[For The Lead]

In all probability, this will not be a real popular topic, but I'm putting it up here anyway. The idea is for this to be educational, so here it goes.

In general, the Sartin Methodology dismisses maiden races, but should you?

I'm aware that most people avoid maidens like the plague. But why? Some of the best plays I find come in maidens races.
Like any other type of race, you have to understand the race that you have in front of you.
Now I’m not suggesting that you bet a maiden race that is full of first time starters, however, first time starters don’t win that large of a percentage of maiden races, so as long as there is just a couple of them I don’t mind. I can just throw them out.

The other thing to take note of is, the number of lifetime races a maiden has. A maiden that continues to run without winning, learns to lose! Many times these types of maidens are the ones that are bet down to favoritism because they show good running lines, having run second and third several times.

Also, I’m not a fan of maidens scheduled to run on the turf. In fact, I definitely avoid those races. Actually, I prefer sprint races, but sometimes routes will do just fine.

Finally, in general, if you are looking for the best speed ratings and best third fractions, perhaps maidens are the wrong place to look.

Looking at 2 consecutive years of maiden races, both maiden special weight and maiden claiming that consisted of more than 22,000 races, the following were my findings:

About 52% of maiden races were won by the horse that was running 1st or 2nd at the first call.
About 63% of maiden races were won by the horse that was running 1st or 2nd at the second call.

Maidens, especially young maidens, haven’t learned how to run yet. Many of them don’t take kindly to rating. They just want to come out of the gate and run as fast and as far as they can. So the statistics bear this out. What you should be looking for is the horse that is the fastest early. Many times this horse establishes a lead and just goes on with it.

When it comes to line selection, unless a maiden won and got disqualified, you obviously don’t have winning lines to choose from. Therefore you are left with lines where the horse may have run 2nd or 3rd. You also have to consider lines where the horse was running 1st or 2nd at the first call, even if it fades from there. My line selection procedure in maiden races is no different than any other type of race.

I looked at the maiden races from the last couple of days at the tracks I like to follow. There were 10 of them. Three of these races did not produce the winner from among my contenders. Some of the winning races had only 2 contenders. Some of them had short prices such as $6 or $7, but then there were others that make it all worthwhile, just like in any other type of race.

The following posts will show the screen shots from the various races. I will also offer some commentary.