thing.

Might as well come clean on my bet. Last year it was much more lucrative, and this year I think the market corrected itself. I made a $10 Field / ALL exacta bet. The bet cost $230. If the average horse completes the exacta, I'll get between 6/5 & 7/5 on my money.

Last year, one horse from Pool 1 (Ride on Curlin), made the Derby field. The exacta paid about 100-1. This year, the prices all dropped substantially.

November/December is simply way too early to pick a Derby winner. I know I haven't been following horse racing as long as most people on here, but when was the last time a 2yo progressed to a classic distance 3yo? With that in mind, I'm going to hope that none of the individual horses turn into anything, and only 2-3 make the derby gate and I get better than 3-5 on my money.

I'm not sure what you meant.

Quote: FinsRule

but when was the last time a 2yo progressed to a classic distance 3yo?

All Derby winners since 1882 have raced as 2 year olds. I don't attach any great significance to that, as some do, and I do expect to probably see one that didn't come to the track until 3, but it hasn't happened yet in this century or the last.

If what you meant is that fast 2 y/o form is not a reliable indicator of continued later development and ability at longer distances, and that maturing racehorses tend to be overvalued in the wagering market from the success they had as juveniles, then I totally agree. The very things that result in a fast precocious colt that wins shorter races sooner also tend to indicate that they are less likely than others to improve with added distance and maturity. Most horses are not Secretariat or Seattle Slew.

But all 4 year olds were 3, all 3 year olds were 2, and so far, for about a hundred and thirty years, all 3 y/o winners at a mile and a quarter at on the first Saturday in May began racing at 2. Many did not win at 2, some did not begin until relatively late in their 2 y/o season, but they've started their racing career as juveniles.

I think the "field" generally should be the clear favorite now that CD has begun having their Derby Pool #1 this early. But on that we do have a rather limited sample size of one data point, since last year was the first time they did that.

first Tuesday in December.

I like elcinino in the 4th at parx.

Sorry my point was not clear, you clarified it for me.

The future pool is made up of two year old stakes placers and winners, and those types don't seem to transfer to the Derby.

Quote: FinsRule

I think it pays $3.20, not $3.30.

Apparently, going by the numbers in the final pool results, the break is 18%, so the unrounded return on a $2 bet is $3.3566, which would round down to $3.30 - but apparently, $1 bets are allowed (why else would all of the $2 payouts be multiples of 20 cents?), so prices are rounded to the next dime per dollar bet; the return on a $1 bet $1.67, rounded down to $1.60, and a $2 bet returns twice that, or $3.20.

I completely agree with that as a general proposition. With that said, it depends. A recent contrary example of some of what it depends on comes from Shared Belief, who won two graded stakes as a juvenile in the Grade 3 Hollywood Prevue Stakes and the Grade 1 Cash Call Futurity, before he had to miss the Derby due to injury. He's obviously developed well and been able to get a distance of ground, and being trained by Jerry Hollendorfer has something to do with that. The trainer matters, and trainers that do some things well are not equally proficient at all things.

If a Shug McGaughey colt shows up to run well at two, my ears prick up and my tail swishes, I really take notice of that, and want to be very attentive to following his progress. If Bob Baffert has just brought a fast two year-old first-out maiden winner to the paddock, I think Baffert has another fast two year-old, and tomorrow is Tuesday.

"Breakage" (the term in the racing business for rounding) in Kentucky is always to $0.20. In some other jurisdictions, most notably New York, it is "dime breakage" [EDIT: "nickel breakage"] so you will get mutual payouts there like $3.30 or $29.70, but not in Kentucky.

$2 is the minimum for any wager, but you can get to $2 in varied ways. The exacta in this pool can involve combinations in $1 increments, so a three horse $1 exacta "box" would involve six different possible orders of finish, on a $6 ticket. Some lottery-ticket style multi-race/multi-horse ultra-exotics in some places can involve increments as little as $0.10, but the total ticket with all the combinations must be at least $2. Hope I clarified instead of adding confusion.

