Horse Racing Gold

[sligg]

I just finished reading an E-book put out by this group. It's a tout service with a conservative approach to the game stressing money management and overlays (the usual).

Do any of the PA members know of HRG?

[Dick Schmidt]

Sligg,

There are a lot of sites out there, and its hard to remember them all. I kind of think I maybe went there a long time ago, but don't remember for sure. Post their URL (Internet Address) and let us check it out. Seeing it may jog some memories.

Dick

[sligg]

Dick Schmidt,

Are you the eloquent, knowledgeable, mentor of the Sartin Seminar held in Albany NY sometime in the 1980's. I remember you because of your aggressive but personable personality. If my memory serves me my impression of Dr. (?) Sartin- pompous,
Michael Pizzola- brash but talented, Bob Purdy-out of place, Tom Brohamer-should be teaching.

About the tout service I was inquiring about:

www.horseracinggold.com

They talk about a minimum ROI of 20% or the next week is free. The cost is $75 per week that covers multiple tracks.

While I have your attention, can you give me your opinion on the place, show overlay methodology of Dr. Ziemba (Dr. Z's Beat The Racetrack). I find it difficult to work using the online toteboards.

Brisbet, Phonebet are the two I have tried and they are very inconsistent. You can never be sure if zero minutes to post coincides with the track toteboard. I also have found inaccuracies between these two: you may or may not get the same screenshot
at the same minutes to post. If you use the one to zero minutes to post for betting, this isn't likely to agree with the final odds.

A qualified Dr. Z's overlay at zero minutes may be nullified by the final odds. This is a problem that can skew yourprofit results.

Sal Liggieri

[Dick Schmidt]

Sal,

Ya, same guy, only I'm a LOT nicer now. Ask anyone on the board. You're wrong about Bob, he's still playing for a living. Right on about Tom Brohamer; he's got to be the best teacher I ever met. To tell the truth, I never did use the Sartin methodology, I used the Brohamer adaptation of the Sartin methodology.

That 20% or its free next time isn't much of a guarantee. Used to know a guy who bought picks from an outfit that offered a week free if you had a losing day. "How can I lose?" he asked me. He soon found out. I'd want to see some tracking data from the past six months or so before I sent them any money. On the other hand, 20% is a modest goal for touts to advertise, and if they can hit it most of the time, it is a good deal for the casual player who just wants to bet, not handicap. The "roulette with legs" crowd.

I used Bill Ziemba's ideas for about 6 months. Wrote a program for the Sharp pocket computer and everything. Punched in numbers until my ear's bled. Gave it up when I showed about a 5% ROI. The person who did the most with Ziemba that I know of was Dick Mitchell. He tracked Dr. Z plays for more than 5 years, thousands of bets. In the end, he too showed a 5% return. He called Bill Ziemba and asked him how it was possible when he never bet with less than a 10% advantage? Ziemba's answer was that you had to remember that the idea of the win pool being efficient and revealing overlays in the back holes was just a postulate. It had never been proven, it was just one of the mathematical "givens" that the theory is based on. Mathematicians like to do this kind of stuff. Given, 10,000 cars an hour drive on the Hollywood Freeway each taking off 1/1,000,000th of an inch of concrete. How long until the freeway is gone? They don't worry that they pulled the 10,000 cars estimate out of thin air and that no one knows how much wear a car causes on concrete and trucks are ignored. Those are the "givens." Ziemba then said that maybe the given was wrong. That was the day Dick stopped using Dr. Z.

Well, seeing that Dick Mitchell is nothing if not methodical, and a highly accurate record keeper to boot, and he could only generate a 5% return back when the tote boards weren't being hit by out-of-state money after the race has begun, I'd say that the only way to make money on Dr.Z is to own some of his old books and sell them on E-Bay.

Dick

[Amazin]

Sligg

I just went to the website you posted "horseracinggold".Why is it that they have a testimonial fom a Doctor as the main attraction on the front page.Personally it turns me off to see that kind of sales pitch.I,m tired of Doctors being pitched as some kind of upperclass handicappers.I know nothing of this website's content, but if they've got to rely on another doctor sales pitch,its a joke.Who is this doctor anyrate,that I would care what he says. And that goes for all those so called doctors of horseracing.They're using the title to pretend they know something that you don't.In the end it's usually the other way around.

[tedwin]

I'm not interested in purchasing anyone's selections, but that guarantee would probably steer me away from them if I were. You pay whether they win or lose, but if they lose then they will give you more selections which, of course, may lose too.

[Dick Schmidt]

Amazin,

The Doctor is Dr. Robert Anthony, more or less horseracing's answer to Tony Robins. He has written several self-help, self-improvement type books and is considered a motivational speaker. I've met him and read some of his stuff. Not bad if you're into that sort of thing (I'm not). He was always a better motivator than a handicapper, but he loved the ponies. Last I heard he was putting together some sort of high dollar racing venture that never got off the ground. I think it was built around a computer program, but I'm not really sure about that.


