King: Finding value in horses making their second start off a claim

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Most handicappers acknowledge the importance of notable barn changes, having witnessed dramatic improvement from horses making their first start after being claimed by a high-percentage trainer.

The claim can prove easy to forget after that first race for the new connections, however, provided forward moves were immediately apparent. And it is often in these subsequent starts that bettors can uncover overlaid contenders.

My preferred time to play these types is the second start after the claim – not that you need to take my word for it. Horseplayers who use Formulator, Daily Racing Form’s online past-performance database, can check statistics for individual trainers to see how they fare with this move by filtering results based on the second-after-the-claim criterion.

For example, a quick Formulator search of the five-year training history of Michelle Nevin – who has Ouro Verde making her second start off a claim in the fifth race at Belmont on Saturday – indicated she had won with 31 of 111 such runners (28 percent). A bet on each runner would have yielded an average return of $2.26 for a $2 bet, a possible indication that they were outrunning their odds.

Such a lofty percentage is atypical, as is a flat-bet profit in a game where it is difficult to overcome takeout. What is not unusual is to see a skilled trainer winning at a higher percentage with this move than her overall percentage, or in excess of her first-after-the-claim rate.

There is a logical explanation to this. A second start for a talented trainer gives a horse at least a few more weeks to adapt to a change in feed and conditioning and for a trainer to learn more about the horse. Improvement that falls within the rules rarely comes overnight.

Beyond that, the second start off the claim is often an easier race for a trainer to spot a horse. Beyond having that first race as a measuring stick to gauge talent, oftentimes restrictions on where the horse can run are no longer in place by the time a horse makes his second start.

Rules vary by jurisdiction, but some states require that a claimed horse take a class hike for a period of a few weeks or a month, or at the very least, not drop below his claim price for a short while. These rules can affect performance, usually from ambitious placement.

Even if these restrictions were not in place, I suspect many claimed horses would be rising anyway. It is natural for a horse-loving owner or a trainer to appreciate a new acquisition and to limit the risk of losing him via another claim right away. Typically, this means a higher claiming price or a starter or allowance race.

Whether by rules or human nature, humbling race results in the first start off a claim can lead to fitting placement thereafter. And again, this is where Formulator can come in handy – either by further querying the results, say by looking at 50 percent class droppers, or by clicking the horse-by-horse results, providing the past performances of the horse to be individually scrutinized.

One can also throw recent form into the mix using Formulator. Horses coming off wins or in-the-money finishes also can be used to fine tune results.

A key point needs to be made here about second-after-the-claim runners: Although it is encouraging that the horse was recently acquired via a claim, I do not advise betting him blindly as an angle. I recommend picking spots in search of a winning history from the trainer.

That does not mean a trainer has to put up Nevin’s numbers with the angle. Yet I do want to see within Formulator that a trainer is hitting at 15 percent or higher, preferably with a respectable ROI and based a reasonably deep sample size.

For me, that usually means a sample of at least 30 runners. Otherwise, I tend to de-emphasize the results, believing a fat-priced outlier may have inflated the ROI or that the win percentage was altered by mere chance.