Return to the Main FAQ's PageFAQ # 18
ALL-WaysTM Support
When should I play a Dangerous Non Contender?
After ALL-Ways software completes the contender selection process, it looks at each remaining horse to see if there is any reason why this non-contender horse should be considered "dangerous". If it finds a reason (or reasons), the horse is designated as a Dangerous Non-Contender. We will refer to such a horse as a "DNC". ALL-Ways software then prints out one page for all the races on a race card that lists the DNC’s for each race, if any, along with the reasons each horse was so designated. It also shows the horse’s workout rating, how the horse’s running style and post position fit the track bias and favorable/unfavorable jockey and trainer statistics. ALL-Ways software also identifies DNC’s on each handicapping report with an asterisk (*) before the horse’s name.
The Dangerous Non-Contender List is a powerful source of long odds horses. Frequently, horses that go off at long odds (say 15 to 1 or higher) and that finish in-the-money are horses that ALL-Ways software has designated as DNC’s. As a cardinal rule, never ignore DNC’s. Always look further at the powerful information in ALL-Ways software to see if the DNC horse deserves your support. We continue to see and we continue to get reports from ALL-Ways software users about exotic payoffs in the thousands of dollars that are keyed by high priced ALL-Ways software DNC horses.
Obviously, some DNC’s win, others place or show and others finish off-the-board. Now we are going to explain our method for evaluating DNC’s to determine if we want to include them in our wagers and, if so, if we should include them to win or just to place or show.
The first thing we do is determine if the horse qualifies for any kind of play. We look for a playable DNC to be in the top three rankings for any of the following handicapping factors:
Hall Speed (paceline)
BRIS Speed (paceline)
Hall Combined (paceline)
BRIS Combined (paceline)
Hall Combined (best 2 of 3)
BRIS Combined (best 2 of 3)
Brohamer Total Rank (paceline)
Again, if the DNC ranks in the top three of any of these figures, we will consider it to be a play. Conversely, if the DNC is not in the top three of at least one of these factors, we consider the horse unplayable with two specific exceptions. We will consider such a horse playable: 1) if it has a Workout Rating of 2. Such a rating is a solid sign that the horse is capable of running speed figures that are competitive at today’s level, that the horse is in good form and that the trainers intentions are to win the race; 2) if the DNC has been in-the-money or otherwise run a good race a high percentage of the time (say 75% or higher) for multiple races at today’s same distance and surface category. We are not impressed by 1 for 1 but we are impressed by 2 for 2, 3 for 4 and 4 for 5. This indicates that the horse has the competitive drive to do well even if it needs to "over achieve" to do so.
Lets stop and summarize. We will consider a DNC horse to be playable if it ranks in the top three of the listed handicapping factors or if it has a Workout Rating of 2 or if it consistently runs a good race at the same distance and surface category as today’s race.
Now, we must determine if we want to play the horse to win or just to place or show. For this we turn to the powerful Class Ratings supplied by BRIS. We specifically look at the BRIS Class, True Class and Good Class ratings. The BRIS Class rating measures a horse’s class in general. True Class measures a horse’s class at the same distance and surface category. Good Class tells us the highest BRIS Race rating in which the horses has run a good race (in-the-money or within two lengths in sprints or three lengths in routes). If the playable DNC horse ranks within one or two class points of the best horses in the race, we will consider playing the DNC to win.
If the DNC is more than a couple of class points below the better horses, then we would confine our support to place and show. But, here we go again with a couple of exceptions. We will still play such a horse to win if it has a significant Hall Final Fraction advantage over the other horses (say 10 points or so) or if it ranks in the top 1 or 2 of several of the qualifying handicapping factors listed above.
One nice thing about this method is that all the information you need is on the Dangerous Non-Contender List and either the Paceline Report or the All Factors Report. This is so convenient that you can evaluate all DNC’s in a race literally in seconds.
The last step in the process is to determine if the tote board odds are high enough to reward us for the risk in supporting a DNC. Sometimes the DNC will appear to be a pretty solid play. In these cases we would not hesitate to play the horse at modest odds of say 6 to 1 or higher. However, often the DNC horse will be a riskier play. In these cases we like to have tote board odds of 15 to 1 or higher. Such plays occur on just about every race card.