american turf monthly's dan geer

[dav4463]

Has anyone ever done a workout of the longshot methods that are in American Turf Monthly every other month or so? Dan Geer is the author of most of the methods and they include a small workout of results. I just wonder if any of them have ever been put to a test of some 1500+ races.

[GameTheory]

Are those new methods, or do they keep reprinting old ones like Ray T.?

I've got a copy of Geer's PRO RATED LONGSHOTS around here somewhere. That was from the early 70s...

[dav4463]

I think they are mostly reprints from Taulbot, but I'm not sure. They do always show a workout of a recent month of racing though.

[GameTheory]

Well, Ray is dead, so there aren't gonna be any new ones from him. Dan Geer may well be dead for all I know.


I haven't looked at that magazine in ages -- tell me, in the workouts, do they do a FULL workout where they actually show the win% of the method? Or do they do the dodge where they say, "There were 100 winners in March!" as if that is supposed to mean something.

Do they still make "Fit & Ready" lists giving you selections to bet up to TWO MONTHS in advance?

[dav4463]

Dan Geer is listed as an editor, so I guess he is still around. Of course the Taulbot articles are reprints, but the other articles are written by Geer. It will show about 25 boxcar winners at various tracks during a particular month. It doesn't say how many horses had to be played to get these winners. Oh, they do still have that fit and ready list ! Don't you wish you could spot a winning horse two months in advance! It would be great for future pools!

[Lefty]

Back in the 60's when I used to write a few of these systems on a freelance basis for ATM I backfitted them from 30 days of racing, and it's my bet that the other guys did too. I doubt any of this stuff will hold up for a long period.

[tanda]

Workouts?

They list the winners and their prices.

Since the total amount of plays is not listed, the R.O.I. is unknown.

The primary question with any investment methodology is whether it is profitable and/or beats the crowd.

The "workouts" fail to address that question. Thus, they are meaningless.

Except, you can surmise that the reason a real workout is not given is that the methodology is unprofitable.

[ranchwest]

The other question is total sample size, which gives you an idea of how many plays you might expect. I could hit an extremely high win percentage if I was willing to wait a month for a play.

[so.cal.fan]

I used to read Ray Talbout when I was a kid.
I heard back in the 1960's that he had been dead for years and that there were several successors (Ray Talbouts)
Are any of the original Ray's ideas any good?
I assume he was writing "live" in the 40's and 50's?
Anyone know? Anyone care? LOL

[Rick]

There was an updated method of Dan Geer's "Pro Rated Longshots" published recently by someone else. You can get it from GBC if you're interested. I think when Sport Stat tested the original method a few years ago it was around break-even which is pretty good for a spot play with that much action. It could provide a starting point for a profitable method. I know of some spot plays that are much better than that, but I'm not telling.

[Derek2U]

Okay I'm opinionated (some would say) but I just can't stand that
SportStat guy: he tries to be so scientific, yet he lacks any
credibility. All those "reports" stink : ditto for that brainless
Nunamaker .... that dolt's only breakthrough was "Watch the
horse who, being a Pisces, races at 7fs in June, and goes off at
greater than 12:1." All that IV chatter & I can tell right away that
behind that computer sits a guy who knows ZERO about horse,
gambling, money. Yet there are some cool, smart guys around
also.

[Tom]

Originally posted by so.cal.fan
I used to read Ray Talbout when I was a kid.
I heard back in the 1960's that he had been dead for years and that there were several successors (Ray Talbouts)
Are any of the original Ray's ideas any good?
I assume he was writing "live" in the 40's and 50's?
Anyone know? Anyone care? LOL

You mean like all the "Lassies?"
<G>

[so.cal.fan]

No! Don't tell me there were more than one Lassie, Tom!

An old friend of mine used to use the Ray Talbout Pace Calculator.
He used to cash some tickets. Don't know if he cashed enough to make money, but he did get some winners.
Don't know if anyone has ever tested the Ray Talbout PC?

[andicap]

I sold a harness racing article with a huge workout to ATM back in the early 1980s -- it got a lunch with Joe "Vertex" Conte too.

Anyway, they didn't even check my system. They just took my word for it that my workout was legit. I actually fudged some of the data a bit to improve my results and I gave an ROI in the article on my workout.

They didn't seem to care about any of this. Got $100, about the same as $250 I'd guess today. Not too shabby.

