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TravisVOX
05-20-2004, 11:07 AM
A lot of us have learned from others, read, taught ourselves etc.

What resource has been your biggest asset as a handicapper? Is it a particular book, a parent, friend, mentor...etc?

I would have to say mine would be peers. I've been posting on message boards only to learn new things everyday. I post a pick, others provide thoughts...I find stuff I hadn't realized or seen. It's great. But also a few pieces of literature, particularly Dave Litfin and Steve Davidowitz, but more so the discussions with others.

DJofSD
05-20-2004, 11:25 AM
Other than my own willingness to work hard, I'd say my association with Doc Sartin, PIRCO and the various people I met and learned from through those PIRCO meetings, seminars at Beaumont and Las Vegas.

DJofSD

shanta
05-20-2004, 11:35 AM
I learned the game from my mentor Louis Cacace ( R.I.P.). Louis played only the N.Y circuit from the simulcasting outlet at Yonkers Raceway. That's where I met him about 20 some odd years ago. Man did he know the game! He tracked biases both post position and paths on the track.

He also showed me a method of gauging F.T.S. based on workouts that to this day remains valid.

Louis always taught me from the beginning that it was most important to bet a little and have a chance to win a lot. He never bet chalk unless he was playing the D.D. or pick 3 and he had value elsewhere. He was teaching me way back when that I had to bet "VALUE".

He showed me these things and many others and at the time he was pushing 80 years young! Not too shabby ha?

Great thread! Rest in peace Louis. You are missed.

Richie Pizzicara

BIG RED
05-20-2004, 12:01 PM
Mine was very simple. I loved horses. Being from the city, didn't bump into many. Went riding with my brother when I was very young and just loved the animal. Then my father brought me to the racetrack, have been hooked ever since. The handicapping part was also good because I like tinkering with numbers and figures(esp. female) Been doing over 30 yrs know and will never give it up.

BIG RED
05-20-2004, 12:03 PM
As you can tell, I like math, not grammer.

BeatTheChalk
05-20-2004, 12:22 PM
Started by reading Les Conklin's old book..." Payday at the Races"
The first race that I ever bet - using his method .. of course
was a winner ( As it is with any system ) Bought tons of systems
met folks at the California tracks .. and then .. met Doc Sartin
through a very good friend of mine....who was also a very good
friend of the Doc. Heaven forbid .. I also sold a few " systems"
in the late 80's early 90's. Yep .. and some of the ideas are still
valid today :) :D

bettheoverlay
05-20-2004, 03:12 PM
Tom Ainslie's books got me hooked on handicapping. Wandered into the old Liberty Bell Park in Philly just to have something different to do, enjoyed the experience, and an older cousin recommended Ainslie.

Ainslies Private Method was the first system I ever purchased (many more to come unfortunately), and I still tinker with variations of it to this day.

TravisVOX
05-20-2004, 04:31 PM
I have always read how to stay away from systems, but the more I remove myself from a system, the worse I do.

I don't mean: Give 3 points to any horse that does this, or that...

I mean what I do each race. How do I narrow down my contenders? How I determine the probable pace etc.

This is what I'm struggling with now. I feel burried in information while my predictions run up the track. Hopefully this turns around.

kitts
05-20-2004, 05:10 PM
I lost for many many years until I got "Winning Thoroughbred Strategies" by Dick Mitchell. Turned me around.

sjk
05-20-2004, 05:42 PM
My best resource (and the only one I have used for many years) is the PC. I used PCs for business purposes in the '80s and wondered from time to time whether a PC could be programmed to be a successful programmer.

In June 93 I bought a new (66mz) machine and Microsoft Office to attack this problem. My computer has been successful at a level that I could have never achieved on my own.

