Breeders Cup on the bounce

No this isnt a conjecture on the "bounce" theory. I think we forget sometimes that a bouncing ball has two cycles, up and down. In essence if there is a bounce there ought to be a bounce back. But enough about bounces, I more or less just distracted myself with the title. The purpose of this post is yet another attempt to isolate value plays on Breeders Cup day.

A few days ago I wrote about finding value with longshots (Bomb squad anatomy) This theory is based on the same premise but attacks the issue from the other side of the coin. Bascially most of the longshots that win on Breeders Cup day are not the same bombs you see winning in the 4th at Charles Town. The BC bombs are usually very good horses who get overlooked because they're facing horses who look even better. One way to identify overlooked quality horses is to look at horses who were favoured in thier last but failed to win. This data reflects the results for the last 10 runnings of the BC only.

The one condition for this angle aside from the horse having to be a losing favourite in thier last is that the horse must be returning to approximately the same type of race. For instance if a horse was favoured in a 6f dirt sprint last out it doesnt really mean anything when he is starting in the BC turf. So the race they failed in has to be the same surface and the same approximate distance (ie sprint/sprint - route/route) as thier BC engagement.

The results are quite encouraging. The cumulative record for those horses is 146-19-15-18. The crowning jewels among those selections are horses like Volponi, Cash Run, Cat Thief and Alphabet Soup. Had one wagered on all of those horses you would have made a $163.80 profit or 56.1% which is rather weighty considering that you've also got a lot of obvious horses such as High Chapparal, Speighstown and Cigar.

Even with results that good I found cause to streamline it further. As many of the horses highlighted are actually favourites in thier BC races they dont exactly offer any value of note. I also wanted to get rid of the horses whose loss in thier last represented a woeful loss of form which was then repeated on BC day.

So add two additional filters. The entrant cannot be the favourite in the BC race, and the entrant had to have run in the money in thier last race prior to the BC. These filters make the angle far better. The cumulative record is now 95-15-11-11 with an ROI of 122.32%.

If one wanted to use the failed favourite angle to identify bona-fide bombs instead of just any horse who isnt favoured the angle has a positive expectancy as well. Restrict the angle to those horses who went off in the Breeders Cup at 20/1 or more and the record is 22-2-3-2 for a 254.55% ROI. You wouldnt win every year with this system. Volponi and Cash Run are the only ones who made it positive but if you like exotic wagers this angle could help highlight such horses as Golden Missile (75/1) Dawsons Legacy (78/1) and Imperial Gesture (53/1).

The bottom line, pay special attention to failed favourites in the Breeders Cup. Many of them bounce back to form at a good price. Even if you only use them underneath, its an excellent guideline for highlighting true value. You can find bad horses at good prices all the time, the real draw of the Breeders Cup is that there are tons of good horses at good prices and this is just another tool to help you find them.