There are a number of ways to use trainer stats. Handicappers most often look to them as a means for determining trainer proclivities or to get a glimpse at trainer intent. Has this particular trainer shown a pattern of winning with similar runners, or could the trainer be setting things up for a race in the future? But trainer stats (and jockey stats, to a lesser extent) can also give an important glimpse into how the betting market responds to certain horses. For the Breeders’ Cup, I looked at trainer stats in this way, but let’s use this same approach in a more general way, to find the types of horses the public tends to overbet or ignore. After all, trainers have reputations. The public will naturally respond differently to a horse, depending upon the conditioner. That’s understandable, of course, since you are very likely to have certain preconceived notions about a horse trained by Todd Pletcher that may not exist with a horse trained by, say, Edward Barker. Often those preconceptions are spot-on, but sometimes the public can go a bit too far with betting based on reputation. Let’s use the trainer stats in DRF Formulator to take a look at how the betting market has responded to certain trainers in the recent past. Reputation: Bill Mott runners improve after they have a start under their belt. Bill Mott is in the National Horse Racing Hall of Fame for a reason. He rarely rushes his horses, and most of them do improve with experience and age. His second-start runners do have a higher win percentage and in-the-money rate than his first-time starters, and that disparity is even stronger with Mott’s juveniles. Truth: Bill Mott horses are overbet in their second career start. Mott’s reputation for “giving horses a start” is so strong that the betting public can overestimate it. After all, Mott’s stats with second-time starters are clearly better than his stats with runners making their debut, but they are quite similar to his baseline stats for all of his runners over the past five years (15 percent win, 41 percent ITM, $1.57 ROI vs. 16 percent win, 43 percent ITM, $1.52 ROI). The odds drop drastically in that second start for many of those runners, though. For example, it’s not unusual to see Mott runners debut above 20-1 and then return below 5-1 for their second start. If a horse shows talent in the debut, all value is almost always lost in the second start. For instance, Mott maiden second-time starters who ran second or third in their debut win nearly 25 percent of the time, but return only about 80 percent of the initial investment, if you bet $2 to win on each. Over the past five years, his record of 74-18-17-11 (24 percent win rate, 62 percent in the money) for those runners is stellar, but the ROI is just $1.61 for each $2 win bet. That return is barely an improvement on his ROI with all starters, because the public greatly overvalues them. Take note: 32 of the 74 were lower than odds of 2-1 at post time, and only three of those 74 were higher than 5-1 (and none of the three finished better than sixth place). Truth: Bill Mott can win with runners making their debut. While the prevailing wisdom is generally true that Mott rarely wins with first-time starters, he does win with them on occasion. Sure, he generally wins about half as often than his baseline win rate of 16 percent for all runners, but he still has averaged between five and six debut winners over the last five years. Most notably, Mott actually posts a positive ($2.10) ROI with all 3-year-olds debuting on dirt in maiden special weights, and his stats are actually very playable with 3-year-olds debuting in dirt sprint maiden special weights: 64-11-9-6, 17 percent win rate, 41 percent ITM, $2.24 ROI. Reputation: Wesley Ward juveniles are always live. Wesley Ward’s prowess with debuting juveniles is legendary, and it’s a reputation built squarely on the remarkable success he’s had at the Keeneland spring meet. Over the past five years, he’s 18 for 50 with juveniles that debut at Keeneland in April, a stat that’s even more amazing when you consider that only 15 of those 50 runners weren’t competing against another Ward starter, meaning that Ward has won more than half the baby races in April at Keeneland that he’s entered a first-time starter. Truth: Wesley Ward juveniles are nearly always overbet. Here’s the thing: even if you bet on every one of those Keeneland first-time starters over the past five years, you would have lost money. Even worse, the reputation built on success at Keeneland carries over to all of his other juvenile debuts. Stripping out those April Keeneland stats, Ward has a record of 259-42-49-31, which equates to a merely mortal 16 percent win rate and 47 percent ITM rate, and the ROI is exactly $1.00. That’s right, if you started with $1000 and placed equal blind bets on every Ward juvenile firster away from Keeneland April in the past five years, you would be down to $500. Other stats are staggering as well: 165 of the 217 losers (76 percent) were 5-1 or lower, and 27 lost as odds-on favorites. Reputation: Javier Castellano taking the mount means the horse is live. Arguably the best jockey of his generation, Castellano has won the Eclipse Award for best jockey for three straight years, and he’s likely a finalist for it this year as well. He’s won more than 20 percent of his starts every year since 2012, but even still, if you bet $2 to win on each of those runners, you would have lost between 10 and 20 cents on the dollar each of those years. Think about that for a minute: Even if you had correctly identified Castellano as the best jockey in the country, you would still have lost money betting on his mounts. Truth: The market generally overbets Castellano. Castellano is a first-call jockey for Todd Pletcher and Chad Brown, two of the most successful trainers in the country in recent years, so it’s not surprising that he’s won races at a high rate. Many handicappers, though, will pay special attention to when Castellano rides for a different trainer. Take 2016: As of December 12, Castellano had 292 wins from 1,395 starts, which means he’s winning about 21 percent of his races. When riding for Brown or Pletcher, he’s 112 for 438 (about 25.5 percent), meaning he’s 180 for 957 (19 percent) for other trainers. Even though those are just 2016 stats, the results are not dramatically different in previous years. Let’s look at some other