Quote: DrawingDead

"Breakage" (the term in the racing business for rounding) in Kentucky is always to $0.20. In some other jurisdictions, most notably New York, it is "dime breakage" so you will get mutual payouts there like $3.30 or $29.70, but not in Kentucky.

$2 is the minimum for any wager, but you can get to $2 in varied ways. The exacta in this pool can involve combinations in $1 increments, so a three horse $1 exacta "box" would involve six different possible orders of finish, on a $6 ticket. Some lottery-ticket style multi-race/multi-horse ultra-exotics in some places can involve increments as little as $0.10, but the total ticket with all the combinations must be at least $2. Hope I clarified instead of adding confusion.

Makes sense to me. California is another dime breakage state - at least it was the last time I paid attention.

Also, I discovered that there is one exception to the "20-cent rule" in Kentucky; the payout on a $2 bet for an overwhelming favorite can be $2.10.

I messed up the terminology. "Dime breakage" would be $3.20, and $3.30 would be referred to as "nickel breakage." Seems counter intuitive to me, but that's how they're called.

Quote: ThatDonGuy

Makes sense to me. California is another dime breakage state - at least it was the last time I paid attention.

Also, I discovered that there is one exception to the "20-cent rule" in Kentucky; the payout on a $2 bet for an overwhelming favorite can be $2.10.

California breakage is to $0.20 now. But you'd still get paid more, because their takeout (vig or hold) is a lot lower. But now everybody is lower than Churchill, after they jacked it up earlier this year.

The $2.10 exception you discovered involves something called a "minus-pool." The track generally loses some money on them, depending on wager type. They usually do not occur in the "win" pool. It is when so much of the wagering pool is on that betting interest that it would return nearly nothing and in most of them the normal takeout would actually result in losing money on a winning ticket, say for simplicity of illustration if the win pool was $100 and $98 of it was bet on Tony Soprano's Uncle, and a 15% takeout would leave only $85 to distribute. $2.10 to a $2.00 wager is the minimum that any winning ticket must always pay in most jurisdictions, with only a few exceptions where the minimum is $2.20. Some extreme minus pools can sometimes create, in some rare situations which I prefer not to describe in great detail, a situation in the "show" pool in which it is actually possible to make wagers covering every possible outcome with an absolute mathematical certainty of making a small (percentage wise) profit, due to the way payouts are distributed among three "show" horses. And then there are people who simply dump an enormous sum into a pool, usually to show, because they believe Tony Soprano's Uncle "can't lose." Watching a track tote board it is easy to see those hit the pool, when someone bets, say, $200,000 into a pool that had $5,000 in it a moment ago. Those are commonly known as "bridge jumpers" for reasons I think you can deduce.

Quote: FinsRule

Sorry my point was not clear, you clarified it for me.

The future pool is made up of two year old stakes placers and winners, and those types don't seem to transfer to the Derby.

I also generally agree with this, especially horses with a large number of races as a 2 yr old (5+ races). There were a number of lightly raced 2 yr olds is this first pool and this fact IMO added some value to those horses. There are other examples from the first pool, but I will point out a few....

Races run as a 2 yr old (to this point) examples:
Dortmund 2
American Pharoah 3
Carpe Diem 3
Daredevil 3
Upstart 3
----------
The opposite examples:
Texas Red 5
Mr. Z 6
The Great War 8

Quote: DrawingDead

I completely agree with that as a general proposition. With that said, it depends. A recent contrary example of some of what it depends on comes from Shared Belief, who won two graded stakes as a juvenile in the Grade 3 Hollywood Prevue Stakes and the Grade 1 Cash Call Futurity, before he had to miss the Derby due to injury. He's obviously developed well and been able to get a distance of ground, and being trained by Jerry Hollendorfer has something to do with that. The trainer matters, and trainers that do some things well are not equally proficient at all things.

