Short handicapping lesson
 

New member and a relative newcomer to horseracing...

With the season just around the corner here in NJ, I need to revamp my handicapping "skills" and sure could use help. I haven't had much luck in the past. My bets are mostly exacta / tri boxes, and I also enjoy playing rolling pick 3's,with one race being a single to keep the costs manageable.
I would like to ask you guys /girls how you narrow the field when looking over a race. How do you toss out the non-contenders ?
Is there a quick "system" you use that makes you focus on horses you like in that race ? something that can be done in the time between races ?
I appreciate you help and good luck with your picks.

Brad Free's book Handicapping 101 will show you how to read the form. Steven Crist's Exotic Betting may give you some insights into constructing a wager. Time and money are all you need. Maybe some luck to go with it! There is barely enough time to get a beer between races so do most of your work the day before. Use the time between races to watch the board and meet people.

Toss anything Mike Smith is riding. Seriously you can pace out a race and if you anticipate a faster than normal pace look to eliminate the weak front types and vice versa for a slower than normal anticipated pace look to get rid of the weak deep closers. That's a start.

I need to revamp my handicapping "skills" and sure could use help. I haven't had much luck in the past. My bets are mostly exacta / tri boxes, and I also enjoy playing rolling pick 3's,with one race being a single to keep the costs manageable.

FJH, my immediate thought regarding your question is not how contenders are eliminated but that your handicapping skills are still in the stages of infancy.

The reason you are having so little luck is you are concentrating on exotic wagering. Unless you are capable of picking winners, it is doubtful that you'll have success in hitting trifectas, where you choose from a field of 10 which horses have the possibility of getting a piece, running 2nd and 3rd. These wagers, and pic 3 wagers get quite expensive, and can eat your bankroll in a New York minute.

If one cannot pick winners, one is going to have an even harder time ferreting out horses that will hit the board. So, in that respect you are ripping a lot of losers. Instead of this, for a while--make your choice and bet them to win.

Horserace handicapping is an ongoing skill of one's own learning and experience involving arduous tasks everyday. And there are NO shortcuts. None, absolutely. You take shortcuts, you're losing.

Stay at it, but take the time involved to learn it properly.

i'm not a fan of exacta or tri-boxes. i'd much rather key. you can use more horses or cut down the cost.

for example:
TRI BOX 12345 = $60

KEY #1 WITH 2345 then 2345/1/2345 then 2345/2345/1 = $36

OR

add an extra horse same price

1/23459/23459 THEN 23459/1/23459 THEN 23459/23459/1 = $60


my 2 cents

One suggestion is, don't hop around attempting to bet all over the country. Stick to one track. Don't try to cap maidens, firsters, of bottom claimers at first. Look for races more predictable based on form, workouts, and class. Win bets is my recommendation. If you have some friends, pool some cash, and spread on P3's. They will have the most value for your cash.

Don't try to use to many variations of capping. Find what works best for you, and work around that. Way to much stuff out there that only clogs the mind up.

One quick system that I can't bring myself to use but it hits a lot.... Tri box (I don't like boxes either) the inside 3 horses on the Inner Dirt going 2 turns no matter how horrible thier running lines look or even if Mike Smith is riding. It's amazing how often this hits. But hurry, only a couple weeks left on the Inner!

Thanks to all who posted they're thoughts so far. Hope it doesn't seem like I am looking for the lazy way out... just something to help get me started in the right direction.
I'll concentrate my efforts on picking A winner.The idea was to try and cover more of the field with the exacta & tri's...faulty thought process from the start.
Seems to be some very knowleable people posting in the Selections thread,I'll spend some time there also and try to understand the logic behind the picks.

No, your thinking is in no way faulty Fjh, its just more advanced for someone relatively new to the game. That's all.

Try looking at possibly 3 horses in the 2-1 to 4-1 range only, and go from there. And don't feel the need to bet each and every race. That may prove more successful for you in these early stages. (These are ideas that have been given to me, as I in turn, give them to you.)

Agree with sticking to winners, Andy Beyer has a good book as well, I think it is called Picking Winners. Love the toss Mike Smith angle.

