July 25 Saratoga Card ROI Wagers go here . . .

[cruzan200246]

R2. Theodora Grace $25 Win
R5. 6 Unprecedented $25 Win
R8. 4 Bluegras Smile $25 Win
R9. 10 Turbo Drive $25 Win

[DonGuido]

Well I'm learning when to bet a tri box. Like in Race 3, thought about it but nope changed my mind. $12 tri box paid $204. Woulda shoulda coulda.

[JolyB]

Originally Posted by DonGuido

Well I'm learning when to bet a tri box. Like in Race 3, thought about it but nope changed my mind. $12 tri box paid $204. Woulda shoulda coulda.

Picking horses is only half the battle. I've long maintained that money management is just as important, or perhaps even more important to being a successful horseplayer.

One of the virtues of our ROI competition is the chance to try various wagers or structures of wagers to learn which approaches work the best for each of our personal handicapping styles.

In the Ballston Spa, Sistercharlie didn't look like the dominant horse she was in the past.

[JolyB]

Originally Posted by DonGuido

Well I'm learning when to bet a tri box. Like in Race 3, thought about it but nope changed my mind. $12 tri box paid $204. Woulda shoulda coulda.

Don, I've thought about your post for a while, because it expresses one of the major horseplayer's dilemmas - to box or not to box.

In the Ballston Spa, I'm assuming that most narrowed the contenders down to the top three, at least for the top two slots of their trifectas. After that came the decision - how do I structure the wager. Boxing the three is by far the easiest approach, but by doing that you are really saying, "I think that Call Me Love has an equal chance of winning as Sistercharlie does". If that is what your handicapping analysis or your gut tells you, great - send it in. But, and to me this is a huge but, if your handicapping analysis tells you that Sistercharlie would probably win the race 75% of the times that it might be run, why would you want to place a bet that in effect says that she should win the race 33% of the time?

Another approach that I try to use, although it takes more time and can drive you crazy when it doesn't work, is to scale the amount of the wager on each combination to sort of reflect what you think the likely result will be. You could play each of the 6 trifecta combos of those three contenders, but with, say, $4 on those with Sistercharlie on top, $2 with Starship Jubilee on top and $1 with Call Me Love on Top. That might also lead to a more uniform payout, since the mutuel on the 5-6-1 undoubtedly was going to be much smaller than the 6-1-5 ended up.

Obviously, there is no single correct answer, and horseplayers have been debating this forever. It's just an approach that has work a little bit better for me over the years in the ongoing attempt to overcome the huge takeouts on exotic wagers.

Glad to discuss this topic more if you would like.

[DonGuido]

JB, your analytics are far beyond my simpleton horse racing brain. But I appreciate the short yet detailed primer. My approach is beyond picking horses by the jockey silks, by horse names, by the color of the horse or just taking a flyer on a crazy long shot. I will often consider Jockey- Trainer combos and percent of wins for a specific type of race if needed I look at times, pps, especially late pace and final speed figures. I shy away from maidens, especially 2YO and races with more than 8 entries.

I've had a little success with exacta and trifecta keys therefore those are my go to wagers. How people can make a living on wagering in this sport I have no idea. As you can appreciate it's a very fond event for me every week and as many variables as it involves I dont think advanced calculus or quantum physics is any more difficult. It disappoints me when I suck but have learned too to throw my competitive ego out the window. One thing I'm pretty sure of is that the challenge helps keep my aging brain younger than the rest of me. We should all be so lucky.

One added note is that in our +55 Apartment community I've talked with a few about Patty and my love for the sport. Only one person has held some interest but he's from Kentucky, so that's to his advantage. And when I told him that most of our Saturdays and Sundays the TV is tuned into a horse racing channel "all day" he just smiled and shook his head eyebrows raised in mild disbelief.