Come Out Roll
How do you prevent handicapping and betting the races from being just a crap-shoot?
Several of you have commented in response to various posts that success at this game seems to be ever elusive. It comes for a while, then disappears as quickly as it came . . . something seems to work for a time, then it doesn’t. What gives?
Every single handicapper has had runs of successful wagering. This is proof that it isn’t that difficult to accomplish. The $64,000 question then becomes – “How do I maintain the advantage – how do I keep it from slipping back . . . in fact – how do I continue to increase profits over time, and prevent p*ssing them away during negative streaks?“
As I commented to one of the posters recently, the main way is to be sharper than the next guy in your handicapping and betting – which kind of goes without saying.
But beyond that and perhaps even more important: There are two correlatives I think are so key to the game that success cannot be had without their mastery . . .
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What If?
One of racing’s great refrains – and usually used as a way of justification or lamenting of a betting loss. But re-evaluating our moves, choices, and decisions in this game can be very constructive to our future success. In that light – I offer the following . . .
Did any of you happen to watch (or see the results of) the Risen Star Stakes yesterday at Fairgrounds? Every bell and whistle in the state went off when that $272.40 winner crossed the line!
I was watching the race for Ky Derby purposes and didn’t have a bet going. I’d just before the race gotten off the phone with a subscriber where I had been answering some questions on “Speed 2013” – I had the thought to check the race in hindsight, and see if that winner could have been caught with the method.
Without giving away the method to those who haven’t purchased . . . but for those of you that do have the method – what follows is my thinking and the results of the application of the method to that race:
Read MoreHandicapping – Fountain of Youth?
Can handicapping keep your brain young?
There is a lot of new evidence out there that indicate that in fact it could not only keep your brain functioning at a higher capacity, but can even help regenerate new brain cells and brain cell connections – and turn your mental clock around.
Now, I know not all of you are of the age that you might yet have even considered this, but if you aren’t there yet – you will be.
It has been discovered that in most people brain functioning begins to fade from optimal somewhere during their mid-thirties. We are born with some 100 billion brain cells (I wonder who counted them?!) with a quadrillion of these connections – neurons and their synapses. And one of the keys to keeping the brain young – to prevent the dying off of these cells and their connectors – is to continually challenge the brain with new problem solving situations.
What could fit the bill better than handicapping a horse race?
Every race is different – the challenge remains ever-new. There has even been recent research that certain aspects of using the computer will help increase cognitive functions and mental dexterity.
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Speed 2013
A serious question:
In general, do you think early speed is more – or less – important than it was – say, twenty or thirty years ago?
Many of the current handicapping pundits and “gurus” like to point out that – since the “crowd” most easily sees and analyzes early speed, those horses are then over-bet and therefore offer little value.
They suggest instead looking at late running horses because the average prices are higher for those types.
Okay – that is likely an accurate evaluation – BUT – and it is a very important “BUT” . . .
– what is the percentage of late running horses that win races versus the percentage of early running horses that win races?
To hit a 12-1 shot that comes from the back of the pack to catch them at the wire is exciting and memorable, but it’s not so exciting when that same type then lose 13 in a row for you – just missing on many occasions while the early running horses are coming in race after race.
*Important point: when I talk about early running horses, I am not limiting to the “front runners” only. I include any horse that will be able to place itself in a striking position relative to the pace that is likely to be set by the actual front runner in today’s race.
The advantages of being in the first flight (or close) in a race, and to be within striking distance at all points of the race into the stretch– are obvious. These advantages have been discussed at length by many handicapping writers, and I’m sure you are already aware of them . . .
A Mug’s Game?
Is horse race betting a “mug’s game?” Does a player really have a shot at making a success of it, or is it just the old ‘snowball up a hill’ thing?
Maybe the better question in our current economic climate would be . . . is the goal of financial security in any form a mug’s game?
The sad truth is that what our Grandparents paid $20 for in 1913 – we have to cough up $467.31 for today! What my parents paid $20 for in 1948 (the year I was born) – I’ve got to pay $191.96 for today. The estimates are that the dollar has lost 95% to 98% of its value since the 1913 to 1920 period.
That kind of puts the question of ‘saving’ and ‘earning’ for the future in a different light doesn’t it? The goal of earning and saving part of those earnings is to have more at a future time – right? But the reality of wealth loss (though it is actually being confiscated by others, so lets call it what it is – wealth transfer) via the declining value of our currency sort of turns the whole thing into a mug’s game.
Okay – okay – bit of a rant there – apologies. And, of course, there are ways to counter the inexorable decline of the purchasing power of the dollar – but that’s a conversation for another day. So back to the question at hand – success at the races . . .
Read MoreClaiming Gold!
Read on below to find out about our new method offering – Claiming Gold!
Being successful at the race track, i.e. betting the ponies, is kind of like trying to walk a straight line taking heel-to-toe steps with the added pressure of a police officer watching (some of you older players might remember having to take that pre-breathalyzer test a time or two during your misspent youth!?).
How so?
Well – it’s easy to get “drunk” on all the information out there – then to get off balance by giving too much weight to some factors, and not enough to others. And – there is always the constant ‘pressure’ of friends, racing buddies, and family (read – wife or husband!) watching and judging.