You should do what the others are saying and focus on trying to get the hang of picking the winner. It'll be much easier to string together some exotics without boxing the field if you can get to a point where you're fairly confident that the horse you pick on top is going to be in the running for the win.

As far as a way to narrow down the field, do this...look at what the horse has done in the past...primarily, I mean distance. Has the horse won at that distance? If so, don't toss him. If the horse has never tried the distance or has and didn't get in the money, toss it. Not 100%, but I guarantee you it's going to get you off of a bunch of losers. In general, don't trust horses to do things that haven't proven they can do. What they've done in the past is the best indication of what they'll do in the future. Don't try to make a story for a horse, make a case against it. Look at this way, if a horse has won at the distance it's running today, you're not making a case FOR that horse, you're simply finding it hard to make a case AGAINST that horse. It is easier to make a case AGAINST a horse that hasn't run the distance or has but has never placed. This is the easiest system I know of to make it easier to narrow down a field. Wouldn't work on the Kentucky Derby, but when you find a system that does......let me know. Other than that, if you having a problem trying to narrow down, let the race do it for you by picking some races that have small fields...obviously it's easier to pick from 6 or 7 than it is 10 or 12 (just generally speaking). Hope that helps.

Bet the gray.

i consider myself a good turf handicapper i will always go on the internet the night before i plan on going to otb or the track or whatever and find turf races that i want to bet, i do not like betting claimers, i agree with the poster earlier who said at first dont bet maidens and cheap claimers, if i were you i would start with allowance and stakes races, allowance/optional claiming is ok you will find some hard knockers in those races, depending on where you are i wouldn't start off by betting ny breds or cal breds or any state breds, i would just look for open company stakes or allowance races.

PG1985, to be clear, I'm not trying to pick on you....I've seen a few people post this on here. What's the big deal about betting claiming races?? I have always found them just as "game" as the stakes. If anything, the stakes/allowances/handicaps tend to be deeper, more contentious fields. Granted, the studs of the sport race in stakes which gives them a degree of predictability, but the information you use to look at a stakes race is, for the most part, the same as what a player looks at to play claimers. In fact, one might argue that after getting some familiarity with a track and the trainers/jocks/owners, claimers are as suitable to play as any.

and, I might add, a basic familiarity with the economics of the sport...but, really once you've got a handle on that, claiming races can be great wagers. And, if anyone is going to play, he better damn well learn to play claimers because that's by far the majority of races available to bet on...unless someone does like you do PG and play only turf races, which I've found to be the most volatile of any surface to play on.

Here is my pithy piece of advice: Bet the race, not the horse.
Here is what I mean:
Look at all the pp and try to visualize how the race is going to play out. Who is going to be on the lead? Will there be a battle on the front end? Who might get caught wide? New people sometimes make the mistake of always betting on the best horse in the race! Sounds stupid right? Well a lot of times the best horse in the race is not a smart play for any number of reasons such as:
1) The pace scenario won't fit the horse.
2) The horse is likely to get caught wide.
3) The race is not at the horse's best distance.
4) The horse should be a solid 2/1 favorite but is instead at 3/5.
etc.
Take your time with each race and try to figure it out.
Then, after you lose, :D, look at the race again. This is key. You will learn a lot by looking at the horses (that you tossed) that just won. Occasionally the horse will really just have come out of nowhere, but more often than not you will see that you overlooked something. This will help your handicapping immensely.

i dont only play turf but i do look online every night for the turf races for the next day , im in ny so there is no turf at this time of year i look at fairground, gulfstream, tampa bay, and santa anita, i think im a better turf handicapper, and as for the claimers its just a opinion if you just bet stakes and the nice allowances that you can find any day at the nyra track of florida or cali then i think you will do better, i could be wrong some ppl might like the claimers better, but i know for me when im looking to spot play 1 horse on a given day and make a big win place bet, i know it wont be in a claiming race, never.

This is great advice...:cool:

Wait a sec....I just responded to a post that no longer exists?

Should I look for it in Narnia?

Sorry about that. My mistake...I thought I'd start a new thread so people didn't have to wade through the first set of responses.

