Looking back over the weekend

Horse owner Sunil Jhangiani (left) leading in Blue Danube (NG McCullagh up) along with brother Dilip & trainer Pesi Shroff, after winning the Bahrain Trophy on Saturday, April 18 at Mahalaxmi

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After reading the Saturday column, a friend called up to ask what was the point in tipping horses that were hot favourites. 

First, when I posted on Friday evening, I didn’t have any idea about the market odds. However, it is a fact that a major share of the FINOO list ("Follow-In-Next-Outing-Only") horses will generally be either first or second favourites. 

The reason is very basic. Most of them have figured in place in last outing, so they are likely to be among the fancied horses this time. Personally, you can impose an odds restriction on the price to qualify as a bet, like most followers of the FINOO list put even money as minimum price for any horse to qualify as a bet. However, I have my own doubts if that is the wise thing to do. The FINOO list approach is still in its infancy, and it will not be prudent to comment on this until some evidence stacks up either way.

Another so-called drawback of the FINOO approach is it calls for great patience and discipline. You skip more bets than you play. Some may even think it's boring. 

Yes, there will be too little betting action, but is that really such a bad thing as long as it enables you to earn a long term profit? Think about it.

And then this approach is basically for people who are seeking profits, not entertainment. God knows betting on horses is the most expensive form of 'buying' entertainment. Thousands of bankrupts will take the stand to testify this truth.

In fact, some very good handicappers are unable to beat this game for only one reason—they engage in too much of betting action for their own good. As everyone who has ever played the horses knows, one of surest ways to lose money in racing is to bet in every race. 

Now, coming to a more important question: Can we hope to show long term profit (something that has eluded even the best handicapping brains in this sport) with such horses? The answer to that question could be yes, IF & ONLY IF you have a reasonably high strike rate with them. That’s a BIG if, but FINOO list horses, I have been recently observing with interest, fulfill this most difficult condition with remarkable ease. 

So while a lower strike rate (35%) and higher average odds (5 to 2) on winners could be one possible way to try and get the required ROI (Return On Ivestment), a better, easier, time-saving and a less stressful way to accomplish the same objective might be betting on the horses on the “Follow-In-Next-Outing-Only” list, after subjecting them to the kind of decision making filter we used over the weekend. 

As we saw, we had six possible bets from the list—four on Saturday and two on Sunday. All bets were, on paper, equally strong to begin with, in the sense that if all of them had qualified on all three counts, we would have expected them to win without giving us any anxious moments. But the decision filter left in only two choices, and rejected the other four.

It is not a mere coincidence that the approved two won with a measure of comfort, while three of the rejected four ended up as runners up—two of them by a mere neck.