Keith Bush
@thoreval
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Following
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Quantitative horseplayer 🇭🇰 | @EquusModel & @HKUltraModel admin
Little Rock, Arkansas
Joined May 2022
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Pinned Tweet
What if the rise and fall of horse racing handle is caused by waves of bettors entering and exiting the game over time? I built such a model that accurately describes inflation adjusted US horse racing handle 1945-2023. 1/n
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I took a look at Hong Kong last night. Here is what I observed - 11 and 12 horse fields running on-the-turf in the pouring rain with 2-3 million USD win pools in each race. I didn’t pay a penny for access to the PPs and the workout data, and I had access to the horses’ vet
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Horse racing is an education, and I’m still in my very first semester.
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My wife got me unlimited access to brisnet PPs and Result charts for Christmas. That, HRT, is what marrying well looks like.
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@HorseToWatch
(aka David Aragona) is hands down the best morning line odds maker in the United States. I modeled the relationship between ML odds and post-time odds in a nationally representative sample of races (>5000 races over 32 tracks) spanning the past two years. 1/n
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I haven't seen any discussions informed by computer modeling, so I wanted to put out the
@EquusModel
fair odds projections for the Kentucky Derby and Oaks. The model has a strong contrarian opinion about the inside position for the Derby. Best of luck!
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Just ran the BC PPs through the model and I’m shocked! Wasn’t planning on doing much BC content (due to saturation) but will put out some analysis of the major dirt races. Model has strong and clear opinions, which is not that typical.
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I’m a small-time bettor on a journey since October 2020 to beat this game. As a quantitative player I rely on computer/stats models to make wagers. 2023 was a breakout year for me and I wanted to walk through what happened and where I’m going next. A thread. 1/n
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Today is my 2nd anniversary in horse racing. To celebrate, I put together a thread of the Top 10 craziest things I've seen in the sport since joining.
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I computed the percent variance of post-time odds explained by ML odds (i.e., R-squared) for each track. Here are the Top 10 tracks according to the quality of their morning line odds. David Aragona is responsible for 3 of the top 5 places. 2/n
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Imagine a P5 sequence where you want to single a long shot. You worry about getting beat in that leg by an even money favorite that you don't like. If you play that favorite defensively you will DOUBLE your ticket cost. In effect you have created an entire other P5 ticket keyed
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Airing of grievances:
1. High takeout
2. Odds drops
3. Inconsistent stewardship
4. Small fields
5. Small pools
6. Post drag
7. Paywalled data
8. Super trainers
9. Jackpot bets
10. Consolations
Happy Festivus everyone
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My wife has been deeply skeptical of my recent obsession with horse racing. But yet, here is my Father’s Day gift this year! I’m sensing a thaw.
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Just to be clear. Requesting to be paid for money won is not being negative in any way, shape, or form. Suggesting otherwise is gaslighting and exploiting the learned helplessness of retail bettors beat down by an industry that has abandoned them.
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Just listened to
@BeemieAwards
interview with Candace Hare from February 2016. It is a shame that she is not the face of this industry let alone the fact that she left the industry. Super sharp. Quantitatively focused. What a loss.
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Just spitballing here. What would it take for horseplayers to crowdsource funds, buy a few tracks, and form a proper centrally-controlled/managed circuit (i.e. league) that runs the way horseplayers want? Just scanning through sale prices of tracks … it’s not that much money.
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Out of an abundance of caution I’ve decided to cancel betting today due to high levels of takeout across the country.
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When you put in hundreds of hours into building a horse racing betting model that achieves -3.6% ROI, you want to blow up the world. Then you remind yourself the game is beatable and get back to work.
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First time in the Jockey Club of
@OaklawnRacing
. Within 30 seconds of sitting down, a teller came by to give us a wagering 101 kit. That is how it’s done!
#iamhorseracing
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Old sports analogy. “Speed can sometimes beat size and vice versa. But speed and size always wins.” Retail players cannot compete with CRWs speed of tote access and size of rebates. The tracks have given these players deep structural advantages that cannot be overcome with “smart
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Not to sound like a broken record but
@kaitlinefree
had a flat bet 64% ROI today (3 winners). She has been putting on a Turfway handicapping clinic since the holidays.
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Which tracks have the best morning line odds? I dug deep into the data to find out. Hint:
@NYRA
tracks (thanks to David Aragona
@HorseToWatch
) are confirmed as the best in the business. Where does your track rank?
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Thinking about
@BeemieAwards
pod tonight. Today he was discussing how the game needs less negative experiences. I don’t think this is quite correct. The game needs winners. Public longterm winners. New players will suffer hardships if they believe that winning is possible.