First of all I totally disagree telling this guy not to play exactas and trifectas. It appears empirially that you get more bang for your buck on these than just straight win bets. Apparently the parimutual pool is not as efficient for exotics as it is for win/place, show bets.

Anyone can study it for themselves, multiply the odds on the two exacta horses and it comes out pretty close to the win odds they went off at. But if you had bet them to win/place only the win bet would pay off at the win odds, the place bet would be worth much less.

The same reasoning is probably true for pick 3s etc, but in my opinion you have that much more info. to deal with whereas in an exotic you only have to cap one race. If you can figure out how one race will play out, then you have much less info. to parse through.

Look at the dubious logic being exuded here:

"If one cannot pick winners, one is going to have an even harder time ferreting out horses that will hit the board..."

This sounds logical but is it? (sorry to pick on Grits here). The end conclusion of Grits is that you should stick to win betting because...."you cannot pick winners."

What the hell sense does that make? It's not a question of being able to spot winners anyone can spot winners, it's how many of them you want to play and what price are you getting.

And why woud it be harded to spot a horse to hit the board than a winner? Does that make any sense? Three horees will hit the board why would it be harder to spot one out of three horses? I dont see any logic in this.

Try to be as coldly logical as possible:

The guy above who said you should stick to one track makes perfect sense. Why? Because the more tracks you are dealing with the more info. you have to sort and the more info you have to sort means you are getting closer to simply random betting, i.e. straight gambling.

THe only logical thing is to try to use as much info as possible in order to avoid making a bet that is just a simple gamble. If you had no info. at all, and you just throw mony down on any horse, that is a simple gamble. Presumably with skill you can win at this game.

This is the hope. Logically the only way then to win is to have more info, or to better analyze the info. Or both. By adding more tracks you are geting back toward total random betting or gambling.

That much makes sense.

So do exactas/ trifectas...

Unless it's your birthday and the horse's name is Storm in May.

If you're playing Gulfstream, play Mark Guidry. :eek:

If you're playing Santa Anita...stick your hand on a hot stove.

I'm real sorry you picked on me too, Easy Goer. I truly am because I don't feel like being picked on tonight. How many winners did you hit today? Or better yet, how many exotics, based upon the mindset that one only has to HANDICAP ONE RACE and just throw in 2 or 3 others to hit. How many times today did you pick the RIGHT THREE out of 9 to 12 horse fields????

Now we're talking trifectas, not exactas, and tris will eat your damn money sideways, honey. And when you see your horse on top win, and you've keyed him, wheeled him, rolled him, prayed over him and you've got the wrong thing to run behind him, you say, ......"sonofab!tch, I had the winner, but I just missed." Well, just missed ain't cashing. And doing that repeatedly, gets you poor.

IF you can't pick winners, based on your handicapping skills and I ain't talking only chalk here, you will not be able to put together trifecta wagers, consistently, which will keep you in the black. And THAT is the goal in this game.

Now, that's all I need to say about win betting tonight. OK, we're cool.

(And empirially is not a word. The correct word is empirically.)

I'm no big expert on this, but the first thing I look at is the conditions/purse for the race. Why is this horse entered in this race?

Where did the guy say he couldnt pick winners? Show me:


He never said he couldnt find winners. Did He?

Great logic. You assume he cant spot winners, he never said that.

If he cant spot winners, then the next logical thing is: Bet to win..

Easy Goer, good morning.

I hope that fjh will continue to wager and enjoy the game. His comment here does not seem to indicate success.

And fjh, I'll give you another thought in wagering to win, and this may be helpful. I hope so.

Download or purchase the hard copy of pps of your choice.

HANDICAP ONLY THE THREE PUBLIC CHOICES IN ANY RACE. Do not look at any other horses in each race. Don't bother with anything else, just those three.

After handicapping these, choose from the three, the horse you think mostly like to win.

Do this exercise, mythically, for several days, weeks even.

I believe you may be able to attain a more successful rate of return than continuing to approach the game only through wagering exotics.

As I said, exotic wagering is quite expensive for someone new to this game, and you are chasing your losses, trying to win it back, most often . . . three jumps out of the gate.

Much good luck, fjh!

