I'm taking you from the Black & White TV days to the 3D Colour era today. My aim is to see if we can confirm, or otherwise, existing beliefs by seeing things from a different perspective.
The attached image represents the Win Strike Rate % of horses in a 5 horse race. The data is gathered from over 3 years of results. I've kept it as a 5 horse race just for simplicity at this stage.

The Horizontal Axis is the Tote price from $1.20 - $3.70.

The 'red' line represents the 1st Favourite's chances of winning. The line rises as the Tote price increases indicating a lesser chance of winning, but more importantly it diverges from the horizontal indicating an underlay and a better Lay opportunity.

The 'green' 2nd Favourite line gradually converges with the 1st fav and at about $2.60 both favourites have an almost equal chance of winning. Consider Dutching the pair or a Quinella.

The 'purple' 3rd Favourite line indicates a constant "run the place" only stance. Perfect for the Trifecta 3rd place.

The 'blue' 4th favourite line is volatile with it's peaks slowly falling as the Tote price increases indicating an increased chance of winning.

The 'orange' 5th Favourite line is very volatile with a saw tooth profile indicating "surprises" ahead! Longshot Layers beware but Backers will be assured of a big payday if patient.

Some of you will no doubt grimmace, others scoff, some slowly nod but what the heck, have a great day! RP

Attached Thumbnails

 

A label for the vertical axis?

Cheers LG

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The trick isn't finding profitable angles, it's finding ones you will bet through the ups and downs - UB

The vertical axis represents the % chance of winning converted to $ dollars. The higher the $ the less chance of winning.
Thanks LG

I'm struggling a bit to make sense of it but I'll have a crack at an explanation.

The horizontal axis is the tote price of the favourite?
The vertical axis is the chance each favourite has of winning based on the moving scale of the price of the favourite (horizontal axis)?

So essentially in a 5 horse race the chances of all 5 horses winning are virtually equal when the favourite has odds of $3.70, correct?

It's strange that it has so many spikes, I thought with 3 years of data it would all be relatively smooth charts. Although there probably haven't been many 5 horse races in that time either.

RP, can you flip the vertical axis so that a lower % chance of winning is shown as a dip?

This might make more sense to the eye and/or intuition, perhaps?

Cheers LG

PS I see the Good Lord at work in your chart, despite the spikes and dips. Boom and bust, life n death etc etc. I can also see it mathematically i.e. where the lines converge.

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The trick isn't finding profitable angles, it's finding ones you will bet through the ups and downs - UB

The data was based on 631 5 horse races, however the 5th Fav, or least favoured horse , only won 35 of those races 5.5%. The 35 wins were spread over 17 tote 1st Fav tote prices. Spikes are a signal for volatility.

Hope that helps, RP

I get it, RP. If the 5th fav is called Rocky Mountains I'll mortgage the holiday home and jump on.

Stop it Speedy, you're starting me laughing again!! Still coming good after Barny's 7 Wonders of Mankind....lol
Now, I'm putting that one forward as the funniest post 2013.

Cheers RP