Kentucky Downs 2017 Meet
 

I have been reviewing results charts on brisnet, building par charts for track variants and biases. Having won a smidgeon on Justify recently, I looked into the tracks that host the Triple Crown and then, by extension, the Triple Tiara. This led to trying to identify other major stakes races, which then led to the very brief five day meet at Kentucky Downs.

Out of curiosity about this singular european style, kidney-shaped, turf racetrack, I've been studying this meet a good bit. It's clear that creating par charts and variants is probably a wasted exercise here, as the meet is simply too brief and the sample pool too small - only about 50 races to speak of.

In reviewing the results charts, however, I am seeing some disturbing monetary activity that suggests to me something highly nefarious occurring at these downs. There were numerous examples of horses going off at extremely high odds, as high as 98/1, although that one finished out of the money, last in the field.

The clincher, I think, was Race 5 on Sep 7, 2017. Enough said.

I ran Kentucky Downs through the search engine here and did not find much said about it. So, before I waste any more time on this track, I would like your opinions. Am I seeing what I think I'm seeing? And if so, is this a track I should avoid at all costs?

Thank you :)

Welcome Thythande! In general I have always heard good things about Kentucky Downs as far as management, takeout and full fields. I know some here have visited that track and have reported that they quite enjoyed the boutique racing there.

Regarding that particular race, I'm not sure it's fair to form an opinion about anything nefarious based on a 2 YO Maiden Allowance in September, especially with only a single race history for the winner, albeit one where the horse ran quite poorly. Based on that one race history, and the switch to Turf, it doesn't seem unfair that the public let it off at 45-1 especially with 5 First Timers and plenty of other horses who certainly ran better previously. Possibly the horse had unreported trouble in its debut, or was getting the hang of racing. Plenty of explanations.

Perhaps you could suggest other races won at longer odds where there were more PPs for the runners? We could run it through RDSS to take a look.

Cheers,

Ted

Aw, I think you weren't looking at what I was looking at. The payout for the superfecta was nearly half a million dollars. This was a mathematical impossibility, IMHO, because all of the pools wagered on this race did not add up to this figure. If you can show me how the odds could have achieved this payout, I'd seriously like to learn that.

And, for the record, I don't have RDSS yet. I'm still weighing the various products out there. Whether they charge you up front and daily race cards are a pittance, or they give it to you for free and then charge you an arm and a leg for the race cards, they all look more than I can justify spending at this stage in my handicapping development. I am still working on my own personal templates. Granted, mine lack some significant pieces of information, which I would really like to obtain. Still and all, my templates didn't cost me anything, and are giving me an opportunity to master the basics and the basic math.

Thanks for responding :)

I'll just respond to what's in bold-type.

An example would be: if I bought the only winning ticket for any payout,
and I only bought it for $1 but the published payout is displayed as
a $2 ticket payout, you will see a number larger than the actual pool size;
hence larger than what my ticket was worth.

The Superfecta payouts reported by Brisnet and Equibase are the payouts to $1 so that $493,651 Super payout on a pool size of $61,268 is normalized to $1, or $49,361 for $0.10. Undoubtedly someone or a few had a $0.10 super on the winning combo and won the $49K - nice! (And the Amwager mutuel result - top image - shows the payouts to $2, which can be even more confusing!)


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Ted

Well, it still doesn't make sense to me, especially in light of the paramutuel math I've been reading up today. However, the examples you provided are wonderful and I appreciate them immensely. Thanks :)

Kentucky Downs has been my favorite meet for over 15 years now. Bill V and I used to play it all the time together at the Meadowlands back in the day.

The European style of racing, undulating hills and that uphill beginning long stretch run in addition to very nice prices when you "figure right and hit" :D make it my favorite time of year :)

Thanks for the memory Rich.

Those days at the Meadowlands with the gang, That is the first thing to come to my mind when I saw the title of this thread

Wishing everybody great success as you wager races from Kentucky Downs
and any track you call home.

Thank you Ted for the happy birthday wishes....also wishing you a happy birthday this month....July birthdays are the best....Randy