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What I’ve learned from this is that all the anonymous/pseudonym HRT accounts actually know each other on a first name basis and spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about things other than beating horse racing. Conclusion: takeout is way too high.
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I keep records of public handicappers’ picks. I started a Twitter account to report performances against outcomes.
@CapperTrack
.
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Thinking about attacking the Derby Superfecta - maybe just as a 'no money' intellectual exercise this year (I'm still on the
@derby1592
win bet diet for 2023). Here are
@EquusModel
projected probabilities of finishing 1st through 4th. I'll build ticket(s) around this.
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@AbideToWin
@TimeformUSfigs
All due respect I started in horseracing in Nov 2020. I’ve been in this a short amount of time. The shear amount of assfuckery people absorb in this game is off the charts. It’s conditioned helplessness. It’s gallows humor day after day. Businesses don’t operate like this. Not
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Horseracing keeps pushing hats and cocktails … meanwhile 328 people signed in to spaces to hear a bunch of quants talk modeling.
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It’s boggles me to see public handicappers assign every annotation imagineable to qualify their picks rather than offer fair odds estimates. Picks are not bettable without an associated fair price.
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Was excited about the start of Oaklawn until I learned yesterday from
@PatCummingsNTA
that CRWs are now in the pools so everyone’s effective takeout went up by 10%. Will be interested to see how locals react to late odds drops and thin vertical payouts.
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My best angle the past 6 months is realizing that many world class handicappers tweet in Spanish and following them.
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I’m excited to find out. Best of luck to everyone betting horses in 2024. 18/18
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Check out this tool I helped develop for HRN. It identifies the similarities among KY Derby contenders over the past 20 years.
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The US has 49x the human population of Hong Kong, 79x the GDP, approximately 25x the race tracks, and 15x the thoroughbred horse population. Yet, since 2012 HK has generated a higher total handle, growing from half the US handle in 2006 to 50% more than the US market in 2023. 1/n
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If today’s TDN article is correct then the effective takeout for non-elite horseplayers in the win pool is 32.9%. I revised my model based on the 5% pre-takeout ROI quoted in the article
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I’m adding in a flag to
@EquusModel
to skip bets on any race in which Irad is involved. His riding, and the stewards’ unwillingness to rein him in, is a problem for handicapping in addition to the safety of the jockeys and horses. Unacceptable.
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A very long day of traveling to SA while working with Equus to cap these BC cards. The computer found 27 bets over the next 2 days (pending final tote). I’m hoping for a couple big days. Good luck everyone - especially the BCBC warriors. Hope to be there someday.
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I’ve rediscovered my love for the game. Modeling isn’t dominating at Happy Valley longterm but crushed last week. How can you not be romantic about his course? World class. Can’t wait to be there this Fall.
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I can't participate in horse racing this Saturday, but I wanted to get my two cents in. Here are the
@EquusModel
(4th generation beta version) fair odds estimates for the Florida Derby and Arkansas Derby. Good luck.
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@seattleracing
Imagine playing a game of poker where the dealer lets one player look at everyone’s cards before calling/folding and charges them half the normal rake for the privilege.
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Bucket list item checked!
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Somebody DM'd me about my contest play. I thought it would be encouraging to share with people starting out. This is what an edge looks like in horse racing (like what Andy Beyer must've seen in Florida in the 1990s).
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Does anyone photograph the bettors? I see photos of horses and spires and backside. Don’t think I’ve seen a professional photograph of someone making a wager on HRT.
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Come check out a circuit that already has a chairman in place! - and massive pools, 12-14 horse fields, turf racing as well as drum tight drug screening and vet check protocols - not to mention stewards that suspend jockeys 6 weeks for simply dropping their hands at the finish.
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Imagine Churchill granting Repole’s entry a furlong head start in the KY Derby to reward him for spending millions on horses each year. How long would racing survive? Yet the guests here condone this type of intrinsic unfairness on the betting side. Make it make sense.
THEY CALL IT CAW
It stands for computer-assisted wagering, but you knew that. Learn more about it from a panel discussion with Elite Turf Club’s Scott Daruty and
@RhodesCollege
horseplayer-professor
@marshallgramm
on the
@ronflatter
Racing Pod.
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I thought he pushed off. Here’s an even more egregious view from
@roguewolf007
. Tyler’s grabbing gear.
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Dear Churchill Downs stewards. There seems to be an error in the final ordering given the very obvious and repeated fouling that is visible in 4K on the NBC feed.
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This is incredible in so many ways.
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Thank you
@uamscancer
for a great day at
@OaklawnRacing
raising money to fight cancer.
