Try Tom Ansilie's New Complete Guide to Harness Racing. Published in 1987 and still relevant.

not only can she handicap mountaineer, mohawk, harrington, yonkers, norhtfield, but she got a little to ambicious and took on hawksbury australian b this evening.

i would love to know where she finds all that time during the day to travel back and forth to the tvg studio's, get her nails and hair done, and her makeup and then find time to handicap. of course all the other tvg personalities have to do the same thing. yet supposedly they all do their own handicapping.

i have to admit, wheather they do it themselves which i highly doubt, or they read it off a piece of paper which is highly likely, the picks are pretty darn good to say the least. whomever they have that is reading those pace figures are superb.

i have to come clean, on sunday i was listening to tvg because i was interested in a maiden race, they interviewed a trainer in the last race at del mar on a first time starter. the guy said everything right and i liked what he said, his horse had lots of speed and acted like a horse that had experience and had a good mind. i wound up betting $20 on it and the horse paid $28.

Funny you mention this book which is the bible of harness racing and still a book worth reading if your into harness.

This book really came out way before 1987. I just pulled my copy down from the bookshelf and see that the original copyright date of this book was 1970, the book was expanded and fully revised in 1980 because of The Meadowlands and it came back again in 1987.

Tom Ainslie real name was Richard Carter. He died 3 years ago at the age of 89.

Carter's best known handicapping book was published in 1968 and called "Ainslie's Complete Guide to Thoroughbred Racing. Ainslie's horseracing books included "Ainslie's Complete Guide to Harness Racing," "Ainslie's Encyclopedia of Thoroughbred Handicapping," "The Compleat Horseplayer," and "The Body Language of Horses," written in collaboration with Bonnie Ledbetter. He often wrote columns for the Daily Racing Form and The Racing Times.

__________
David-LV

Tom Ainslie's worst book by far, IMO.

The rating system that he offers in this book is completely erroneous, and has been vilified by every knowledgeable harness handicapper in the game.

I would recommend Steve Chaplin's works instead...and for the more serious player...Barry Meadow's "Professional Harness Betting".

PS...

It was not published in 1987, it was published in 1971...with slight revisions in latter years.

Tom Ansilie's New Complete Guide to Harness Racing. Published circa 1987
Tom Ansilie's Complete Guide to Harness Racing. Published circa 1971

I bought that book in 1972 after seeing Albatross destroy an invitational field at Hollywood park I believe he was parked 4 or 5 wide in a blazing first quarter and drew off in the stretch to win by open lengths.

At one time I had both editions of his book and the Meadows book which was pretty funny.
__________

Let me get this straight if I can.

Every so called "expert" at TVG uses printed out picks from whoever but her? :bang: :bang: :bang:

So she gives reasons almost all the hosts do also.

I guess it would ok for her to take a stand against bridgejumpers because she wears a skirt. :lol:

she either reads picks from a piece of paper, or she is a pure genious and has got the harness game figured out in less than a week. i appreciate tallent, maybe i am wrong about the experts reading from a piece of paper.

lambo - that was the funniest monologue i've read in a long time...laughed my a** off....great job!

Well now were talking. :ThmbUp:

I think they all make their own picks I'll give her credit for admitting she doesn't know the game well yet. My hunch on that nice priced horse at Mohawk is that it was an out of town shipper from a smaller track. Good for her if that's how she picked it because I thrown them out 90% of the time not ashamed to admit it. Right now she's going on almost raw TM ratings which is a good way to start. She also said she's keeping a log book of all the info given to her that show me a lot.

I think her biggest talent is looking at horses and saying which one looks best. When Quigley and her agree sometimes I throw a few bucks on that horse.


I wish her well seems like a nice lady not full of herself.

Interesting that you mention Chaplin's book, because just yesterday I was thinking about it. The occasion was my very infrequent delving in playing at Harrington.

The key theory in his book (at least the one I'm thinking of; I don't know if he has written others) is that we have a tendency to over-think in our play, devising trip scenarios in our mind, calculating class changes, depending on teletimer readings, etc. Instead, Chaplin proposes a very simplistic way of viewing a race, which is the horse is either in form or out of form.

He extends this in two logical ways. First, he describes what to look for in the past performances to indicate in-form, out-of-form, or unknown status. Second, he advises that you play the highest priced of the in-form animals. There are some other restrictions, but that is the basic thrust.

I used this approach yesterday at Harrington playing gimmicks and even though I only played a portion of the card, I had a good day. This leads me to wonder if we sometimes don't get bogged down in the small details too much. Maybe this throw-back idea still has some merit.

As far as Ainsle, I read his original book on harness racing soon after it was initially published. Heven't read it since and I have long since lost my copy of it. I don't remember specifics, but I do remember that it seemed to me to be written by a thoroughbred guy who knew very little about harness racing. He seemed like a fish out of water, trading on his famous name to make a few extra bucks. But I remeber finding no value in it at all.

As far as the girl on TVG, I caught a portion of the show and she was the recipient of blind luck. Now. That being said, we understand that the analysis on TVG is meant for the average player whom they are targeting to coax money from. But there is nothing, and I mean nothing ever said relative to harness handicapping that would appeal to a world-class player.

:15: How about the "THE THIRD LETTER R SYSTEM"?:p

you are one of the best handicappers on this board. there is no way in life that that girl can pick 3 stragiht winners at mohawk no matter how luckky one can be, and top it off with 2 of them at yonkers allthough those were dead bang chalk. i am gullible too, i have listened to all these pickers and if they were sitting in a room with no communication i wouldn't invest 16 cents on their own handicapping abilities luck or skill

Lambo, I guess you have sparked my interest, even though just a small spark to tune in and at least see what this girl looks like...hehehe.

Seriously, lets see what she can do in a months time, or lets say fifty pix.You can keeep track on her w/p/s ROI.I would be willing to bet that she would be in the negative,BUT I could be wrong,LORD knows I have been before.

life is all about being wrong. we all try to beat the system.

i have nothing against that girl, she seems to have a nice personality, and there is no one alive that is going to handicap horses with only a pad of paper and a pencil that is going to show a profit with those takeouts going against them. i guess it just humbles me when someone that is at the game for a week bangs out $60 winners and i can't find my way to an even money shot. i am a jealous guy i guess or probably more ignorant than the format at television games.

i used to know a guy that was a greyhound handicapper. he spent hours and hours studying tapes of racecards and he could never find his way to do more than 1 track. he was the most amazing cold-conker that i have ever met in my life when he was hot. the guys nickname was and still is "the rookie". when it came to dog racing boy does that guy have tallent