How many years does it take to learn to beat the track?

[fishorsechess]

A horseracing buddy of mine told me (20) twenty
years and that seems to be a good guess.

[betchatoo]

It seems to me you never stop learning how to beat the track. All the advantages serious players had have been compromised by the additional information that all the racing publications now give out (speed figures, pace figures, trainer & jockey stats etc.) So the game remains a constant challenge. That's what makes it fun

[bettheoverlay]

More years than most of us have allotted.

I expect to receive the enlightenment on the point of dying, much like Henry Fonda in Once upon a Time in the West.

[Tom]

After 20 years of careful study, I was finally able to understand racing.....twenty years ago.
What goes on today, I 'll get back to you in another 20!:rolleyes:

[BIG RED]

Originally posted by fishorsechess
A horseracing buddy of mine told me (20) twenty
years and that seems to be a good guess.

All depends how much you can retain and apply? 20's a good start

[hurrikane]

it probably is 20 yrs.

in truth, you could probably do it in 2 yrs if you didn't hear most of the bulls**t people put out about how to beat the horses.

[Skanoochies]

Methusalah finally got to the point where he was breaking even and guess what happened? :D

[Buckeye]

Once you can do it, can you continue to do it and for significant sums of $$$?

That is the question . . .

[Valuist]

Do you mean how long does it take to learn the fundamentals to have a chance to beat the game? I would say 4 to 5 years. After 5 years or so, you probably would've encountered every possible kind of race several times. By this time, you should have the fundamentals down and not make any mental mistakes. You also need several years to fully understand the wagering process, and knowing when to use different kinds of wagers.

But just because you have the fundamentals down doesn't mean you are entitled to profits. The full timers I've known all say that the most important thing is the day to day grunt work; whether its making speed or pace figures, or reviewing tapes of replays. This is the key to good wagers in the future. No matter how smart a handicapper is, if they get lazy and get behind, they'll get an a$$whippin.

[Vegas Kid]

You may not need 20 years to actually win, but the amount of races you could handicap and view in that span of time should be a sufficient base of knowledge.

I've been capping seriously for 25 years and i know now that i'm better than i've ever been. I see things that i know other people do not see and that was because of all the legwork i did over the years. All the saturday nights i stayed home when other people were out partying, i was home crunching numbers and watching videotapes over and over again ad nauseum.

There was a good book i read about genius. I forget the name of it, but it basically researched people in society who were geniuses in their field...like Mozart or Einstein or even Eddie Van Halen. People who were considered freakishly good at what they did. I think the book talked about something called 'chunks' of knowledge and actually talked about how many years it takes a chessmaster or someone else who is considered a genius to become as good as they were at the heights of their talent.

Personally, i see the most talented people in society are people who started in their field as a very young person. I think the best horse handicappers of tomorrow are going to be little kids who go to the track with their dads and start reading the form at a very young age. I started in my mid teens and i think i just made the cutoff. If i had started in my early 20's it would have hurt me somehow.

But, in the end, i think making money at the races is one of the hardest things to do because you need to have a very strong left brain AND a very strong right brain. You need to be able to be good at math, and you need to be able to 'paint a portrait' also. Lots of people are good at one thing, and not another. In handicapping, you need both. You have to be a visionary and you have to be good with numbers. A tricky combo that many people can't have or don't have the time to develop.

When people talk about the great baseball player Ted Williams, they would say that he could see the seams on the baseball and count the stitches. Thats what you need in racing. You have to be able to 'see the seams' of whats going on out there on the track. Either you have it or you don't but if you 'have it' you still have to put in a tremendous amt of manpower hours to really polish your game.

[sq764]

Isn't it really beating other players, not beating the track?

[kenwoodallpromos]

I defer to Sq and Hurr.

[Holy Bull]

Not to be a naysayer, but I just can't imagine very many people lost 19 straight years at the races and then won in their 20th.

My guess would be about 1 to 2 years if you were serious about it and had the talent.

[Vegas Kid]

Well, you could gamble 19 years and win half the time and lose half the time and when you hit your 20th year, you could win every year thereafter.

I doubt someone will be able to afford to keep playing the races for 19 years and not have even one winning year. A decent horse player won't lose every year, but even the best don't win every year either.

You might be betting 19 years and break even and then when you turn the corner, you can become a consistent winner.If you are good enough of course.

Handicappers are so much better today then they were 20 years ago its scary. Also, the information out there is much better than ever before. Go back 20 years and you won't even find Beyer figs in the form. You didn't have expert handicappers doing the work for you and all for the price of 4 dollars anyone can get this stuff.

Just much harder to win, so you have to be stepping up your game every year just to keep up with the joneses.

[Derek2U]

I like your post a lot. I play almost only NYRA tracks + Monmouth.
I've been playing ~7 years (MORE so in the last 3). Over the last
4 years I've had all winning years --- not much in total real dollars
but ~8% Profit. (About 98% of all my bets are in my OTB acct and
OTB gives me a full years' end tally of every wager, deposit,
withdrawal etc.) ... And I hate betting on races I can't see. All
this means is that with my limited action at only a few tracks everything is simpler. There's time to be "artful." Now I have
a large DB and I've done some very complicated math stuff and
I'm also about to (a) bet for rebates AND (b) use a new formula
to help me decide HOW to wager a race. I think those two pluses will add another 5-7% Profit. Could I do this if I bet like
a few do, at Many tracks, not seeing the races etc. I DONT THINK SO. I don't think I would enjoy the game. PS: just for fun, I'm
looking at the CAL tracks & Delaware, but I love NY tracks so I'm
sure I won't change where I'll play. PS2 ... I don't adjust my P
for "expenses" like DownLoading or buying DRF's or other racing
information or going to the tracks occasionally (like my Saratoga)
trip 2 weeks ago. Yikes, what I spent goes into another accounting column like FUN.

[kitts]

I bet my first race at Age 14 at DMR in 1949. I had my first profit for the year in 1989. 'Nuf said.

[kenwoodallpromos]

It takes as many years as it takes until the light bulb goes off and you combine common sense, probability, and value. Even if you do not realize you are doing it.

[breakage]

Originally posted by bettheoverlay
More years than most of us have allotted.

I expect to receive the enlightenment on the point of dying, much like Henry Fonda in Once upon a Time in the West. One of the alltime classic westerns. Catchy musical score too.