It is tempting to just throw up ones hands and either quit, or turn the whole handicapping process over to the latest software that does all the “thinking” for you. It’s easy to say, “Hey, there are so many factors to consider, and I just don’t have the time to consider all of them for every race – I’ll let the computer do all of that for me.”
But horse players were making money at this game a hundred years before computers. How did they do it?
. . . Basics.
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Speed Ratings
Speed ratings – class ratings – par times, and the various combinations, permutaions, and comparisons of these cause a lot of confusion in the game today.
Each time we offer a method that has as one of its factors the comparison of horses’ speed ratings, or Beyer figures, or Racing Post numbers – there have been questions.
And those questions are valid.
There has been a proliferation of companies who offer their own version of a “rating” for each race in a horses’ history. Players, once committed to a particular one of these services, are reticent to switch, and do the tough job of re-researching how their handicapping decisions might have been different (for better or worse) if one of the ‘other’ outfit’s ratings had been used.
I’m not going to profess to know all the subtle differences, or try to establish a pecking order for the various services (it’s very likely I am not even aware of some of the ratings services out there). Neither will I explain the mechanics behind getting the figures. Books have been written on this, and if you want to pursue it – it is a fascinating subject.
In this post I will simply give a few thoughts on this issue, and also provide a chart I found online that will help those of you who have asked ratings-related questions of us recently. This is in particular response to those who asked those questions in regards to the new freebie method we gave out – “Marquee Race Method.”
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Aim High
What’s the worst that could happen?
Many believe in this approach to life – and to horse racing. I also did in an earlier time of my own life. As we look around us today – almost everywhere (except maybe in Big Banking and Big Wall Street) we see lowering returns to our expectations.
Technological innovation remains the hope for a fuller and more fulfilling future, but somehow it has not, and is not living up to its promise. Belts are tightening here at home as well as across the globe. People are very concerned, people are worried . . . some are afraid.
For nearly a century, the “American Dream” was the ‘aim high’ goal for our ancestors, and for the throngs of immigrants that flooded into the country. Some did achieve relative greatness – some always will – no matter the time or place.
However, that Dream of America seems to be fading fast, and is achieved by fewer and fewer. There are over 40 million U.S. citizens now on food stamps, 10’s of thousands have lost, or are in imminent danger of losing their homes because of greed, the so-called “fiscal cliff” rapidly approaches . . . and forgive me if you are of a different view, but I think Tuesday’s election results only serve to make the mess even more problematic.
So how does all this relate to betting the ponies?
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The Greatest Race Day
I want to tell you the story of the most incredible day of racing I’ve ever experienced.
It was the kind of day that, even if I lived and breathed horse racing for another thirty-five years (as I have for the last thirty-five), I will never see the likes of again.
In 1986, I was living in the small village of La Purisima, Baja California – Mexico. Chance had brought me there (a long story for another day), but I was comfortably lost and incommunicado in a desert canyon two hours north of the city of Insurgentes deep in the central desert of Baja, and intended to stay that way for the indeterminate future.
I lived in a one-room palapa. It was a palm-thatch covered open-air patio, but mine had been ‘improved’ and was enclosed – kind of. There were two large windows that held no glass or screens, and a single doorway with no door. This permitted entrance to all sorts of creatures that then shared the palapa with me; bats at night, scorpions by day and night, a small, sleek, black snake that lived in the palm thatch and (I justified to myself) helped keep the cute little kangaroo rats at an acceptable minimum, an occasional tarantula (they are really fairly harmless), and a host of other critters I won’t list. It was really just like camping out, except I couldn’t see the stars at night.
Somewhat more pleasant as visitors were the three or four short, sun-wrinkled old women who showed up each morning with fresh, warm tortillas and local fruit. They were my neighbors, and though they were kind and beautiful little folk, their real reason for being there was nothing more than uncontrollable curiosity about the ‘gringo’ who had mysteriously shown up in their midst.
‘Chapulina’ (little grasshopper?!) was the oldest, and appeared to be their ring leader. The others were somewhat shy, but not this old crone. After a brief few days at the start of my long stay (an initial ‘sizing-up’ period I guess), she began coming over at any time of day – and ‘day’ for them began at the crack of dawn. She would walk right in – no knocking – I could be sleeping, reading, eating – no matter, and brazenly, yet casually pick through my stuff. By the end of the first week, she knew more about the small inventory of personal gear I had there than I did.
But – on to the horse race part of the story . . .
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“Odds and Ends”
You will quite often here players say something like this, “I never bet on a horse going off at less than 3/1″ (or plug in whatever odds you want). Maybe you’ve said something like that, and believe that statement (or similar) can be made as an overall, all-inclusive, pronouncement.
In today’s game of consistently small fields at many of the tracks, some adjusting of thinking might be needed.
The basic thought here is this: are odds of, say, 5/2 the same value in a 5-6 horse field as in a 10-14 horse field? – “Well, heck yeah – it pays the same in both races, right?!” (I can hear someone say).
Yes – but to my way of thinking, a 5/2 shot in a 6 horse field might be a very good value bet that I’ll make, whereas if my top choice is off at 5/2 in a full field, it is simply far less attractive, and I will most often go elsewhere (using my second or third choices).
Why is it that a player feels (or should feel – and rightly so) that lower odds are generally to be avoided?
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