Re: New Forum

[Bob Harris]

PA,

Thanks for adding the new forum! One of the things I have always liked about this board is that all the selections were in their own section...I don't have to weed thru all the "Handicapping God" contest bs like some other boards.

I fully admit to not being a "fan" of horse racing...it's strictly an investment vehicle to me. I couldn't care less about the horses, owners, trainers, etc...it just doesn't interest me. I look for certain pace scenarios and bet the saddlecloth number!

I think it's great that people on this board have an interest in who's going to be in the Derby and what not...it's just not my cup of tea. The fact that those discussions will be separate from the handicapping discussions make this board even more appealing.

Thanks!

Bob

[karlskorner]

Bob Harris;

Would you accept that fact that the Trainers, Horses and sometimes the Owners are the " cause " of the pace scenarious you are looking for ? They are part of the puzzle as to " WHY " is this horse is in this race.

Karl

[ranchwest]

Karl,

Absolutely.

[Lefty]

Weell, i'm a fan of Doc sartin's philosophy: the pp's of horse will tell you all that. I once bet a 15-1 shot that absolutely looked to be improving and I thght ready for a good race. Figs I was using pointed him out. My friend, a trainer, jockey hcpr told me I had a lot of guts betting this horse with a 3% trainer and a 4% jockey.
I said, "that's why i'm getting 15-1." Natch horse won by daylight or I wouldn't be writing this.
Hey, i'm not putting dn anybody, just my style to do otherwise.

[Observer]

I too would like to thank you, Pa, especially since I was the one who asked for a seperate place to go to discuss the horses and such. While I do enjoy handicapping, I always have been and always will be a fan of racing, and I felt a little out of place on the old General Discussion board, which had a very heavily geared handicapping feel. With this change, hopefully it will generate even more interest in this already fun site! Thanks again and continued success!!

[Bob Harris]

Originally posted by karlskorner
Bob Harris;

Would you accept that fact that the Trainers, Horses and sometimes the Owners are the " cause " of the pace scenarious you are looking for ? They are part of the puzzle as to " WHY " is this horse is in this race.

Karl

Karl,

I guess I wasn't clear...I have zero interest in "who the best filly of all time was" or "what will Baffert be looking to buy at the Keeneland sales". Those subjects have little or nothing to do with handicapping.

The new forum will keep those issues separate from the handicapping ones...people like me won't have to wade thru them and people like Observer can avoid some of the handicapping posts which don't particularly interest him.

I think it's a great move by PA...it just makes the board more user friendly.

Bob

[Bob Harris]

Originally posted by Lefty
Weell, i'm a fan of Doc sartin's philosophy: the pp's of horse will tell you all that. I once bet a 15-1 shot that absolutely looked to be improving and I thght ready for a good race. Figs I was using pointed him out. My friend, a trainer, jockey hcpr told me I had a lot of guts betting this horse with a 3% trainer and a 4% jockey.
I said, "that's why i'm getting 15-1." Natch horse won by daylight or I wouldn't be writing this.
Hey, i'm not putting dn anybody, just my style to do otherwise.

Lefty,

People who have come out of the Sartin school (myself included) were taught to set up pace scenarios based on pp data only. I remember Dick Schmidt telling me once that he would have the horse's name, trainer, jockey, etc covered up in the Form so he wouldn't be influenced by them when he was setting the race up in his head.

I don't discount the influence that the human side of racing can have on the outcome of a given race but the players who like to blend too many factors into their handicapping tend to give up quite a bit in the price department.

Bob

[Observer]

Correction: Observer is a her, and I never had a problem going through the handicapping stuff, I just didn't get involved with things that didn't spark my interest (which I do on any message board). It really wasn't a big deal. Instead, I felt my "racing fan" posts might be viewed as an intrusion on the old Discussion board, which I can see now that they were, and which was why I asked PA for the change.

[Bob Harris]

I stand corrected...thanks!

Bob

[Rick]

Bob,

You never know what might be a significant factor. Example: A study of 1002 races showed average odds of 8.38-1 on horses whose names included people's first or last names as opposed to 11.95-1 for those that didn't! Psychological factors are relevant too, so don't cover up those names.

Of course, your results will vary depending on how many are named that way in your area. I think Mark Cramer mentioned that horses whose names are hard to pronounce are also underbet.

[ranchwest]

>the pp's of horse will tell you all that<

What part of the past performances tell you that the owner is dressed in a suit and has his 40 closest friends with him? I've been overlooking it for years.

[Rick]

ranchwest,

Good point. I can't help you on that one but I think some horses are more likely to win when they run on weekends when the owner can be there.

[Lefty]

I think very few horses win without some indication in the pp's.
Suit and 40 friends, well, you don't get that from trainer stats either.
It boils dn to diff. styles or different strokes for...

[Dave Schwartz]

Suit and 40 friends... LOL - that's hysterical.

