Book Reviews?

[JohnGalt1]

I use methods in these three books.

"Total Victory at the Track" by William L. Scott. His Performance Class Ratings (PCR) are a good way to compare the class of the field. If you have difficulty with All Weather tracks, PCR ratings are valuable. I don't use the second call in creating my PCR numbers and I don't like the way he makes his pace figures, especially sprinters stretching out.

"Pace Makes the Race" by Sartin, Schmidt, Hambleton, and Pizzola. I separate the running styles with their E, EP, P, and S designations--that's why I don't use the second call for the PCR rating. I use their EPR, FFR, and TPR for pace ratings.

"Handicapping Magic" Michael Pizzola. The best advice in the book--for me--is always use the last race for the pace figure, unless you shouldn't. He lists some reasons why the last race may not be used. And for his turf pace line advice.

General handicapping books with excellent advice are, "Betting Thorougbreds", "Kinky Handicapping" and "Six Secrets"

The worthless crap books I've read ( about 15) I gave away to charity. I hope my competitors at the track found them, read them, and bet their advice.

[Sightseek]

If anyone is looking to go book shopping, Border's has a 40% off coupon on their website through Monday and you can get free shipping if you send the book to your closest Borders store instead of your home:

http://www.borders.com/online/store/Home

[Gate Dancer]

'Tarnished Crown' by Carol Flake is a pretty nice read dealing with the story of Chief's Crown.

[MISTERGEE]

for those who like fiction revolving around horse racing (this may be obvious to most) anything by William Murray is great

[VOL JACK]

Originally Posted by The Indomitable DrugS

I've read probably between 25 to 30 books on handicapping ... however, growing up, without a doubt the best way to make yourself a better handicapper and develop skill was with a publication called National Charts Weekly ... which later became and is now called Simulcast Weekly.

I believe that this was the very first ever issue of the SW ...




These things - and the NCW before them - were like sacred possessions to me. If someone else touched one they were in trouble. Now ... the thing can be bought online and all.


Starting around when I was in 1st grade we got all of the races on tv on our cable and we lived by a new OTB.

It was much later, in about the mid 90's when I started VCR taping every race from every track each week. My grandpa went to the track and bet 7 days a week - and he was under some hardcore orders to bring back and save me a DRF every day. It didn't matter if it was a Feb blizzard on a Tuesday .. he was getting chewed out if he didn't get one.

When you have the old forms, the vcr tapes, and the charts/simulcast weekly .. you have some real developmental steroids.

All you need is a spiral notebook .. you put the date on top of the page and you watch every race and do a write up for it. The main focus on which horses are better or worse than they appear... and to be on the lookout for possible situations where form may improve or decline

Some of the books are excellent - but none of them advocate doing things the best way. The best way is viciously time consuming and tedious.

Kinda like finding the best porn on the web??

[The Indomitable DrugS]

Yeah - but together ... you can kill two birds with one stone.