If a Shug McGaughey colt shows up to run well at two, my ears prick up and my tail swishes, I really take notice of that, and want to be very attentive to following his progress. If Bob Baffert has just brought a fast two year-old first-out maiden winner to the paddock, I think Baffert has another fast two year-old, and tomorrow is Tuesday.

I agree about both trainers. I also really like Shug with long distance (think 1 1/2 mile) turf runners.

Following along the discussion about running as a 2 yr old vs 3 yr old, it is only a matter of time for this long running streak to end. Baffert did recently have Bodemiester in 2012. An unraced 2 yr old, that ran great races in the Derby/Preakness while running 2nd in both.

Post CD Pool #1, William Hill now has their fixed odds Derby futures back up, so apparently Bill Hill is no longer afraid that DrawingDead will eat his lunch. They now have lines for 182 betting interests (no "field" wager) and these are the 23 that are currently priced under 100:1, listed below with their quoted odds to $1 as of about 10pm Pacific time today, Thursday 12/4:

15 American Pharoah
30 Blofeld
75 Bold Conquest
65 Calculator
20 Carpe Diem
75 Classy Class
30 Competitive Edge
50 Cozmic One
30 Daredevil
10 Dortmund
40 Frosted
80 Golden Actor
40 Imperia
80 Leave The Light On
60 Lord Nelson
60 Mr. Jordan
35 Ocho Ocho Ocho
80 Prime Engine
75 Punctuate
75 Savoy Stomp
60 Souper Colossal
20 Texas Red
50 Upstart

They obviously had a shipload of action on Dortmund.

Quote: DrawingDead

And then there are people who simply dump an enormous sum into a pool, usually to show, because they believe Tony Soprano's Uncle "can't lose." Watching a track tote board it is easy to see those hit the pool, when someone bets, say, $200,000 into a pool that had $5,000 in it a moment ago. Those are commonly known as "bridge jumpers" for reasons I think you can deduce.

This also causes a situation I have heard called "up for show" (does this have a more common name?), where a horse pays more to show than it does to place - and I have seen cases where a horse paid more to show than to win - because somebody heavily backed a horse to show and it finished out of the money.

Oh, and does anybody have any idea when California switched from 10-cent to 20-cent breakage? I'll admit, it has been a few years since I've been to a track...

Quote: ThatDonGuy

...where a horse pays more to show than it does to place - and I have seen cases where a horse paid more to show than to win - because...

Since the pools for different wager types are independently calculated, even if they are not in reality independent events, there are a variety of ways for that to occur.

Quote: Wikepedia on Secretariat & 1973 Belmont Stakes

Only four horses competed against Secretariat for the June 9, 1973, running of the 105th Belmont Stakes, including Sham, who had finished second in both the Derby and Preakness, along with three other horses thought to have little chance by the bettors: Twice A Prince, My Gallant, and Private Smiles. With so few horses in the race, and with Secretariat expected to win, no "show" bets were taken. Secretariat was sent off as a 1–10 favorite to win as a $2.20 payout on a $2 ticket and paid at 20 cents more – $2.40 – to place.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretariat_(horse)

Quote: ThatDonGuy

Oh, and does anybody have any idea when California...

The California tracks have been paying in $0.20 increments for a long time. I don't recall exactly how long, but I just took a look at result charts from a day at Santa Anita in 1991, which is as far as the Equibase archive goes, to confirm that everything was to $0.20 then. But you could go to a California track right now and buy a ticket that gets a payoff to $0.10 increments if you are wagering on simulcast races from Aqueduct in New York or Woodbine in Canada, or you might see those results displayed at California tracks for their interstate simulcast bettors.