Before you start throwing money every which way but loose. There is nothing wrong with capping with no money involved at all for beginners. Also when I first started I watched which trainers spotted their stock better than others. Like it was said before somtimes in the pick 3's it isn't about picking the winners as much as it's picking the least likely winners. Watch the conditions of the race most good trainers will enter horses who barely qualfiy for the race.

Now we're talking trifectas, not exactas, and tris will eat your damn money sideways, honey. And when you see your horse on top win, and you've keyed him, wheeled him, rolled him, prayed over him and you've got the wrong thing to run behind him, you say, ......"sonofab!tch, I had the winner, but I just missed." Well, just missed ain't cashing. And doing that repeatedly, gets you poor.


So true. I think I could count the number of tris I've hit on one hand and still have a few fingers left. A genuine money burning bet, for me anyway, especially the tri-box. Often get 2 of the 3 and some longshot SOB comes in to piss on my parade.

I appreciate everyone's input...gives me a lot of food for thought.
I really have had very little success picking winners. The
"handicapping" generally leads right to the chalk. When I go with it, it bombs. When I go against...you can quess.
As I said I'm fairly new and know I have much to learn and have to develope my own methods. I'm fortunate in that I'm close to Monmouth so I will be attending more races this year.
I'm also fortunate to have discovered DerbyTrail....the people here are genuinely helpful and friendly.

If Monmouth is your track, BET THE SPEEEEEEED!
Seriously speaking, check the charts for the tracks that you like to play daily just to see if there were any biases on those days. For example if you plan on going to Monmouth on Saturday check the charts for Wed.,Thurs & Fri. to see if the speed was holding up, or maybe they were closing on those days. If you can get replays of the races that is even better. If you know that speed is holding up, that gives you an advantage handicapping the races. You might not toss a horse that will be on the lead for one that is a dead closer.

Forget All That You Have Read. If It Looks Like A Horse, Bet It! Supers Tris Exactas, Bet It All! With The Advice They Are Giving You, You Will End Up Like The Old Lady In Ohio, Oh Look I Cashed $2.00 To Win On That Horse! Go For The Big Score All The Time. If You Lose You Will Learn What Not To Do Later.

If only they had 10 cent trifectas...I would kill!

This site is a great tool and has made me a better handicapper but I think handicapping books have helped me the most. . .

Start with Brad Free's Handicapping 101 or one of Beyer's books and then once you've developed some handicapping ability, move on to more betting oriented books like "Exotic Betting" or "Six Secrets of Successful Bettors."

Those old ladies in Ohio, including Kentucky, New York, and SoCal, the family matriarch types, they never bet to win,

they only bet to show.

These same old ladies, often own the breeding farms of the horses that you're betting all your hard earned money on.

I've got that one on my nightstand. It's very informative and easy to understand.

A nice thread to read & some ideas
I'll just add this one.. Before I ever started playing Daily Doubles, (as my brother -in-law allways played). , I allways thought "" its hard enough to hit One win horse, now you want me to pick Two in a row ""? With some practice, I find a Daily Double a nice bet. Find a nice 5-1, 6-1 horse who can win and pair it with a fav. in the other race, you have a nice hit.
Money Management is the first step.

Huh? I can't figure out what you're talking about! You want to multiply the exacta odds in an exacta box and compare that to win/place? What's that going to tell you? The win bet is going to come in a lot more often than the exacta bet. Maybe you can give an example of what you're trying to say.

It's not impossible that the exacta pool is less efficient than the win pool. In fact, I think that's likely. That doesn't make it an automatic better choice for a novice, or even a champ, for that matter. First, in general you have to overcome a much bigger takeout when you bet exotics. There's a humongous difference in beating the 15.4% WPS takeout vs the 20.2% exacta takeout in Calif. Second, your capping has to be very near perfect on 2 of the horses instead of just one. Of course, your capping has to be pretty damn good on ALL the horses in a race to even come close to being a winner, but in an exacta you are saying that 2 of them have a distinct overlay advantage on the rest of the field.

If the inefficiency is big enough, it can make the exacta pool attractive, but I certainly wouldn't recommend it to a beginner.

--Dunbar