@i_miousse
and I crushed the vertical pools! (took a day off my
@derby1592
win-bet diet).
@equusmodel
is ready for the Triple Crown!
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Attention public handicappers. This is the correct way to convey opinions.
My fair odds for the Risen Star Stakes today
@fairgroundsnola
. Very eager to see how this race gets bet
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I put together a simple model that attempts to explain how CRWs with large rebates increase the effective takeout for the vast majority of retail horseplayers. Link below.
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Accurate ML odds are critical for horse racing’s survival because they lessen CRW arbitrage opportunities. Low information betters rely on these numbers to wager. We need to encourage better ML odds in the industry by adding an Eclipse Award category for ML oddsmaking! 4/n
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Shutting down
@EquusModel
(version 4) after a six month betting cycle (Mar 12, 2023 - Sep 12, 2023). Here is a short thread summarizing the performance I observed. 1/n
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🎶 I’m bringin’ rabbit back … those mainstream meats just don’t know how to act …”
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If you’re curious about
@HKJC_Racing
tonight would be the night to tune in. Four of the top 20 horses in the world are running and two are meeting head to head - Golden Sixty and California Spangle. An amazing card on tap.
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In honor of my first public pick - ticket posted (top choice 8-3-11 plus 2 value plays). Hopefully we exist in the branch of multiverse where this cashes.
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Friend of HRT spaces
@decky_cann
just casually winning million dollar stakes races. No big deal.
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Have a very brief answer for how CRW ROI=0% (before rebate) can hurt players. It depends on the percent of the pool that the CRWs represent at that ROI. Here is my effective takeout model for CRWs comprising 0%, 10%, 20%, and 30% of the pools. Can get painful quick.
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I had some time this afternoon to think about how money flows through horse racing. It's a problem that's been nagging at me. I whipped up a model that (I think correctly) captures the salient flows. If anybody knows better, please let me know in the comments or DMs.
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Not very sexy but my last bet of 2023 was a winner - a 13% Kelly value exacta based on a $100 bankroll made on track today at Oaklawn.
Will post yearly stats review soon and a look forward to 2024 (scaling up).
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So the trick about horse racing is to minimum bet when you're learning (cheap tuition). When you figure out what you're doing then bet.
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@derby1592
This is one of the many reasons I’ve shifted my handle to Hong Kong. Horses there (amazingly) run straight in the stretch.
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The horse racing commercial we deserve.
Mark your calendars! 📍 🇭🇰
Hong Kong racing returns 8 Sep at Sha Tin.
#HKRacing
|
@AtTheRaces
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One of the points being missed in the CRW discussion is the inevitable supremacy of Artificial Intelligence in the game. This will come faster than you think. The great skill games - Chess, Go, and Poker are solved problems. Currently, these games ban AI in competition (some
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Gentle reminder that last year we didn’t
hear a word from the workout “experts”about Forte having any issues.
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Bumping this to celebrate the insane run
@EquusModel
has had on
@StableDuel
the past seven weeks.
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A hit like this almost (almost) makes me think I should scrap the goal of lifetime positive ROI in the pursuit of big scores.
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Finally locked my betting strategy for tomorrow. Leveraged to exploit opinions in R1-R4 and R9-R11 and BIG opinions in R2 and R11. If this hits … whew … who needs the Powerball.
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A pleasure to do this! Thanks to
@OutrunTheOdds
for the opportunity.
Out now!
@thoreval
and I talk the Wednesday Late Pick 3 at Keeneland and I learn more about Keith's handicapping approach
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I just got access to Google's AI language model, Bard. Similar to my recent experiment with ChatGPT, I asked Bard “What is the future of horse racing?” Here is the AI bot's response.
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@Tinky47flat
Great post. A few points to add.
First, vets are not the appropriately trained experts to assess the methodological validity of a large-scale statistical analysis. That would be like me being called upon to diagnose a soft tissue injuries in a horse.
Second, the theory of
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Want to give a shoutout to
@ClubHawthorne
. This track caters to horseplayers with low takeout and well-curated player resources. Check out their handicapping resource webpage. It is well organized and easy to see both picks and analysis.
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It occurred to me that I have clear mental pictures of many anonymous HRT/HRX personalities. When they make the movie about horseplaying in the 2020s here’s who I expect to see (a thread).
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After a hard day of machine learning, this is what it’s all about.
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Raising my son right! First riding lesson. Scared at first. Loving it at the end.
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If he analyzes the race at a high level who cares? Better to look like a clown and be smart than talk like a clown in a suit.
@RayCotolo
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