I recall someone telling me once that if a trainer's picture is on the front of the DRF before a big race the horse was a "mortal lock."

Funny stuff.

Dave

[rrbauer]

Remember Earl Scheib...the car painting guy? Any car-any color for $99.

When he had horses (with Joe Manzi I believe) a friend told me that the key to whether his horse was well meant, or not, was if Schieb showed up for the race. (Earl loved his winners circle pix).
I'm there at SA one day and here comes a race with his horse. I got a late start down to the walking ring and on my way down here comes Mr. Schieb decked out to the gills (couldn't miss him...nose like Durante) and heading up to his box.

I went straight to the win window (separate windows--remember them?) and bought my tickets.

Horse won...paid like $12. Earl was happy and I was happy. Another plus ROI angle is born!

What a guy!

[ridersup]

While I appreciate how well some of you folks handicap without taking into account connections, i.e. trainer, owner, jky, more and more I find myself factoring into the handicapping equation the horses connections.

Just a case in point was yesterdays card at Tampa. Among the winners yesterday was Owner, Anthony Barbanti who has sent out 16 starters and has been rewarded with 7 wins and 15 of 16 of his horses have been in the money. Looks to me that his horses would be a nice key in a trifecta.

Glen Hill Farms had a winner yesterday making their record 9 wins out of 16 starts with 14 of 16 in the money. Their trainer Thomas Proctor, who is not a regular at the track, is winning at over 50%. Yesterday's win was with a first time starter and naturally he was bet down as are all of this combinations horses.

Don Rice, leading trainer year in and year out had another winner yesterday and as with most of his wins it was for an owner who was a family member. Horse paid $10 to win and on cold dope he probably would not be played. Incedently when training his wife's horses Mr Rice has had 8 wins out of 13 starts. Whats funny is that you can still get a good price on his horses and his avg. win payoff is $7.81.

While I still consider myself a conventional handicapper, making my own track variants, keeping track of key races, and making my own pace figures I don't see how connections can be disregarded.

[Rick]

Ridersup,

What you say is true regarding high percentage situations like what you described. However, there are very few opportunies that good if you're playing a single track. Connections with a moderately high win % (say 20%) don't really help you much and in fact many times depress the price on a good horse. On the other hand, connections with low win rates (but not hopeless) usually create a better price on a good horse. So it's not necessary to incorporate these things into the handicapping process except in rare instances. I have found that connections can be important for first time starters, but only when there are very few others who have started before, and the method I use is different than the traditional approach.

[karlskorner]

Ridersup;

What is the basis of your "key races" ?

Karl

[andicap]

What's great about people using different methods -- trainers, owners, pace, etc. -- is that we come up with different selections each race and if we bet properly, we can win in the long run. If my average win price is $12, say, and i'm right 1 out of 5, I'm still ahead. So even if trainers, trips, owners, class and everything else I don't use win 4 out of 5 of those races, I'm still ahead!

There ain't no right or wrong here folks.

[smf]

Ridersup,

I agree completely.

In today's feature at the FG, the paddock hostess (the GREAT Pam Fitzgerald) mentioned that the eventual winner (Almost Home) was "well represented by the owners in the paddock area", and looked fit.

FG players that are aware of that ownership group (karnack gallactic) went to the windows after she reported on the group being there in force on a weekday.

Almost Home's trainer, Tom Amoss, had another runner in the race that looked better on paper (looked good in flesh, too) and was bet down to 4-5 but ran a beaten length (3rd) to Almost Home.

Another item in the "who trains the horse makes a difference" category...Pam is an asst trainer for Al Stall Jr. Where the Great Pam Fitzgerald goes, Stall's horses respond. She's first and foremost a horsewoman and she knows her stuff like few do.

[ridersup]

I use my own par times for Tampa which I have been verifying every year since 1988 and adjusting them when necessary. What I try to find is a race which was run at an unusually fast time compared to par and also fast with reference to the variant I make for the day. Horses coming out of these races that were active participants in the race will go into my horses to watch at DRF stable mail.

I usually find these races to involve younger horses usually 3yo's or maiden 4yo. For example the Proctor winner for Glen Hill Farms was a 3yo fil MSW who ran a F1 F3 F10 on a day I had as F1 F3 F4. That was quite a performance for the filly.

Thanks to your help in the past I have been tracking the daily rail settings on the turf course and have worked out a very rough par time setup for the different rail settings. Your computation worked out almost perfectly when determining the extra distance-time covered at the different rail settings.

Incidently I hadn't completed checking equibase results charts when I posted this am. I now find that Proctor and Glen Hill Farm also won the last race and paid $7 and change. That makes them 2 for 2 yesterday and 10 wins for 17 starts over all.

