How to Pick and Bet on a Kentucky Derby Winner

When your sitting back
In your rose pink Cadillac
Making bets on Kentucky Derby Day
-- The Rolling Stones

As the son of a professional gambler, people often ask me for betting advice.

Although I started going to race tracks before I was able to walk, I don't know much about the horse industry. I go the track a few times a year and bet small amounts.

Most of my equine knowledge was gleamed when I worked on the clean-up crew at the Kentucky Horse Park. I can tell you what horses make the biggest mess.

Although there are people more qualified to give Derby tips, like many financial commentators, I won't let lack of expertise stop me.

I came to the conclusion that by living in Kentucky, I needed to know how to bet on horses.

I found a book called Racetrack Betting: The Professors' Guide to Strategies by Peter Asch and Richard E. Quandi.

It was written by two statistics professors and not the easiest book to read. I can sum up the advice in two statements.

1. Bet on the horse that everyone else is betting on.
2. Bet on the horse to show, not to win or place.

The book bases the ability to pick horses on an economic theory known as the wisdom of crowds.

The wisdom of crowds concept is really popular now. It is a driving force for web sites like Google.

The idea is that the marketplace will move with the crowd towards the best outcome.

If a horse moves from 10 to 1 to 2 to 1, it is probably a good horse to bet on.

Betting to show is a practice that I follow religiously.

The professors said that betting to show will produce a winner 52% of the time. That is better than any other kind of bet.

The professors hate jackpots like the Pick-6. Just like the lottery, big odds draw a lot of excitement and attention.

Just like the lottery, you don't see many people winning them.

The professors frown on exactas, daily doubles or any bet that exhibits large risk.

Like in the investment world, the winner at race track is the person with a conservative style and discipline.

When I go to the track, I don't look at the racing form, jockeys, past history or pick horses with funny names. (My mother was a sucker for horses with funny names.) I just follow the odds.

I usually win enough money to pay for lunch.

My father, a professional gambler, absolutely HATED my betting system. He and I would go to Keeneland every session and we never picked the same horse. He would bet $100 on a horse and lose. I would bet $10 and win.

It drove him absolutely crazy.

Dad liked the excitement of big odds and big payoffs. He knew everything about the horse's past performance, their breeding and who was riding them.

Dad was superstitious and started to believe that my system was jinxing him. If dad ever met the professors, he would have punched them in the nose.

I stuck to my system. I stick to it today. Betting to show fits with my overall philosophy about investing. Slow and steady works in the financial markets and works at the track too.

For whatever reason, my system has failed me at Kentucky Derbies. The last one I remember winning was Sunday Silence in 1989. I didn't pick Sunday Silence because of my system. His owner, Arthur Hancock III, had graduated from Vanderbilt and I had received a Masters Degree from Vandy the year before.

I picked the horse because of an alumni connection to a man I had never met. It was a stupid reason for picking a horse but produced one of my few winners.

Thus the best advice may be to forget all the high powered systems and experts and give it your best guess.

Don McNay, CLU, ChFC, MSFS, CSSC is the founder of McNay Settlement Group in Richmond, Kentucky.

He is the author of Son of a Son of a Gambler: Winners, Losers and What to Do When You When The Lottery. You can write to Don at [e-mail] or read his award winning, syndicated column at www.donmcnay.com.

Comments

[Dave Astor - Huffpost Blogger]

I'm not a betting man, but this column was fascinating. I did go to Keeneland once when I attended a conference in Lexington and ... the food was great. Like your column is.

[keene]

I didn't bet, but the horses I liked and I know nothing about them were Prairie Of The Nile (came in 2nd)) Summer Bird (came in 6th). The energy of the names popped out at me for Regal Ransom and Prairie of The Nile and this morning I dreamed about the number 17. Summer Bird was in the 17th stall

[provgrays]

A 50-1 shot came in at today's Derby.

So much for the wisdom of the crowd.

[BlueTide]

Looks like you lost. I Want Revenge was the favorite to win at 3-1 odds. The horse failed to place.

[provgrays]

Actually, I Want Revenge was a late scratch.

[Dots]

I am repulsed by the idea of horse racing, dog racing and the people who make money off it.
It is a kind of slavery...animal abuse for sure.
No better than bull fighting and gladiators in ancient Rome...hardly an honorable sport!
Do you know what happens to the animals who can't run fast enough to turn a profit?
Slaughter. (A very few get rescued.)