[freeneasy]

awhahaaa, thats some funny stuff andi !! I can see it now, andi in his younger playing days, hard at work with ( casually inverted ) pencil in hand, fudgin up, err ah, worken up a little system hes got cookin here, and then gets a 100 bucks on the say-so, while havin launch with the man Joe Conte. I love it. What a classic. Musta been something.
By the way andi, whatever happened to ole Joe? He still around or what?
If your "time machine" still works,do you happen to remember when he was advertiseing this system in the ATM, and he was selling it, at that time, for the unheard of sum of like 200 bucks or so. I mean geez the pace calculator was only going for 40 bucks or so at the time, and everytime I saw that add I remember thinking, what the hell is he selling for that price, damn Ill bet its good. I must have read that add a hundred times, and every time I read it twood just drive me to the brink of madness. Joe Conte, and you got to have launch with him. Youdamanandiyoudaman

[andicap]

That was the last time I ever saw Joe although I recall his method (I think it was a turf method ''The Grass is Greener.") not that I bought it of course.
I remember at lunch he chided me for being a "purist." I was all of 24 at the time.
Yeah, you're right, free -- I was so eager to get published(remember I'm a writer) that I finagled the data a bit. The system was this: horses at Yonkers and Roosevelt who showed some "energy" from the 7th and 8th hole were good bets the next two times out. I had a few longshots to get the ROI up there, but to cut out a bunch of losers I had to eliminate horses starting their next race from the 6 hole. Except I hit a big one at Roosevelt from the 6 hole, so I made an exception for Roosevelt because the turns weren't as tight and I think it had a longer stretch!

[freeneasy]

well there ya go andi, he wasnt chiding you about being such a purest, he was letting you in on a trade secret that its ok to be a fudgest too. But hey, you already had that down like a seasoned pro. nudgeit till you fudgeit

and i remember that TGIG system
oh yeah before I fotget, what the hell was that nickname Vertex?

[BIG HIT]

Hi guys did anybody buy Joe conte book back then.? Tried to buy couple years ago couldn't find it anywhere. Really enjoyed his angle of the month still have them. Always regretted not buying his book.

[modred]

Randy Kovach of Aodds98 and Workhorse programed the Ray Talbot PC program. He didn't say how it worked because he wasn't really a player...just a coder mostly.

[BIG HIT]

Hi guys posted reply in the wrong place bought ray's PC calculator. Thought I would use his angles but that was not the case. Had some success with it but let it go by the wayside for other programs that work much better. Workhorse program was pretty good went out of business just as I was going to buy it.

[Joe Conte]

You asked a few years ago if "ole Joe Conte" is still around and the answer is yes, this is me, the man himself punchin' away at this keyboard in person. Any questions? -JOE CONTE

[Overlay]

In addition to still selling Dan Geer's original book Pro-Rated Longshots for $25.00, American Turf Monthly offers the updated hard-copy version by Al Smallman (Pro-Rated Longshots Plus) for $20.00; a software version of Pro-Rated Longshots for $99.95; and a package including all three for $118.00. (I don't mean this as a plug, although I do have a copy of the original Pro-Rated Longshots. I'm just providing information on one source where these items can be obtained, for anyone who might be interested.)

[Lefty]

modred, the Pace Calculator was the forerunner of software prgms today but is seriously behind and dated now. The Pace Calculator simply calculated Pace Of The Race that's why Ray said to only uses ctrs that were within 5 lgths of the winner at finish.

[Figman]

I bought the Ray Taulbot's Pace Calculator from American Turf Monthly in 1962 for $20. I don't think even Univac around then?

It was a horse racing advance for me from reading Joe and Asbestos by Ken Kling and translating their special selections that were published "in code" in the New York Daily Mirror.

[Joe Conte]

I worked with Danforth Geer III (from a good New England family) for years at the magazine (ATM) and I can tell you for sure he hasn't bet a horse since the l950s!! The most timid guy you'll ever meet. Good runner, though. Dan's probably in his late 70s by now, lives in Vermont. All his systems with those "workout of results" are after the fact: backed into once you have a "grid." For example, you noticed that four horses in January won at big prices at Aqueduct adding blinkers. So now you've got a system with an ROI of l30% for that sequence. You could call the system "Blinkers Build Bankrolls" (how they love the alliteration down there!) and get it published in ATM. It may not show a one-month profit for the next l8 years...but it did that month! - Joe Conte

[timtam]

Kind of makes you sad that guys like Dan Geer have their name on a product for years and they themselves don't even bet. Then its years later after generations of suckers are burned you find out they don't even play the races. What is even sadder is the flippant attitude by the sellers of these systems. I just fudged a few figures , backfitted some data , sold the system to a supposedly reputable magazine and made my $100 while some poor sap is wondering and figuring why he can't come up with the same results. I'm not passing judgement but it really is a sad state when this stuff is done and the guys doing are proud and bragging about the suckers that didn't get away. Just a shame don't ya think?