Sal,

I've got to say, that is an impressive site. I have no idea how good they are, but they sure push all the right buttons and say all the right things. I ordered a copy of their free e-book just to see what they have to say. If I was in the market for a tout service, I'd give them a try early on. Even their records look legit, with many losing weeks at various types of betting, but a long term profit. Either these guys are legit or they are very good con-men.

Only thing bothered me was that they say they limit themselves to 37 customers at any given time. Since they have about 15 testimonials online, I wonder that they aren't full up and have a waiting line a mile long. Why would anyone ever leave? They are also severely limiting their income. 37 times $75 a week brings in less than three grand. Far less than they say you can make using their stuff. Makes you wonder.

Anyway, if you (or anyone else) decides to risk $75, please let us all know how it went for you.

Dick

[Derek2U]

hehe i just love this room cause i was getting spooked that
horse racing was no longer a "guy thing." Let's face it 100%:

a PhD holds no secrets; a math wiz is just that & need not
hold any insights into horses no matter how hard & long
he studies this game. My father is a horse afficionado like us all;
he has taught college math since his grad school days at the
same collge for nearly 30 years now; he plays the horses every
weekend for sure & every major race day like Preakness / Breeders Cup etc. I would categorize his approach as street smart & wise: he is of the Tom Ainslie school whereby he gets
to know the whole horse (hehe) before he bets. And he always
preached to me about control cause he felt that racing is so great
a game it MUST have an addictive quality that could lead to anyones downfall. (He really is a very upbeat guy). I hope
this post didnt bore a lotta you guys but I really did listen to my
father in this & other high energy pursuits too.

[modred]

Best thing that ever came out of the Sartin stuff was the Tom Brohamer Lecture Series tapes put out in early 90's. He took everyone in the class through race cards done his way ...very very good stuff. Dick Schmidt was in the class as well... I think he recorded it. I forget what I payed for it, but it was worth every penny. I'm not sure if Tom still handicaps that way but he probably still uses the general format. I was able to spend time with him when he came to the New Orleans seminars and found him to be most gracious and accommodating.

If anyone can get this series of tapes along with the workbook it will be well worth it to see what the man did in those days.

Eric Swearingen

[sligg]

The cost for this service is $75 week. They limit the subscriber base to 37. Why 37 only? I don't believe if additional subscriptions came in, they would refuse.

Accepting the 37 figure:

The cost for each subscriber: $75 X 52=3,900

There gross: 3900 X 37=144,300

Couple that with the profits from betting their selections, they are probably making over $300,000 per year.

Any believers on the PA boards?

I will say this to all PA members-read their E-book which you can download from their website. These people are no dummies. We have all read countless books on horse racing and the philosophy of betting. I would rank this E-book as one of the best. It is beautifully written and exciting to read-and very convincing.

www.horseracinggold.com

[Dick Schmidt]

Sal,

So you usin' them yet or what?

Dick

[Dick Schmidt]

Book Review,

I know there is a book section of the board, but this isn't really a book and it seems to fit better here. I downloaded a copy of the free E-Book from Horse Racing Gold and though it is not groundbreaking, it is much better than I expected.

First off: WARNING. THIS E-B00K IS MOSTLY AN ADVERTISEMENT FOR THEIR SERVICE! If you don't want to read propaganda from a tout service, pass on this book.

The rest of the book is mostly common sense, with some speculative math thrown in. How much can you make a year, bankroll management and size, betting multiple bankrolls (which they seem to think is some kind of breakthrough. Most people I know have been doing it for years.) and how to operate an "at home" race book. The book leaves you with a feeling that indeed, racing can be done as a living, and that it is not an impossible goal to make a living at the track.

I'd say it's better than lots of stuff out there being sold today. And I guarantee you'll get your money's worth. They want your e-mail address in return for the book, but if you want to download it without giving them your name, you can find it at:

www.HorseRacingGold.com/ebook.html


Note that this is a 385 megabyte download, so users of slow modems prepare for a long wait.

Dick

[sligg]

Yes, the e-book is the hype for their tout service. It is well done and no, there is no major breakthrough. But what published book has a major breakthrough. It almost always is a rehash of the same old horseplayers dilemna. Just take the number of books on pace-do any of them have anything new? With the advent of computers, you would think the riddle of handicapping would have been solved on a single user basis. Maybe the Hong Kong groups have solved the riddle but the average horse player will never be privy to this type of operation.

We all have access to many books, software programs, extensive data bases, message boards and a proliferation of touts. Has winning at the track gotten any easier. Not for me it hasn't. The sheer drudgery of churning all this data is mind numbing and excrutiatingly boring. Day after day being transfixed to a computer monitor...