Holy Bull
05-20-2004, 08:36 PM
Reading through all the HTR monthly newsletters. Amazing info and a great approach even for non HTR users.

superfecta
05-20-2004, 09:28 PM
Dick Schmidt and Mike Pizzolla.Not what they picked,how they thought and approached the game changed my thinking on how to make my bets.

andicap
05-20-2004, 11:26 PM
Very long story short:

Grew up a few miles from Yonkers Raceway, hooked on the trotters when OTB came in. Knew shinola about the ponies, but saw Secretariat win the Belmont, read Andy Beyer and switched when the trotters started paying $4.20 every race.
At first did all sorts of stuff, bought speed figs and trip notes from Logic Dictates for NYRA, kept my own trip notes from the NYRA TV show, tried to keep trainer records on notecards, bought trainer info from guy named Chris Bray, read lots of crappy books.
(Yes, someone gave me a copy of Ainslie's Private Method). Tried Scott, even the Dot System.
Was doing OK with trips/speed figs (losing less than the take) when I found about computers and Dick Mitchell -- long, long road of trying lots of software, reading even more books (Brohamer turned me onto pace), and eventually through lots of reading, this board and study -- much trial and error and frustration with "modeling" -- found a method I'm comfortable with and a software that does all the math and rankings for me -- custom version of HTR -- so that contender selecting is a cinch.

hardest part: separating the wheat from the chaff and finding a method I'm comfortable with.

vespa7
05-21-2004, 10:01 AM
There's nothing better than watching a race play out like you predicted with your horse kicking clear near the line.

timtam
05-21-2004, 11:15 AM
Started out at Pocono Downs with a few friends of my parents.Used to run and get them tickets and they always waited until the last second to bet. I'd be going down the steps while the rest of the crowd was going out to watch the race. You had to get into the seperate bet windows thank god they were $2 bettors and I didn't have to go to the separate w/p/s and exacta windows. Purchased the Metro Method for both trotters and flats and was on my way. Later I bought the Matel Horse race analyzer and discovered after countless hrs pounding data into the hand held computer I realized my picks were close to the betting choices. I bought a system for the Texas Insruments computer which I can't remember but it did quite well in sprints.Made many trips over to Penn National and down to Keystone Park in Philly and I was hooked. To this day my mom wishes her friend would have never introduced me to hoss racing and he is gone to the great racetrack in the sky but everytime I go to Pocono Downs I look up at the section those guys always sat in and think if I could only go get a bet down for them it would be oh so sweet.

brdman12
05-21-2004, 12:35 PM
I've been playing the horses for about 10 years. I have read a few books. I have purchased some "systems". The best teacher was the Daily Racing Form. I would write down who came in 1..2..3..in every race . Then proceed home where I looked for the reasons that particular horse won that race. I looked at every angle I could think of. That practice was the best teacher.

kenwoodallpromos
05-21-2004, 12:47 PM
I would say studying quarterhorse races for consistency and probability and my interest in researching.

Binder
05-21-2004, 04:29 PM
Hi TravisVox

This is a great question . I feel that to be profitable at
wagering horse races, You need a strong program and a
positive attitude. You also need support and a few laughs
As I have posted many times I have had some great moments and lots of not so great periods. But the constant has been
the friendships I have met at the track . I learn what wins from them and I also learned from what makes some of them lose
Two people, the first we one all know on PA, but he doesn't like
me to mention his name . But he is my mentor and best friend
He taught me all he could ,then introduced me to Doc Sartin
Doc took me to a new level of self confidence and taught me
the steps to win as long as I listened to him and didn't
HANDICAP
I read the books and listen to the "experts" but
my success is from friends and learnig to trust my ability
thanks to the two people mentioned above

Bind

Tom
05-21-2004, 11:50 PM
Got "hooked" in the early 60's when the first bet I ever made came waltzing home at $28.80 - Morganfield - in the first race at Finger Lakes. I was living off of a $0.50 per week allowance at the time, so $28.80 was like hitting powerball for me.
After playing a while, it was evidnet that I needed more than dumb luck to get winners, so Ainsle's classic was what really shaped me-it gave structure to my handicapping. Quirrin"s winning at the races got me into speed figures< the pace figures when his next book came out. Then I got into the Sartin group and kind of put it all together there. Natural prgression from there was onto MPH and then top HTR. Here I am.