trainers and how the betting public reacts when Castellano is aboard. David Jacobson’s record over the past five years with Castellano aboard is 135-25-35-20. That works out to a win rate of 19 percent, 59 percent in the money, and an ROI of just $1.31 for each $2 win bet. Note that 80 of the 110 losses (73 percent) came at odds of 5-1 or lower. With other jockeys in that same time, Jacobson actually wins at a higher rate (704 for, 3161, 22 percent win) and the ROI is $1.59. Gary Contessa doesn’t win as often as Jacobson, but he has tabbed Castellano to ride more often, with similar results. In general, Contessa does win at a higher rate with Castellano aboard — 33 for 222, or 15 percent, over the past five years, versus 273 for 2,678, or just over 10 percent, with other riders — but the public corrects for that with the odds on Castellano’s mounts, as the ROI is just $1.32 versus $1.39 with other jocks. Similar to Jacobson, 108 of the 189 losses (or 57 percent) came at odds of 5-1 or lower, while just 34 percent of Contessa’s losses with other jocks came at those odds. Reputation: Mike Smith taking the mount means the horse is live, too. Like Castellano, the presence of Mike Smith will often drag down the odds of any horse he rides. Smith, however, has been a part-time rider for a while now, carefully choosing his mounts. In 2016, he’ll ride fewer races than any year in his career, apart from 1982 when he was an apprentice. Smith hasn’t ridden more than 1,000 in any calendar year since 2000, and he’s ridden more than 500 in a year only since 2010. As of December 12, exactly half of Mike Smith’s 54 wins in 2016 came in stakes races, so when Smith takes a mount on a maiden, that horse must really be a runner, right? The public sure thinks so, at least based on how they bet those runners. Truth: The market usually overbets Smith, too. Take Bob Baffert. The Baffert-Smith combo has won at a very strong 27 percent clip over the past five years (37 for 136), but that’s still not enough to make them a profitable bet, as the ROI on all of those runners is $1.62. That ROI is inflated by the $25.40 that Arrogate paid in winning the Travers; the median payoff is just $4.60 for those winners. When Mike Smith and Bob Baffert team up on a maiden, they’re 8 for 28 over the past five years, but only one of those eight winners paid more than eight bucks and four others lost as odds-on favorites. Even more striking are the stats on the Mike Smith-Jerry Hollendorfer combo. Over the past five years, they’ve teamed up 184 times, winning 48 races. That’s a very strong 26 percent rate, yet the ROI for those runners is just $1.35. That’s because an amazing 34 of those 48 winners were 9-5 or lower, 20 were odds-on. And a value-oriented bettor looking for gold in the Smith-Hollendorfer combo would find only fool’s good, as those at square odds rarely outrun their odds. They’re just 66-3-6-9 together in the past five years with runners at odds of 4-1 or higher, returning just a $0.66 ROI; maidens at 4-1 and up are 13-0-1-2. Reputation: The public knows something. You hear it all the time. “This horse is taking money” or “this one is dead on the board.” Sometimes the public is on the wrong horse, allowing a different horse to go off at much better odds. Other times, the money is absolutely right, and the money is rarely wrong when it comes to trainers like Todd Pletcher and Bob Baffert. From a reputation standpoint, the purest of all runners may be first-time starters, since there is little to go on outside of workouts, pedigree, and trainer reputation. Truth: The public is often correct with some trainers. Let’s start with Pletcher, and let’s look at the top end of the betting market, runners at 10-1 and up. In the past five years, Pletcher has had 86 first-time starters at those odds; he’s won with just three, and the last one was more than 26 months ago. Oh, and if you bet every one of them to win, you turned $2 into $1.23. The flipside is that you would actually have made a little money if you bet each of Pletcher’s first-time starters that went off as odds-on favorites over the past five years. He’s had 84 of those runners in that time, and he’s won with 54, a staggering 64 percent win rate. (By the way, his stats are even stronger with first-time starters in dirt maiden special weights.) Baffert’s stats with firsters are similar, and maybe even more extreme. Over the past five years, he’s just 56-1-4-7 with a $0.56 ROI in debuts at odds of 10-1 and up. With those at odds of 7-1 and up, the results are much better, compiling a record of 94-3-7-13 with a $0.72 ROI. The flipside: Baffert is 39-19-8-6 with odds-on first-time starters in the past five years, and one of those 39 finished outside of the superfecta. However, Baffert firsters between 3-1 and 6-1 (particularly between 5-1 and 6-1) are a true value pocket. They win at a lower rate than the favorites, of course, but they still win enough (19 percent of the time) at fair odds to post a profit. And those runners at 5-1 or 6-1 have done great, going 48-12-6-7 for a juicy $3.35 ROI. Reputation: Richard Baltas is a good claiming trainer. Richard Baltas might seem like a newcomer to many horseplayers, but he’s actually been a licensed trainer based in Southern California since 1991. In 2013, though, he started slowly building up his stable, often through the claiming box. It’s a move that has been successful for Baltas, and 2016 will be his best year ever, both in terms of total wins and total earnings. Truth: The value is rarely there for Baltas in the first start after a claim. Look at the trainer stat for Baltas in the first start following a claim at the bottom of the PPs, and you’ll see he’s won at nearly a 25 percent clip since the start of last year. That’s a strong rate, but the trouble is that the public rarely lets those runners go off at a square price. Baltas’s record with horses making their first start for him after a claim is 77-14-13-15, which equates to a win rate of 18 percent and 55 percent in the money. Unfortunately, the median payout for those 14 winners was just $6.50, and only one paid more than $10. It’s not as if every Baltas runner is bet heavily in the first start after a claim; it’s more that the ones that aren’t bet heavily have rarely outrun their odds. In fact, those that went off at odds of 4-1 and higher have a combined record of 40-1-4-10, for just a $0.35 ROI.