EDIT to add: It occurs to me now what I think you were probably looking at when you've seen payouts rounded to $0.10 rather than $0.20 at California tracks. Here's a result chart for the 1st race at Los Alamitos today:

http://www.equibase.com/static/chart/pdf/LA120514USA1.pdf

About midway down the page where the payouts are listed, you'll see the "$1 Exacta (3-5)" paying "$31.90" That is because it is half of the $2 bet which is the basis on which the breakage is calculated. Does that mean someone can bet only a single dollar on an exacta? No, not really. It was technically the payout for half a wager, and it can only be done on a ticket that includes more than one of those partial wagers. It is done for bets that involve selecting multiple horses and/or multiple races.

This particular multi-horse wager at this track (and many others) can be made in $1 increments for each combination but the minimum for the ticket is $2. So, you could've gone to the window and said "Los Al, 1st race, $1 exacta, key the #3 with #1, #2, #4, #5, and #6, please" and the mutual clerk would've said "that'll be $5, Sir" while punching out your ticket because in this 8 horse field you were betting on 5 possible outcomes in the first two finish positions, with a single selection to win and any of 5 others running 2nd. The payout for a straight $2 wager was actually $63.80, but with multi-horse and multi-race "exotic" wagers the payouts are sometimes displayed for this kind of fractional wager amount instead of for the full $2, for convenience, because people who bet exotics a lot commonly tie up a lot of combinations on their ticket at those fractional amounts, much more so that people stepping up to the window for a straightforward "$2 exacta, three-five."

This gets extreme when someone is chasing a lottery jackpot style payday on something like the "pick-6" which requires having the winners of six consecutive races on your ticket. Assume fields of 10 in each of 6 races, take 10 to the 6th power, and you can see the potential to spend a few bucks trying to cover the possibilities. But the payout is technically to $2 before it is sliced up this way for fractional wagers in exotics regardless of any lower minimum the track may permit for each combination on tickets that include multiple potential outcomes. Hope all that was more help than Santa Monica fog.

With Hollywood Park (and their nice turf course) gone, and the real Gulfstream not really cranked up yet, the next several weeks of the racing calendar until December 27th is pretty much just trash for me. So I have too much time on my hands, and the discussion here provoked me to take another look back at where the last decade of Derby winners came from. Some of it surprised me a little.

Of the last ten Derby winners, four were graded stakes winners at two, six were at least two year-old graded stakes placed, and eight won or placed in stakes of some level at two when minor ungraded or restricted events are included. The stakes wins and placings at two were in the late season events of October, November, and December such as the Hollywood Futurity and Kentucky Jockey Club, rather than at tracks with major early 2 y/o graded stakes events such as Saratoga. The average number of starts at two among these Derby winners was 3.8, but this number is inflated by two apparent outliers who each had seven 2 y/o starts. Those two shared a peculiarity: They both had done their significant racing as two year-olds on Polytrack, rather than conventional dirt. All the others were at four 2 y/o starts and below, equally distributed between 1 and 4 starts at two. Of the ten, only one had a pedigree that was unsuited to ten furlongs, none were marginally qualified for the distance by the AWD standards I use, and 9 of 10 were clearly very well qualified by this metric for staying 10f or more.

Looking at their race records and the timing, if Churchill's Pool #1 field had existed on the last weekend of November for all of them, at least four, probably five, and perhaps as many as six would've been named as individual betting interests in it, in my opinion. If the most recent ten years was taken as predictive of this year's crop, that would imply about a 50% chance that the Derby winner was a named betting interest in the CD Pool #1 that closed ten days ago, and about a 50% probability that the "field" bet in that pool is a winner. That is not what I expected.

All of this should be taken with about 2.87 grains of salt, of course, because as a once a year event the most recent ten Derby winners provide a very limited sample size that could be misleading.

50/50 chance of the winner coming out of the first pool is surprising. Of course we only have a real sample size of 1 (last year) for this new early future wager. Thanks for the post.

Which recent Derby winner was "unsuited" for 10 furlongs based on your AWD standards? I could guess but none come to mind. Maybe this runner won during one of the wet Derby races?

