Knowing when to “Throw out” or ignore the results of a race when looking at the past history of a horse is critical to finding long shots. I recently made the mistake of including a bad race result for a horse and it caused me to overlook a longshot winner in my pick 4. I had the winners of the other three races but ignored a horse that recently had one bad race. In fact, everyone had overlooked this horse because the final odds were 33/1.
I ran the numbers again without the one bad race and the horse’s stats improved noticeably. I tried using the three best races and the numbers improved again. There were still two better horses in the race according to the speed figures. But if I only look at the best three races, I will need to do that for every horse in the race to be fair. The problem is, if I look back too far, it doesn’t really reflect the current condition of the horse.
I decided to use the speed figure to determine when to throw out the results of a race. If the speed figure is 20 or more below their average, I can assume that the horse had a bad race. I’ve seen horses run their best and still finish last in a race that was above their typical class level. Throwing out of race is something you hear experienced handicappers talk about. It is a skill that can make or break you as a horse player. If all of the horses were running their best race every time, picking winners would be easy.