Horse racing betting: What is a bridge jumper?

The sport of horse racing is filled with specific (and sometimes creative) lingo and jargon. The term “bridge jumper” is an example.

What is a bridge jumper in horse racing?

In horse racing betting, a “bridge jumper” is a bettor who A. wagers a large amount on a single horse, usually a heavy favorite, and B. opts for a show bet (requiring the horse to finish first, second, or third) rather than a win bet. Occasionally, bridge jumpers risk a place bet, which requires a first- or second-place finish.

Since the minimum payout for a pari-mutuel horse racing bet is $2.10 for every $2 wager, betting a huge sum on an overwhelming favorite to show will often return the same 5% profit as a riskier win bet… provided, of course, that the horse runs to expectations. If the heavy favorite finishes out of the top three, the notion goes that a losing bridge jumper is apt to jump off a bridge.

Songbird, a two-time champion filly, attracted $1,017,594 out of $1,081,223 in show bets when she started in the 2016 Summertime Oaks (G2) at Santa Anita. It was a bridge-jumper scenario (the win and place pools combined attracted only $338,518 in wagers), and her 6 1/2-length win required Santa Anita to add $201,400 to the show pool to meet the minimum $2.10 payoff.

How to bet against bridge jumpers

Sometimes, bridge jumpers lose their big bets. If you believe a bridge jumper has bet heavily on an unreliable favorite, there’s an opportunity to cash large payoffs.

If a heavy favorite finishes out of the top three, then all the money bet on them to show is instead dispersed among the (relatively few) bettors who supported the correct top-three finishers. This can inflate the show payoffs to the point that they’re larger than the win and place payoffs.

Champion Shared Belief was favored at 3-10 to win the 2015 Charles Town Classic (G2). But after stumbling at the start, he was pulled up halfway through the race with what turned out to be a minor hip injury. Meanwhile, the surprise winner paid $16.00 to win, $12.00 to place… and $23.20 to show. The runner-up returned $41.60 to place and $71.20 to show, and the third-place finisher generated a $45.60 show payoff.

Capitalizing on these opportunities isn’t easy; you must correctly anticipate when a favorite will disappoint and place a winning bet on one of the other contenders. But the results can be lucrative.