[andicap]

I worked with Danforth Geer III (from a good New England family) for years at the magazine (ATM) and I can tell you for sure he hasn't bet a horse since the l950s!! The most timid guy you'll ever meet. Good runner, though. Dan's probably in his late 70s by now, lives in Vermont. All his systems with those "workout of results" are after the fact: backed into once you have a "grid." For example, you noticed that four horses in January won at big prices at Aqueduct adding blinkers. So now you've got a system with an ROI of l30% for that sequence. You could call the system "Blinkers Build Bankrolls" (how they love the alliteration down there!) and get it published in ATM. It may not show a one-month profit for the next l8 years...but it did that month! - Joe Conte

Hey at least I didn't do that with MY ATM "system." No one bomb "made" the system (although it was backfitted of course). It was fairly consistent and after-the-face rule manipulation only fudged a couple of races.
:D :D

[tomcg]

Hey: I just saw LASSIE on cable last night. Lassie Lives !!!:)

[Joe Conte]

The nickname VERTEX (the highest point of a hierarchical pyramid) honors the first racehorse that inspired me: Vertex, winner of the John Blanks Campbell Memorial Handicap at Bowie Race Course in the l950s. I was there and saw him repulse all challengers with my young eyes...and got hooked for life. Later, as a turf writer/editor for Racing STAR Weekly and American TURF Monthly, I adopted the nom-d-plume (or nom-d-cours if you like) in honor of that stakes winner...who turned out to be a fair-to-middlin' broodmare stallion at any rate. :jump:

[Jeep]

So you sold a system to ATM and only fudged on a couple of races? Guess the guys who followed your system for awhile were in for a big surprise. I guess you had a good laugh on them. What did you get? I think you said $100. You gotta be a horse players best friend, but most horse players I know have integrity, glad I don't know you.
Jeep

[andicap]

So you sold a system to ATM and only fudged on a couple of races? Guess the guys who followed your system for awhile were in for a big surprise. I guess you had a good laugh on them. What did you get? I think you said $100. You gotta be a horse players best friend, but most horse players I know have integrity, glad I don't know you.
Jeep

This was in 1980 for chrissake -- I was, what 24?
Would I do it today? Of course not.
But then again back then I drove drunk, cruised single bars, used hard drugs (on occasion), bet lots of favorites, and once in a while wore the same underwear two days in a row when I hadn't done laundry. I was also making about $17K a year so $100 was a lot of moolah to me. I wouldn't want to know me now either.

Not that I'm defending my actions, but the system wasn't a bad one. Without the fudging, it about broke even. Basically you bet back horses on half-mile harness tracks who had showed signs of life from the 7th and 8th post positions and had come back to inside posts. (I had hard rules)
Besides blatant back-fitting (which I didn't know better about at the time), what I fudged was a rule that allowed you to use 6th PP horses at Roosevelt but not at Yonkers on the basis of post position stats which showed 6th post horses won about 50% more at RR than at Yonkers in the past meet.
And I actually did bet my own system.

:p :faint:

[Tom]

You would be hard pressed to find a nicer guy than andicap. :ThmbUp:

[Jeep]

I didn't say that Andicap wasn't a nice guy. What I tried to convey was that to sell a system to a national magazine and fudge the results was deceitful. I think the horse player has enough on his plate without getting false information from a national magazine. It's probably just as much the fault of the magazine for not checking the results, but a true friend of the horse player should be honest with him.
Jeep

[andicap]

I didn't say that Andicap wasn't a nice guy. What I tried to convey was that to sell a system to a national magazine and fudge the results was deceitful. I think the horse player has enough on his plate without getting false information from a national magazine. It's probably just as much the fault of the magazine for not checking the results, but a true friend of the horse player should be honest with him.
Jeep

I totally agree with everything you said. American Turf Monthly has a dubious reputation (and Racing Weekly before it) as Joe Conte kind of pointed out talking about Dan Geer's stuff.

They'd have to pay me $1,000 now to write the same article.
;)

[timtam]

And now conveniently Dan Geers Pro Rated Longshots are available on a computer disc so a whole new generation of suckers are lining up to get duped. Pathetic !

[Joe Conte]

Jeep : Since I was the magazine editor at the time, I"ll say this in the magazine's defense: We were a THOROUGHBRED publication with only occasional forays into the harness field. Consequently we didn't have the backlog of charts and past performances needed for checking a harness-racing system in every detail...whereas where the flats were concerned we had charts and full past performances doing back years and years for checking into submissions by freelancers like ANDI. Hope this sheds some light on the situation. :)

[pandy]

For accuracy, Grass Is Greener is John Conte, a different person than Joe Conte. John Conte used to have Grass Is Greener picks for ATM and other publications. He specializes in turf racing.

[andicap]

Thanks for the clarification, Pandy. I actually did believe that the Grass is Greener guy was Vortex.

Joe, I notice ATM didn't publish any more harness racing angles after that. Did you get THAT many complaints?
:D