TRM
05-22-2004, 01:38 AM
When I was 18, my parents and aunt and uncle would rent this greyhound bus, and would get a whole group together and make the 3.5 hour trek from Dallas to Shreveport. One of the guys that would make the trip raised pigeons. He would bring 8 of these guys in their cages on the bus. We would drive about 2 hours out and let these guys go, and everyone would place bets as to who would come in w/p/s. (We would call his wife and she would let us know who landed first etc....)We would have a Handi-crapping (get it crapping) seminar on the bus.

Made my first bet at LAD and won. It's been all downhill ever since. LOL

I got most of my knowledge from reading. Started with Beyer's Picking Winners and so on. Then got interested in pace capping and went with the Doc. One of my first racing programs that I purchased was called Superhorse and it came on one of those old 5 1/2 floppies.

But one of the main things that I did was PRACTICE handicapping all the time. Any chance I had, would be spent with the form handicapping the next day's card.

Now I write my own "stuff" and just let the computer handicap most of the time.

Dan
05-22-2004, 09:54 AM
TRM,

That's a funny story about the pigeons.

I was into greyhound racing about 20 years ago in Phoenix. I wrote a basic program on one of the first Compaqs and it did okay. After we moved from there I just forgot about it.

Then about 4 years ago I go to a computer training seminar in Chicago. I was bar hopping one night downtown and decide to have one more brewski before I took the 'L' back to my hotel.

I walked into what I thought was a bar but it was an OTB. I thought I died and went to heaven. A bar with horse racing and gambling? What more does a man need?

Later I found in an old book store Lawrene Voegle's "Professional Method of Winner Selection" written in 1971. Then I got into Beyer, Davidowitz, then all the Pace authors - Brohamer, Sartin, Quirin, Quinn, Mahl, Pizzolla, etc. I spent about one and a half years trying to develop my own system since I'm in computers.

Now I'm using HSH. And that's how I got into this sport.

Dan

Jeff P
05-22-2004, 02:43 PM
The first time I went to a horsetrack I instictively "knew" that there had to be an optimal way to select and bet the horses. Unfortunately this optimal way (Holy Grail) didn't exist then and to my knowledge doesn't exist now. But I set out to find it. At the end of each day I saved my racing form instead of throwing it in the trash can. In my free time I studied them- always asking myself "Why did this horse run well while this one did not?" I believed that if I studied I would become better at this game than those around me who did not study. Patterns began emerging and for a while the game seemed easy. I began attending regularly and the more I attended and studied the more my confidence grew. I even hit a pick six on a $16.00 ticket. That, of course, hooked me for life. The meet ended and I couldn't wait for the next one to start up in the fall.

There was no simulcasting back then. In retrospect, all I had learned to do was isolate and bet inside speed on a track biased heavilly to inside speed during one magical race meet at Turf Paradise. I didn't see the storm clouds brewing. I had no idea that biases came and went. All I knew was that I had my own methods and they were solid.

When the next meet started I was in the red right from day one. I was stunned. What had changed? The rail speed bias was gone but I didn't have the ability to see it. Hell, I didn't know what a rail speed bias even WAS back then. All I knew was that my methods that had worked so well the previous meet were not working now.

Anyone with a smidgeon of common sense might have quit the game right then and there. Apparently I was not one of those bestowed with the gift of common sense at birth.

I bought a computer.

It was one of those IBM PC Clones. It had dual 5 1/4 floppies (remember those) and I shelled out an additional 500 bucks for a Seagate 5 meg hard drive that lasted all of about eight months.

I was working as an accountant back then. I used to lug the thing into work three days a week and set it up at my desk. When the boss wasn't looking I would spend company time writing my first handicapping program in GW Basic. The main theme behind my program was to create the ability to store data and retrieve it for later analysis. I made a project of taking all the racing forms and results that I had and capturing the relevant data onto disc. I still wasn't winning but I held onto my original mind set. I believed that if I studied I would become better at this game than those around me who did not study. So I attended on weekends without betting. I would enter data into the machine early in the morning, print reports, go to the track, watch the races, go home, and enter the results by hand. In my free time I wrote queries that scanned my database- always searching for profitable patterns. Sure enough, once I began to accumulate enough data, new patterns began to emerge.

