Horseplayers at Santa Anita have a problem this season that non-gamblers might find puzzling.
It’s too easy to pick winners.
Betting favorites are winning 46% of the races since the meet opened Dec. 26. That’s much higher than normal in thoroughbred racing (about 33%), than the highest for any of Santa Anita’s 85 previous winter-spring seasons (38.9% in 2016-17), than at this stage of last season at Santa Anita (34%), than at Del Mar last summer (37%), than at Golden Gate Fields in the San Francisco Bay Area (37%), and than the next-highest such figure at a major North American track now in season (39% at Gulfstream Park near Miami).
“It’s incredibly high,” said Jon Lindo, the veteran public handicapper, radio broadcaster and racehorse owner.
An outsider might think this sounds good. Lots of winning favorites mean more predictable racing. More predictable racing means fans can pick more winners and cash more tickets. Cashing tickets is what it’s all about, no?
Not exactly. Many racing fans choose this form of gambling for the potential to bet a little and win a lot by backing horses to win at tantalizing high odds and multiplying would-be payoffs with multi-horse and multi-race wagers.
That potential shrinks when too many short-priced favorites come in. The average odds for a winner at Santa Anita (4.06-1) are nearly a dollar lower than is typical at other major tracks, and average payoffs here for pick-threes, fours, fives and sixes are lower too, based on statistics from Bloodstock Research Information Services.
Why is this happening? What does it mean for racing fans? How can bettors make the best of the situation?
I threw those questions out to people with various racetrack perspectives, and their answers are clarifying if not reassuring.
Basically, favorites’ sky-high win percentage is an accurate reflection of the challenges Santa Anita faces in putting together competitive races.
That challenge begins with the general decline in…
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