[Thunder Gulch]

A dogtrack regular was discussing his strategy with me that made some sense. As everyone keeps harping on, dogs are all about the trip and those in the clear have big advantages. That's why the 1 and 8 win more than their share since they will only have competition on one side and can avoid a pinch. The break is critical. Anyway, the theory is to track the tendency of a given dog to break "in", "straight", or "out". He knows them well enough to see if a dog breaks the say way over and over. By tracking these tendencies, you can identify the ones that will break into each other and the ones that will get the clear run. For example, you look at the 3 and see he goes straight, while the 2 usually goes in and the 4 goes out. That will give him a couple of paths of clear space. On a negative, find a favorite that will likely have problems with an adjacent dog and bet against. Obviously you have to track the dogs and watch some tape to pick up on this, but since they race every few days, I would think the initial homework could sustain itself for awhile at a given racetrack.