claming horses

Question
I understand your position.  If you are so inclined, glance @ drf charts over a period and see if you notice a trend.  I believe if a trainer knows he's losing a horse before-hand he may urge the jockey to pull out all the stops.  If you know the economics of claimers, then you understand, losing a horse and winning a purse can be a nice coup.
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The text above is a follow-up to ...

-----Question-----
I will expound on a previous question...I have watched results of horse racing for decades and have found that horses that have had a claim entered for them almost always win or produce a winning effort in that race, regardless of their odds...witness Equibase charts for Churchill Downs 11/22/06; a good example of my point.  This goes on daily all over the country. The information on a claimed entered HAS to be "leaked" before post time. It is virtually impossible for this to be a coincidence.  Your thoughts?
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Richard,

I can't speak to your research, but my own experience has been quite different.  I have found claimed horses generally run to form, whatever that form may be. If they have been running well, they usually run well in the race when claimed, and if they have been running poorly in previous races, then they usually run poorly when claimed as well.
Generally of course, a horse is claimed precisely because they are running very well at their particular level, so it wouldn't be surprising for most of them to do well in the race in which they are claimed also.  Another reason for claiming is when a trainer has observed a huge turnaround in another trainer's horse in the morning, and so he decide to claim him during his next race.  Most trainers try to hide a major improvement in their horse in order to prevent a claim, but an astute claiming trainer is pretty hard to fool.  Grooms talk, riders talk, and people often watch morning workouts closely.  This practice could also account for some of your observations.

In practice, at most tracks there is virtually no way for anyone to know which horses have claims posted, other than general gossip.  Claim slips can be entered as late as 15 minutes prior to post, and most claim boxes are on a timed lock, which only opens after the finish of each race.  Some boxes may still just be padlocked, but there are many people in the racing secretary's office, which would make sneaking a peek pretty difficult.  
Even if someone managed to view the claims beforehand, it is more likely that the horse in question would be scratched so as not to lose him, rather than pushed for an extraordinary last effort.  Also, if it were that easy to make certain that a horse would turn in a winning effort, it seems to me that the trainer would do it every time, winning every available race, rather than restricting himself to only winning when he is losing his horse.  Horses are not machines, they can't be programmed to win at will.

Stephanie Frost

Answer
Richard,

Having raced horses for over 20 years, I know exactly what the economics of running claimers are.  Nobody likes to lose a horse who is capable of winning any time that he is asked to.  The fact is, if winning were as simple as telling the jockey to pull out all the stops, then every trainer at the track would be rich, and very consistently in the money.  Claimers are claimers because they are not consistent.  They rarely pull off a big effort every race.  If they did, they would be allowance quality.

Everybody looks at statistics through their own mental filter.  You obviously have your own position on the matter, but when I look at the racing charts that you initially used as an example in order to make your point, I see something quite a bit different than you do.

In race #1 two horse were claimed, Cabett and Dynawan.  Dynawan ran 2nd, it is true, but Cabett went off at lower odds, and ran 5th.  Hardly a winning effort.

In race #2 the claimed horses ran 1-2, but they were 2 out of the three lowest odds in the race.  It isn't surprising to see both of them finish well.

In race 4 Superfly Girl did indeed win, but the favorite in the race was also claimed, and she ran dead last.

The 5th race had a whopping 5 claims.  The winner was claimed, but as the second favorite in the race, this wouldn't be considered unusual.  The other four claimed horses finished 5, 7, 8, and 11.  Hardly extraordinary efforts.

In the 6th race, the heavy favorite was claimed, but ran a disappointing 3rd by 7 1/2 lengths, while the other horse claimed in the race ran even more poorly, finishing 5th by 13 3/4 lengths.

Altogether, I just don't see anything suspicious going on.  Perhaps, if you just concentrated on the claimed horses who finished well despite being high odds, then you could, but then you would be taking into account only the part of the data that fits your hypothesis, not the results as a whole, which skews your results accordingly.  

Stephanie Frost