When the Unexpected Happens

I was at the race track watching the tote board for the 8th race at Finger Lakes on Tuesday, August 9th 2016.  From the beginning the #3 horse was the heavy favorite.  In fact, about 5 minutes to post time the tote odds were as low as 1/9.  You can't get any lower than that. All the the "win money" was on the #3 horse. This looked like a good place to play some exotics with the 3 horse on top.  This was an allowance race with 6 horses in the race.  What was interesting was that 5 of the 6 horses were at double digit odds right up to 1 minute to post time.  In fact 3 of the horses were more than 20/1 and one of the horses was 40/1.  This really made the favorite a "shoe in" according to the betting public on the tote board.

Sometimes when something like this looks too good to be true.  Guess what?  The unexpected happens.  From my past experience I have observed that many times, in fact, quite often this heavy favorite gets beat.  So along with exotics that use the heavy favorite in the win position it is worth while placing some hedge bets also.

Here are the final toteboard odds.

Horse 1 15/1
Horse 2 12/1
Horse 3 3/5
Horse 4 4/1
Horse 5 3/1
Horse 6 30/1

Here are the bets I made including hedge bets.

$2 exacta 3/1,2,4,5,6 (Cost: $10)
Hedge bets:
$2 exacta 3,4,5/1,2,6 (Cost: $18)
$1 trifecta 3,4,5/1,2,6/3,4,5 (Cost: $18)
$1 superfecta 3,4,5/1,2,6/3,4,5/1,2,6 (Cost: $36)

Total cost: $82

Here's how the race turned out, the race result. 4-6-3-1

The payouts for this race:

$2 exacta 4-6 paid: $185.00
$1 trifecta 4-6-3 paid: $259.50
$1 superfecta paid: $980.00
Total payout: $1424.50

To verify these results go to Equibase.com. Then go to results for Finger Lakes. Select August 9,2016 and race #8.

Wow, when the unexpected happens!  And with just 6 horses in the race.