Where do you start?

[shouldacoulda]

I know a lot of guys on here are into "computercapping" with software. For those that do or don't, my question is this. Where do you start the handicapping process?

I have trained myself to start by reading (completely) the conditions of the race even before the surface or distance. How many of you fellow players give it much attention? I know this may be a basic question, but I heard a basketball coach say he had a conversation with the legendary Red Aurbach and asked him what he felt was most important. He said he got a 1 hour lesson on the proper footwear and proper fit. Sometimes basic things are so obvious they get overlooked. What are your feelings on the matter?

[andymays]

I use DRF formulator.

Start with workouts sinced raced and work your way up from the bottom of the running lines. Let the running lines tell the story and by the time you get to the last (most recent) running line you should have a good idea of where the horse fits today.

[cnollfan]

I start with the conditions, and depending what they are, do a quick scan of the race looking for certain profiles. Then I will go back and look harder at the more interesting/promising races.

[shouldacoulda]

I start with the conditions, and depending what they are, do a quick scan of the race looking for certain profiles.

Now you're talking in my good ear.

[kenwoodall2]

I start with Brisnet Handicapper's Edge/ At A Glances, track maintainence reports, and Equibase charts (my tracks), to look for biases going back 1 week.
If my brother emails me asking for an opinion on a certain (big race), I go to that race's PP's and look first at changes, comments, horse's favorite conditions, tracks, surfaces, running patterns. Regardless of what race handicapping method, or horse, I like to see consistency.

[Trotman]

I start with the condition book, just like the trainers do. At the start of every meet I down load the condition book for that track and highlight every type of race I find profit in. From there the so called trainer moves are exposed. This is only a part of my handicapping, the horse still has to be in condition to win the race and the prior form will show you that. Distant so called back class means nothing to me, if you can't run a lick the past say 60 days you won't wake up now and run a good one. And another thing is don't over complicate and adjust every thing because all you're doing is IMO just making every horse equal boosting some and degrading others.

[Robert Fischer]

I start with the free programs online. Then if I find the race types I am looking for I put in the work for those races. Ideally my health is good and this expands into an extensive note-taking process, where I also have watch-list horses periodically.

[Space Monkey]

I use HTR. To start, I scan the tracks I want to play (AP.BEL,CD,MTH,WO) to look for races that are projected to have very vulnerable faves and that offer value. I'm an exacta and win player nowadays. I'm very selective. Most days I play no more than 5 or 6 races a day.