I'm always curious about the health status of horseplayers because so many of us live sedentary lives always glued to the computer and the numbers. For the dedicated handicapper it is an acceptable way of life-even if successful, a stressful life.

Getting back to touts, I don't know if Horse Racing Gold produces profits but you would have to be prepared for long losing streaks because of their low win percentage. This would test the mettle of any handicapper. And at close to $4,000 per year for this service, this is not for the small player.

One of the tenents to this service is volume betting across multiple tracks and so you would have to spend most of your working day in front of your monitor. Back to square one-whether you do it yourself or let someone else do it-it's the same dilemna.

Every so often I check out the touts of TrackMaster. I was always impressed by Michael Nunamaker's work. His hype was quite impressive, his books very expensive. But with all his brilliant research, his selections on TrackMaster were never profitable and were mostly favorites. I checked all of the handicappers working with TrackMaster and I found none that were profitable in the time periods I reviewed.

I may try Horse Racing Gold if they ever offer a trial subscription or post the day old selections for an individual to verify. Until then I'll keep reading The PA.

[GameTheory]

385 megabytes? That would be an e-book 20,000 pages long. It's approx. 385 kilobytes (1/3 of one MB) -- not too big at all...

[Dick Schmidt]

GT,

Oops. Got my megs and kilos confused. The book is only about 50 pages.

Dick

[David McKenzie]

//I checked all of the handicappers working with TrackMaster and I found none that were profitable in the time periods I reviewed.
//

Me too, for over a year. However, for quite a few months Michael Dempsey was winning at 37% with a $2 flat win bet R.O.I. of 77%!

Then reality caught up.

*sigh*

[dav4463]

I subscribed to HorseRacingGold for 2 weeks. I hit 3 big trifectas and one longshot that paid over $100. However, I think it is best to compare their selections with your own handicapping to make the right plays. I started with $200 and decided to give HorseRacingGold a chance. My bankroll went from $200 to over $2600 and then a long losing streak wiped me out. They definitely aren't afraid to back longshots, but the betting style that was recommended invariably suffered long losing streaks. I hear now that they have added a somewhat more conservative key horse method that doesn't have as much risk, but doesn't hit as many big payoffs. If I had not followed their picks blindly, I think a profit would have been realized, but I wanted to give them a 2 week test. It was fun while I was winning, but in the end I gave it all back!

[Dick Schmidt]

David,

Thank you. One report from the front is worth an endless amount of smoke and mirrors.

Dick

[sligg]

dave 4463

Your test run is discouraging but isn't that in keeping with the nature of the game. What handicapper hasn't gone through a long string of losers. This is what makes handicapping such a difficult endeavor. Whether you bet favorites, longshots, value horses, touts-there will always be long losing streaks. How you react to these streaks is what separates the professional from the hobbyist.

Dave, were you satisfied you gave HRG a fair test? What made you stop from continuing? Losing at $75 per week would certainly make you think if the service was worth the expense.

Today, there are dozens of sites where they give you the fair odds line. Great, but my testing has shown no long term winners using there value selections.

Even the wonderful work of Dr. Ziemba turned out to be flawed. He may have exaggerated his results and even so, the logistics of implementing the method were difficult and today with so much simulcast late money the method has become useless.

And so with all the experts writing books, touting selections, all kinds of tip sheets, dozens of computer software programs, endless seminars, the forever newsletters-they are all making money from selling the "impossible dream" and not a "winning horse."

Songwriting is my other hobby and just like horse racing-there
they are-the hucksters ready to sell you the dream of a "hit song." Believe it, there are tout sheets in songwriting. Different in format, but the end result is the same-ALL LOSERS!

This is not "sour grapes:" I am a professional songwriter (BMI) still waiting for the hit song (a longshot) and as in horse racing still looking for the hit winning method (another longshot).

For me the "impossible dream" is what puts fun into my hobbies.

[dav4463]

I didn't mean to turn anybody off about HorseRacingGold. I thought it was pretty impressive to turn $200 into $2400 in about 6 days! However, when checking the results of my losing bets, I found that by blindly following their selections, I made some bets I would never have made. Conversely, they put me on some winners I would not have picked. The key to me was following their betting plan. Using my own selections, I have more confidence about "pulling the trigger" on a 40-1 shot rather than play the horse because someone else picked him. I have no complaints about the company though. For me personally, I prefer to make my own selections. I did make some changes to my own betting style because of HorseRacingGold, just not quite as reckless! I would be interested to see their new key horse betting method that they have been touting. It seems a bit more in line with my style of play and I may try them again some time. They give you 5 or 6 tracks a day and that is too much action for me, but when you are paying for the selections, you feel obligated to play. I prefer to cut it down to 2 tracks per day myself.