Quote:
Originally Posted by Fager Fan
I’ve never understood the logic behind this suspicion. How many races do you have to throw to darken the form enough to raise the odds to the point for the one bet at a substantial amount/risk to make up for all the 10% purse bonuses you lost? Or 100% of the purse if you own the horse?
Add to that negative the risk of losing your owner and the horse through losses that should’ve been wins. Or risking the horse through teaching it to lose, and it could go off form or get injured at any time. Or diminishing the animal’s value.
So it doesn’t make sense to me, certainly not in top races, not in MSW and above. Only at the very bottom, and the guys who play at that level supposedly have few dimes to rub together but they’re master-minding a huge bet?
|
While I agree with much of this, you're over-thinking the requirements of form darkening, which has always existed at the lower levels. It often starts with a legitimate, poor effort, such as a horse being pinched back at the break. Then, the trainer only has to have his charge put in two additional poor efforts, which result in gradual M/L increases. There are many, fairly obvious moves which a rider can make, but this can also be accomplished by running the horse on the wrong surface, at the wrong distance, or at the wrong level.
Horseplayers are very sophisticated these days, and can easily interpret these signs as either form darkening or just trying to find the proper level, surface, or distance for the horse. However, this was my bread and butter for many years.