Quote: Keeneone

Which recent Derby winner was "unsuited" for 10 furlongs based on your AWD standards? I could guess but none come to mind. Maybe this runner won during one of the wet Derby races?

California Chrome. The other nine were all very well suited for getting the distance, based on using a weighted [(2*a)+(1*b)]/3=x calculation of the AWD of the progeny of their sire (a) & damsire (b). Chrome was also one of the two "outliers" that had 7 starts as a 2 y/o (six of them on Polytrack) while winning a couple of minor juvenile stakes sprints restricted to Cal breds, including the last one ever held at Hollywood Park, which was carded specially for commemorating the occasion of closing the track a few days before Christmas last year.

Quote: DrawingDead

The California tracks have been paying in $0.20 increments for a long time. I don't recall exactly how long, but I just took a look at result charts from a day at Santa Anita in 1991, which is as far as the Equibase archive goes, to confirm that everything was to $0.20 then. But you could go to a California track right now and buy a ticket that gets a payoff to $0.10 increments if you are wagering on simulcast races from Aqueduct in New York or Woodbine in Canada, or you might see those results displayed at California tracks for their interstate simulcast bettors.

EDIT to add: It occurs to me now what I think you were probably looking at when you've seen payouts rounded to $0.10 rather than $0.20 at California tracks. Here's a result chart for the 1st race at Los Alamitos today:

About midway down the page where the payouts are listed, you'll see the "$1 Exacta (3-5)" paying "$31.90" That is because it is half of the $2 bet which is the basis on which the breakage is calculated. Does that mean someone can bet only a single dollar on an exacta? No, not really. It was technically the payout for half a wager, and it can only be done on a ticket that includes more than one of those partial wagers. It is done for bets that involve selecting multiple horses and/or multiple races.

I was thinking of a race I saw at a California track (I can't remember if it was Golden Gate Fields or Sonoma County Fairgrounds in Santa Rosa) where I saw a horse pay $5.70 to win (for a $2 bet) - I remember this because somebody had asked immediately after the race ended what it would pay, and I worked out an estimate in my head that turned out to be right. Then again, this was almost certainly back around 1985.

I was involved in the game before 1985, but I'm afraid your memory is better than mine. Wouldn't surprise me if it did change sometime between then and the 90s, but I don't know and don't have records readily at hand that go back to that time. It also may not have been a redefinition of breakage, but instead the difference could have been the result of an administrative change in what is considered the minimum full wager, which could even have been specific to a track or race meet at the time. Here's the "breakage" definition used in the California statutes that govern racing in that State:

Quote: State of California "BUSINESS AND PROFESSIONS CODE SECTION 19400-19419.9"

19405. "Breakage" means the odd cents by which the amount payable
on each dollar wagered exceeds a multiple of ten cents ($0.10).

EDIT: For clarity, that then becomes $0.20 payout increments because it is calculated on a minimum wager of $2, which is then applied to whatever the actual wager amount was.

There was a lot of variation in lines on the future wager from books offering Derby fixed odds betting before and well into the wagering in pari-mutual Pool #1 from Churchill, as you may have noticed from a few earlier posts on future book lines in this thread. Now, post Pool #1 during this slack time for the most significant tracks & the dearth of races for potential top class juvenile prospects at the end of the year, the lines have undergone quite a bit of convergence. I'm finding most have moved to settle within about 10%-15% of one another from one future book to another, unlike several weeks ago.

