We’ve all been in a spot where it looks like a lot of the horses in a race are contenders and maybe one that looks like a complete outsider and not worth using at all. We’ve all likely used all but one horse in a leg of a multi race wager. If you’ve been playing long enough, there’s a pretty good chance that the one you’ve left off has won at astronomical odds and killed your ticket.
So why am I going to write a column about using all but one horse in a leg when it’s come back to haunt so many of us over the years?
I’m going to spend some time showing you that using all but one horse is a smart thing to do in certain instances, and will potentially help you cash some bigger tickets by tossing the shortest priced horses in the field, instead of the longer priced horses, as well as save you some money along the way.
As a horseplayer we’ve been constantly told that we NEED to pick winners to cash multi race wagers. Of course on the surface this is accurate, but often times picking a losing horse is just as important to cashing a big one.
This line of thinking is likely a little more difficult to wrap your mind around at first, so hang with me while I plead my case.
We’re going to look at a pick 3 sequence in which you have a very strong opinion in the last race of the sequence and that horse is going to be approximately 5/1. So we start to look at the races surrounding that horse to see if we can put a ticket together. The race two prior to the race you have a strong opinion in has 6 horses in it. The morning line favorite has shown that he really doesn’t like to win races. He’s consistently hanging late despite running fast races. The rest of the field appears to be fairly evenly matched with some horses dropping in class while other are jumping up in class. This is where we can utilize the “all but one horse” strategy. We’re going to completely throw out the favorite from our tickets and use the rest of the horses. We’re going to rely on the fact that the shortest price in the field doesn’t like to go by late and we’re looking to land a price in the first leg of the pick 3.
The second race also happens to have a vulnerable morning line favorite. On paper the race appears to be very contentious and the horse that is likely going to be favored does have connections that generally take a lot of money but this particular horse appears to have had many opportunities to break through but continues to let down the public as he’s lost 3 consecutive races as the favorite. This is another situation where we can try and take another shot at beating a short priced horse to get through the leg by using all but the heavy favorite.
The third leg of the sequence is your key horse. If we get through the first two legs by beating two bad favorites, we’re going to be in line for a hefty score.
I’ll give you a real life example of a situation that I just outlined. I used all but the 7(at even money)in race 3 and was fortunate enough that the 6 was able to hold him off at 17-1 to start the sequence. In the second leg I used all but the 8 horse(at 2-1), and just as predicted he let the public down as the favorite once again.Once I got to the payout leg, I just needed my key horse to fire, and thankfully I was able to get it home and cash out for a bigger score.
The lesson here is that although I didn’t have a really strong feeling about a winner in races 3&4 in the sequence, I did have a strong feeling about a short priced horse that wasn’t going to win in each of those races. We can’t predict every 17/1 horse that’s going to win a race, but if we know that an even money horse isn’t going to win, it significantly increases our chances of having that 17/1 horse on our tickets.
So why not just go all/all/3 then?
There’s a few reasons we don’t want to do this.
1. It costs more money to add more horses. In the example above it would’ve cost me $216 instead of $160 to add the favorites in both races. That’s $56 spent on horses you didn’t think had a great shot at winning.
2. If you happen to be wrong and the favorite does win, we’re likely to cash a ticket that pays out less than we spent. There is nothing fun about losing money on a winning ticket.
3. Lastly, and most importantly, do NOT try to get cute when you’re tossing a very short priced horse. If you’re against a horse that is going to be odds on, make sure you have the winner. You can not toss the favorite and not get through the leg.
This is one small example of how to use all but one horse on a ticket and it doesn’t apply to every sequence. It’s a tool you should have in your arsenal, ready to deploy when the time is right. The tool is meant for playing against short priced horses that you absolutely do not think can win the race.
I don’t want to speak for everyone, but I know that I can deal with missing a pick 3 that paid out $15 for $1 by tossing out a favorite that wins rather than missing a pick 3 that paid out $1500 for $1 because I threw out a long shot when I didn’t like the favorite anyway.