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The Most Underrated Trainer

Several weeks ago I spoke about which jockeys were most likely to bring in a logshot. Today, I talk about which trainers are most likely to bring in a longshot.

Though jockey handicapping and trainer handicapping are both important, an understanding of trainers is more beneficial to your growth as a handicapper. Trainers understand their horses in a way that the jockey simply cannot, and an understanding of trainer tendencies and patterns will yield better results than being a student of jockeys alone. We looked at the number of longshots a trainer saddled from January 1st 2014 to October 31st 2014. We only included trainers who saddled 20 longshots or more so as not to skew the results. The list is arranged based on the trainer’s TA Trainer Rating with longshots, not his overall TA Trainer rating. We also looked at each trainer’s Win, Place and Show ROI to give you some insight into how to incorporate each trainer in your handicapping.

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The first thing I did was look for trainers that had enough wins so that I could effectively capitalize on any trends that I saw. I felt it was more beneficial to look for a trainer who could bring in multiple 12-1 horses as opposed to a trainer that brought in one 60-1 the entire year. I then looked at the Win ROI to make sure this trainer was getting some good prices. Of course, whose the first trainer who caught my eye? Marty Wolfson of course. Marty is easily the top trainer on this when looking at TA Trainer rating, longshot wins and the ROI he has with those longshots. The results seem to make sense considering that Marty seems to have an uncanny ability to improve horses by four to five speed figure points when assuming training duties from another trainer. His most famous example was when he took over the grade three horse Miesque’s Approval and won the Breeder’s Cup Mile with him. It’s nothing short of amazing that after all these years people do not overbet Marty Wolfson horses. Kathleen Demasi and Jimmy Jerkens are very similar to Marty Wolfson in that they can take a horse from another trainer and improve that horse’s current form by four to five speed figure points. So, lets focus our efforts on Marty Wolfson and Kathleen Demasi and try to play them when they are in races that they are most likely to win. In order to do this, we need their trainer profiles. I’m not going to embed their profiles in this article, but I will reference them and you can pull them up on your own by going to our site and clicking on trainer analytics distance/surface comparison.

There isn’t anything too outlandish that jumps out at me when looking at each trainer’s profile, but there are some things worth pointing out. In the 124 route races that Marty Wolfson has contested in the past 12 months, he has 26 wins, 17 places and 19 shows. Demasi has contested 86 routes over this same time period and has 9 wins, 15 places and 11 shows. I wasn’t born yesterday. I am well aware of the fact that Wolfson gets better route horses than Demasi, but it still doesn’t take away from the fact that Wolfson is just a phenomenal trainer when it comes to route races period. It also has to be said that Demasi is fairly competant regardless of the distance; causation vs causality is always a slippery slope.

In the end, you still need to use your judgement when interpreting the data. For instance, I put a ton of stock in Demasi’s ability to improve horses. I do not put too much stock in her record in route races because I am of the opinion that she gets some awful routers that even D. Wayne Lukas couldn’t help. I’ll continue to play the Demasi trainer switch angle till the public starts valuing her at the level that they should.

I’ll continue to bump up any horse that’s getting a trainer switch to Marty Wolfson as well. I’ll also look for horses that are switching over to Wolfson and going up in distance, as he has an excellent route race record. I’ll also play horses that have switched over to the Marty Wolfson barn and are coming off of a layoff. It seems that these horses recieve the biggest boost in performance.

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