Among the Las Vegas books Wynn has by far the most extensive list of lines available on named Derby betting interests that I've seen. They've "hung lines" on a total of 327 of them, if I've counted correctly, with fixed odds ranging up to as high as 400/1. Among those not listed below the biggest chunk is in the range of 200><300. Here are their current (as of Saturday morning 12/13) Derby lines for those that have drawn enough early interest that they are under 100/1, listed with their odds to a dollar:

$L Name
11 American Pharoah
30 Blofeld
75 Bold Conquest
85 Bronze Star
50 Calculator
20 Carpe Diem
65 Conquest Bigluck E
50 Cozmic One
75 Curlino
40 Daredevil
15 Dortmund
60 Eagle
40 El Kabeir
35 Frosted
85 I Spent It
30 Imperia
60 Indianaughty
50 Jess's Dream
50 Leave The Light On
65 Mawthooq
65 Mr. Jordan
65 Mr.Z
40 Ocho Ocho Ocho
40 Punctuate
16 Texas Red
75 The Great War
85 Toasting Master
35 Upstart

Those that have been moved off a previous double digit number from Wynn, listed with their current, now higher, odds (followed by the opening number):

$LN Name ... (Old)

100 Hashtag Bourbon (60)
125 Lord Nelson (85)
150 Lucky Player (60)
100 Savoy Stomp (75)

Quote: ThatDonGuy

...<SNIP>...the payout on a $2 bet for an overwhelming favorite can be $2.10.

Quote: DrawingDead

...<SNIP>...a situation in the "show" pool in which it is actually possible to make wagers covering every possible outcome with an absolute mathematical certainty of making a small (percentage wise) profit, due to the way payouts are distributed among three "show" horses...<SNIP>...

It just so happens that one of these not very common situations I referred to (amounting to more than an ordinary common "minus pool" with a $2.10 payout) occurred on Saturday, in the 4th race at Fair Grounds (the track in New Orleans) in the Louisiana Champions Day Classic Stakes.

There were only five horses entered in this event. Here was the distribution of money in the final wagering pools for it:

#1 Win: 21% Place: 10% Show: 01.5%
#2 Win: 04% Place: 03% Show: 00.7%
#3 Win: 10% Place: 07% Show: 01.4%
#4 Win: 63% Place: 78% Show: 95.9%
#5 Win: 02% Place: 02% Show: 00.6%

The actual payouts (to $2) for win, place, and show wagers:

#4: $2.60 $2.10 $2.10
#1: $0.00 $2.60 $2.20
#2: $0.00 $0.00 $3.20

And if you'd like to dive a lot further into just how that circumstance would allow one to absolutely guarantee the total mathematical certainty of a profit regardless of any outcome of the race, and exactly how one would go about wagering to do that, I'll have to leave you to your own devices for figuring that out, because getting too explicit could have some consequences at some venues.

Now leaving that aside, just for fun imagine you were one of those "bridge jumpers" mentioned earlier (NOT someone doing what is referred to in the first part of this post) and you'd just plunked down a few hundred Gs into the show pool straight up on #4 Sunbean in order to make five cents on the dollar because he "can't miss." And then watch the race through this link to a replay video of it, including claims of foul involving all of the first three asking to have the stewards disqualify runners and change the order of finish:

http://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing/race/USA/FG/2014/12/13/4/louisiana-champions-day-classic-s

And if you are that aforementioned bridge jumper with an outstanding short-term loan to a fellow known as "Vinny the Razor" you will now need to be requesting a diaper, for the second time in less than five minutes, after having wet yourself yet again.

One down. Of course there will inevitably be more eliminated between here and there for other than competitive reasons.

Quote: Mike Welsch @Daily Racing Form

Top prospect Mr. Jordan out indefinitely with ligament injury

The Kentucky Derby dreams of Mr. Jordan and his connections were dashed earlier this week after the undefeated 2-year-old injured a check ligament during a workout at Gulfstream Park West.

http://www.drf.com/news/preview/top-prospect-mr-jordan-out-indefinitely-ligament-injury

The Los Alamitos Futurity will be run Saturday @ ~3:45pm PST.

Dortmund and Mr Z from Pool 1 are both entered for the 2 turn 1 1/16 mile race with 3 other horses. Bench Warrant, Firing Line, and No Problem complete the field. Bench Warrant/Firing Line have been listed on the Wynn Future, but I do not have a current one with odds. I have not looked closely at the race yet, but Dortmund should be the heavy favorite out of his last race.