[karlskorner]

Ridersup;

I have a problem with "par" times. The best definition of par times that I found went as follows: A par time chart is a table of fractional times that a particular level of horse is "expected" to run for a specific distance at a particular track. It is the word "expected" that has alway bothered me.

I still use and have been using the Beyer/Davidowitz version of a "key' race. When 2 or more horse come out of a particular race and go on to win their next, this becomes a "key" race. Yesterday at GP I had 3 "key" horses (actually 4, but 1 was a throwout) 2 won paying $21.40 and $7.40 the other ran 3rd. I guess everyone has their own version of a "key" race. As Casey Stengal said "when you come to a fork in the road, take it".

And so it goes.

Karl

[Bob Harris]

As a pace player, I absolutely loved Mark's article:


Featured Article
March 4, 2002
Inside Information
by Mark Cramer
View other articles by Mark Cramer

For years now I’ve been “studying” inside information, trying to make heads or tails of it. The Ultimate Lesson in this process occurred last summer at Canterbury Park. This lesson continues to be applicable every time I think I’m privy to some money-making murmurs from the backside.

This is a tale of two trainers, one from the east and the other from the west. Both Scott Lake and Mike Goodin were gracious in assessing the worth of their various entrants in the big events of Claiming Crown. At the morning workouts, Lake told me the horse he liked best from his stable was Bion. “And Spit Polish?” I asked. “You gotta be kidding.” (Spit Polish was 0-for-2 at the 6-furlong distance of the event in which he was entered, after rolling up 95 career races, most of them routes.)

“Spit Polish?” Lake responded with a smile. “He’s just along for the ride because the owner wanted a horse in every race.”

The inside info we got from Mike Goodin while touring his two-horse stable seemed a carbon copy of what we’d heard from Lake. Goodin had two horses: Take a Left in a grass route and Teddy Boy in a sprint. Goodin was proud to talk about his courageous “Lefty” and only reserved a few words for Teddy Boy. “At the last moment, Teddy Boy’s rider told us he was sharp and that we should bring him along. I won’t be surprised is he wins, but very frankly, the only reason Teddy got his ticket here was Lefty.”

So both Lake and Goodin had their favorite horses, and they also had horses that had come along for the ride.

In making my selections for the program, I considered Lake’s and Goodin’s words. But my past experience in interviewing trainers, even just hanging out with them over a cup of coffee, was that the horses they were highest on were not necessarily the ones that win. In fact, some pretty sharp students of the game who swear that you can make money betting on weaker halves of uncoupled entries of top stables. These researchers believe there’s a conspiracy in favor of the weaker half, but I have learned to suspect that the trainers really don’t know.

For my program selections, I decided to pick against Lake’s and Goodin’s self-proclaimed best horses, but instead to pick at least a weaker horse from each of these trainers. That meant putting Goodin’ s Teddy Boy on top. I considered the router Spit Polish in his sprint race, but finally decided on a different Lake horse in a different race (B Flat Major).

Was I crazy? The insiders had clearly told me their preferred horses (Bion and Take a Left) and I’d decided to pick against them! If they were to win, I’d be thoroughly shamed, after having been TOLD by the trainers themselves. I considered special gun-control legislation, directed specifically against me so that I could no longer shoot myself in the foot.

I could picture it, Bion wins, making a fool of me, and then, to rub it in, Take a Left wins and I’m laughed out of the grandstand.

But alas, it didn’t happen that way. Bion got caught near the wire, and Take a Left didn’t run his race.

In fact the two horses that were supposedly “along for the ride” had BOTH won: the 6-1 Spit Polish (picked by Steve Fierro, by the way) and Teddy Boy. The Scott Lake horse I’d picked in the program also won, at 5-1. I had bet AGAINST the inside information and won.

This was not a lesson learned in a single afternoon. After years of interviewing trainers or having a cup of coffee with them in backside kitchens, I had learned the obvious: that they had no control over the other horses in a race. One sizzling memory from the year 2000 is an inside tip on a slow-starting horse that had finished no better than 5th in its last 10 races. The horse suddenly woke up, breaking first from the gate, and thus corroborating the inside buzz. He took them into the stretch, looking like Secretariat. But he got caught in the final 16th by another horse who was not part of this “tip”.

You’d think I’d learn. Yet, I still look for inside information. I can’t help it. Maybe it’s just too much fun tracking down a tip.

[cj]

Inside information, or tips, are only as good as the amount of the win ticket the person giving the tip has on it. Before I even consider it, I better know that person has some big cash backing up his opinion! Even then, its only one small bit of knowledge.

The only really good tips I have ever received were as a youngster, 16 or so, in Maryland. The guy was a morning clocker, and he looked out for me and a couple buddies of mine, knowing we had little to bet. Never gave us a story, just a race and saddlecloth number.

Just a tidbit, one of those friends was Larry Collmus, that's the reason I mentioned him in an earlier thread.

CJ