Back then you had to enter data into machines by hand. One day, it was the Friday before Alysheba's Kentucky Derby, one of the gals that worked for me caught me entering data into the machine while looking at a Racing Form. She seemed fascinated by the whole thing. My program picked Bet Twice to win the derby that year. The two of us went to the track the next day and I scrounged up $80.00 and bet 40 to WP on Bet Twice in the derby. Damn if he didn't almost win the thing at 16-1. The two of us had an absolute blast and a great friendship began. The only problem was hand entering all that data. I used to dream about how nice it would be if I could write a program that interfaced with a scanner. The Turf Paradise meet ended and I spent every spare moment that summer writing queries and scanning the database. I had five or six full race meets on disc and no shortage of ideas that I was just dying to test out.

The really interesting thing, at least to me, about writing my own handicapping program is the career path it led me down.

Outside of two college classes in Cobol I have no formal training in programming. I am self taught. When the internet arrived in the nineties I picked up a copy of Visual Basic along with several how to books. I spent all of my free time converting my original basic program to VB. Once I had done the conversion I began experimenting with VB and Access tables.

I discovered that I had picked up quite a bit of programming savvy on my own. I soon quit my accountnig job and went to
work writing code for corporate America. I've done projects for American Express, Tammell Crowe, Verizon Wireless, ST Microelectronics, and a bunch of others. In addition, I've continued to work on my own program- always tweaking it here and there- always improving it in small ways a little bit at a time.

I've been at this game for 24 years now. The game has changed drastically in that time. But one thing remains constant. And it's the one thing that got me to where I am now. It's the simple belief that if you study, and I mean truly study, you can't help but become better at this game than those around you that don't.

Dan
05-22-2004, 03:12 PM
Jeff P.,

That was a great story how handicapping got you into programming.

That was a lot like twenty years ago in Phoenix when I was doing that greyhound program. I was with one of the first computer consulting companies and was basically a charge number to the county hospital. This company I was working for just told me to look busy because there wasn't anything to do.

So, I'd go up to a liquor store at noon and get the greyhound racing form and enter my data all afternoon long. Then we'd go to the track that night. Next morning check and analyze the results and start the whole pattern again. Did that for weeks and weeks.

It is amazing how far we have come in computers with horse racing databases now and software programs. And remembering back then taking about 4 to 5 hours to enter one race card.

Dan ;)

Jeff P
05-22-2004, 03:35 PM
Dan,

I used to occasionally attend Phoenix Greyhound Park back in the late seventies. I was raised around dogs my whole life and could sense their moods (anger, fear, playfullness, etc) just from their body language and facial expressions. Dogs are far easier to read than horses, IMHO. At the time, Phoenix Greyhound Park at 40th street and Washington was directly under the flight path of jets taking off and landing at Sky Harbor Airport. Some of the dogs would become literally terrified whenever a jet flew overhead. I used to do quite well betting against the dogs that were scared of jets- an angle not many ever caught on to.

Jeff

Dan
05-22-2004, 04:50 PM
Jeff P.,

Yes, I was there many, many times. Thats a great point about the jets flying over. Never considered that back then.

I think the secret to the dogs was predicting that first turn bump which they always did.

I liked Phoenix but don't miss the heat. Like they used to say, "There are two seasons in Phoenix. Summer and Hell."

Noticed you are from San Diego? Almost moved there in the late 80's. Kind of wish we had done that.

Dan

Like your Blockbuster line, too. :)

TravisVOX
05-22-2004, 05:14 PM
Great post! That was excellent. I have some programming skill mostly in BASIC, VB.NET now and web applications. I want to develop some software that'll take care of a lot of my preliminaries in handicapping. Perhaps generate a sheet that indicates when a horse is exciting a key race...have it create this report for me automatically. I'm actually working on it right now.

Also, I'd like to make this software indicate when a horse has done similar moves -- this length of a layoff etc.

At times though I feel like I want to do this stuff myself...not let a computer do it. Then I can say, "I picked it, not the computer." I dunno...it's a tough call!

vespa7
05-23-2004, 07:59 AM
Thats a great idea I love the horse exiting a key race play. It seems you would need to follow through with some other research to make plays on the horses to capititize on the info. I am thinking trainer patterns and horse cycle analysis etc..Also the most important thing is getting value out of your play.