[Palemoon]

I'm not big on gambling, but my dad had a trick at the dog tracks we'd go to once in a while. He was an old country boy raised in a cabin in the backwoods of Mississippi, had an uncanny way to judge animals. He'd bet on the dog with the longest legs, and would you believe he won roughly 70% of the time?

[BlueTide]

Of course, what you left out about horse race betting, is that the goal of most gamblers is to have fun. Betting on the favored horse to show every time is simply no fun. It's much funner to take a stand and bet on which horse is going to win what place. For most people, horse race betting is not the same as investing in the stock market, in which case buying broad average index funds is statistically the best bet once you factor management fees and time costs.

I suppose this time you may have some fun since the top two favorites are givin equal odds to win the race. Now you are going to have to think real hard on which horse you are going to bet on to show.

[jamie461]

Horse racing is animal abuse. Do not support it by gambling. The breeding practices are hideous. And three year olds should NOT be running races at top speed. There is a REASON why these horses break down and are euthanized so frequently.

I used to enjoy the "spectacle" that is the Kentucky Derby, until I got an education in dark side of this industry. Please don't support it.

[beyondliberal]

The fail-safe method? Pick the horse with the biggest hindquarters.

[lakat]

I think Mine That Bird is a relatively small horse with modest hindquarters. But your system sounds interesting anyway.

[provgrays]

If picking horses was as easy as looking at one physical characteristic, everybody would win.

[mariah793]

Actually there are some ways to increase the chances of a win. But, bottom line, if you bet long enough and are not highly disciplined you are going to lose the "track take" which is about 17% if I remember correctly. People who want to be serious about their bets, which is not much fun, should become experts in all the statistics that are available thru a number of commercial online sites. And they have to be highly disciplined and only bet on certain things that their analysis gives a higher probability to. Look for horses that are running with a lower-class crowd. Of course, that does not happen in the Derby.

If you want to sound like you know what you're doing you can throw around terms like "track bias", "class figure", "speed figure", "dosage","­trainer-jo­ckey combo", etc.

But betting on the Derby is a higher-risk thing than normal races. That's why it is important to know a good julep from a bad one.

[provgrays]

Drink all the mint juleps you want. Betting is still a crapshoot.

[ignorantwillyharper]

I always bet on the long shot, with odds like ninety to one and then admire how fast the hose leaves the gate being pulled by the hind hooves with a wrecker...before the front gate ever opens.

[gayleg]

Did anyone else see the Real Sports episode on horse racing? The horrific drugging of horses which enables people to run them into the ground.

Once the horses are all used up, and no longer considered valuable, they are taken off the drugs--that's when we find they have been running on broken bones, deteriorated hips, etc. Some can't even walk on their own to the slaughter house because they are so crippled by the pain and deterioration.

Gentleman's sport? Bull. Time to retire this along with the equally vile dog racing.

[jamie461]

AMEN. This is animal abuse, not a sport.

[unwashedmasses]

I totally agree - and I was a horse racing fan for 40 years. Enough of this animal abuse. If you love horses, you would never treat them in this fashion.

PLEASE STOP THE ABUSE!

[dsws]

Any bet can be over-priced or under-priced. If hardly anyone is betting show on likely-to-win horses, those bets will be under-priced and they'll be a good deal. If the system recommended here became popular, it would be a loser.

[JEdgarH]

My honey always bets on the show horse and never even read that book! Me, I like unusual names, especially ones that might have something to do with my life for one reason or another. But I also look at the jockeys and trainers. Another friend of mine likes to bet on horses with the same inititals, I.e., Barbaro, Bernardini, etc., albeit ones in the same race with the same inititals. That system is really stupid!!! I don't like to bet on the Kentucky Derby because it's a stampede of 20 horses, but did pick two winners, one being Smarty Jones!!!! Of course, since he was the favorite he didn't pay much, but I was happy and it was exciting.

[tiznow]

One who bets a show bet on the favorite shouldn't be at the track, he should be putting his money in a CD. Horseracing is much more intellectually stimulating to those who study the Racing Form and see things that the betting public (who are wrong the majority of the time), doesn't. It is much more exciting to put money on an overlay(un­derappreci­ated long shot) than to make a 10% return on a bet.

[dsws]

Lots of people want excitement. Expect to pay for it, in the long-term average.