Paceline Selection Strategies

[Ted Craven]

Here's an example race to illustrate alternate paceline selection strategies, and also to highlight FWIW one I am programming now and experimenting using in by betting practice.

This is Belmont Sept 30, race 5 (today). Following are 2 BL screenshots for Analysis, followed by Original and Primary Factors screens for each horse. For me, the object of this exercise is to highlight issues involved in a consistent line selection strategy and perhaps the strengths and weaknesses of each.

To me, line selection is just one step in race analysis and certainly not the last one. FWIW (and not the subject of this thread), my own rough order of attack is:

-studying the race conditions
-identify the mix of visual running styles E,s EP, P, S to check for lone Earlies or lone Lates and followed by eliminating non-contenders down to a bout 5 horses)
-select pacelines (including check if an alternate paceline also ranks the horse similar, e.g. multiple lines in Top 3 BL)
-eliminate non-contenders down to about 5 horses (I don't play tri or super bets currently and the Win and Place horse show up in my Top 5 a lot)
-check any models I may have
-note whether the top ranked BLs are 'suspicious' (e.g. based on an old race, different surface/distance)
-check the real-time odds (I really like it when my 2 horses are in the top 4 Win odds, even more if also in Top 4 Tote Xray ranks)
-make a bet if there is one (95% of the time 2 horses, else 1 low odds horse to Win or Win/Place on a higher odds horse)
-record the race result in my daily track betting sheet / note my emotional response to both a Win and Loss
-add the result to my overall betting log

That said, whether this line selection which follows leads to a Win or a Loss in this race is relatively immaterial to its functionality: I expect to lose 4 or 5 of every 10 races (though I don't prefer to) - I just don't know which ones I'm going to Win


Note: the card was canceled, so the examples are irrelevant. I'll put up something else soon