Your Best Handicapping Surfaces/Races

[tbwinner]

I'm curious as to everyone's best (in terms of highest ROI) handicapping, on which surface (dirt/turf/synthetic) and what type (maiden-special, allowance, claiming, starter, stakes).

Ever since using YouBet as my primary ADW, I've been using their MyROI feature and have found that, since 1/5/2010 (when I first used them), my best surface has been turf and maiden special weight races, and that my best track has been Delaware Park. Looking back upon 2009 I have to agree that my best winnings have been off turf and maiden-special races.

So what is it for you....Maiden Claimers on the dirt, Allowances on turf, Stakes...?

[Robert Goren]

Maidens on the turf making their second life time start and first on the turf can produce some very nice winners.

[cnollfan]

Front-runners in turf routes.

[KingChas]

Odd distances.Any surface.
Put some homework into this.

Something cappers don't like.(odd distances)
Which means staying ahead of the parimutual crowd. ;)

[Fastracehorse]

........most my best hits are on the grass; not all - but most. I'm not sure why this is but speed is a factor; often my bombs wire the field.

I was looking at factors that helped me have some success on the lawn:

1. Speed figures.
2. Trainers that have become recently or still actively hot.
3. Trainer intent like a recent claim or jock switch.
4. Speed.

And this combination worked at Mth, CD, and, Wdb yesterday all after one of my front enders quit at CD.

This game is strange: U can do nothing and then your missiles hit the target.

I do love Maidens, they are still trying to find their level and this is where speed figures can help.

fffastt

On Bel turf there are alot of Maiden bombs that show terrible dirt form; hard to single one but U can try a few in a p-4.

[xfile]

conditional claimers (nw2l, etc), maiden claimers, maiden special, cheap claimers (5k, etc), all turf and all wet track
http://fullcardreports.com/images208/cbig.gif

[sjk]

I have had a .10 greater ROI on filly races than on the males in nearly every year of the last ten and don't know why.

[Valuist]

Two groups that are very divergent: stakes races and maiden claimers. Stakes are great because the longshots are still (in most cases) very good horses and probably in very good form. I love maiden claimers on dirt who are dropping a bit in class after showing high speed and tiring badly against better.

[DeltaLover]

Cheap Maiden Claimers on the dirt since they often contain underbet longshots that can easily improve by 10+ lengths represent the group where I have to show my best results!

Winter, southern circuits like Tampa Bay, Oakland Park, Gulfstream are among my favorites while my home track Aqueduct is definitely the last in my list!

I cannot agree with the poster who suggests 'exotic' distances like 1 5/16, 1 3/16, 4.5 f and similar since due to very low frequency is almost impossible to derive a valid statistical model and a handicapper has to rely solely in intuition and empirical judgment which is something that I abandoned long time ago! ;)

A protected condition, like AlwN1L, rarely creates attractive betting propositions (especially in its restricted variation) due to the high representation of stale horses, stacked in their career for months by stubborn connections,,,

When it comes to high quality horses, my preference is 3 year olds from the beginning of the year up to Belmont Stakes as their rapid evolution usually creates huge overlays and their 2yo performance tends to affect the crowd disproportionally usually overbetting the wrong one due to name recognition, class misjudgments etc.

As far as surface goes, I have to notice that turf presents additional complexities compared to dirt. The difficulty to classify surface condition, the importance of pace and the increased impact of trouble and racing luck, combined with the diminished role of early speed are all factors that complicate the predictions and tend to equalize performers. Based in that I have concluded to a more aggressive turf betting model, trying to explode marginal overlays in the low frequency winning territory that could present huge overlays though!

[Black Ruby]

Exactas, tris, and supers on claimers, looking for races with horses that don't hit the board if they don't win, and horses that don't win but pick up the pieces.

[eastie]

maiden races, turf races with big fields, maiden turf races. Mare power rules.

[Bettowin]

Horizontal wagers on stakes races. Belmont day is a good example with giant P3's and P4's made up of graded stakes races with big fields and a lot of novices betting into the pools.

[shouldacoulda]

maiden turf routes

[Johnny V]

So far for 2010: Claiming dirt sprints have my best ROI and my best tracks have been at this point Gulfstream and Aqueduct (inner).

[kenwoodall2]

Since consistency is yat the root of most of my handicapping, MDCL and mid-level CL, turf routes, "+up".

[Wickel]

All maiden races--especially MSW.

[WinterTriangle]

Looking back upon 2009 I have to agree that my best winnings have been off turf and maiden-special races.

Best winnings, or consistent winnings?

[tbwinner]

Best winnings, or consistent winnings?

Yes, clarification, most consistent but also my best winnings (highest ROI) were from Turf Maidens.