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Originally Posted by Capper Al
How fast does handicapping change? If too fast then why buy software at all? If not, what are you doing to keep up with it? Are the essentials always the same?
I believe racing changes happen all at once like when poly tracks popped up or PC became available. In between these changes very little happens. And I do believe the fundamentals are always there. We just need to figure out how to adapt the fundamentals to the changes.
The major changes that I can list are
- Horses are better grouped into a race of similar class horses.
- Days since last raced isn't as straight foward as it used to be.
- poly tracks
- Many more sprint turf races
- Many more optional claiming or, at least, it seems so.
- Computer aided handicapping.
- Speed figures are available to everyone.
- The public is hip to pace, but not as much as they think they are.
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This is a nice topic you are spawning Al...
I think you need to make a distinction when it comes to “handicapping”.
I can see two different processes fitting the same term and I believe that realizing them is vital for successful horse betting.
The first type of “handicapping” is solely geared towards the chances of each starter to win the race and should be of interest mainly to the connections of the horse (assuming they are targeting only the purse of the race)..
Most of the bettors are following the same process as well, as they are more interesting in picking a winner rather than betting for profit. The dictating angles for this process seem to be relatively simple and well known both to bettors and connections.
Of course, these angles are not immutable and as time goes by, they change, as the training methods, medication, breeding and other factors are changing as well...
The second type of “handicapping”, the one that should be the main focus of the bettor, has to do with how well the “winner pickers” are doing their job, trying to find a hole in their consensus. Following this approach, there is a twist in the final decision making, as in most of the cases, a horse not fitting the “most frequent winner” profile will probably be the best bet of the race.
This means that a horse with an obvious problematic running line, might present the proper combination of factors to become the best bet in the race; examples of this type of a bet might be a female against males or a three year old facing older early during the racing season.
Although the individual factors (like female against males) might (and should) change as time goes by, this second type of “handicapping” will never change as it represents a meta-processing (generic) layer completely transparent to the specifics (for example the factors you are enumerating above).
