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[bobphilo]

Originally Posted by Nitro

I’m sure that many here (who consider themselves handicappers) may find my response to be outside the realm of their accepted wisdom as it pertains to this topic. Be that is it may, I thought that perhaps a few others might find it revealing to some extent. I’m sure that the level of acceptance or rejection of my paradigm shift will ultimately be based upon how ingrained their handicapping methodology has become.

I wasn’t really planning on responding to this thread because I knew that anything I offered would involve a lengthy explanation. However, I thoroughly believe that the entire premise for the argument being presented seems to be based on a comparison of 2 very flawed and narrow observations:

1) An individual’s subjective appraisal of the entries based on a pseudo-intellectual analysis of past performances that would suggest revealing the actual contenders in a race.

2) An individual’s use of the live tote odds to determine whether or not the amount of money being wagered in just the “Win” pool on a particular entry could possibly substantiate it as a significant contender in a race.

As far as item “1” goes I’m not going to reiterate my feelings about the pitfalls of using just the interpretations past performances to make any real determinations. That’s only because a past performance can only reveal one thing: How an entry has competed under specific race conditions against particular entrants. Neither of those race conditions or competitors may be involved in the race under consideration. One might only perceive a superficial potential revelation of how entry might perform under certain circumstances.

However, the single most important dynamic that an Outsider must consider when evaluating an entry’s true competitive potential is its current physicality. The mental and physical condition of a horse varies from time to time due to any number REAL environmental factors. Unfortunately, these sort of things more often than not are taken for granted by those who have no direct contact with the animal itself. In fact, many handicappers also assume that every entry entered in a race is there in an attempt to win it. This may be true in stakes races that unfortunately make up only a small portion of the races run.

So what some players attempt to do is rely on item “2”. They believe that viewing the odds on the tote board might reveal some telling information about a particular entry that’s getting heavy action in the Win pool. Well, this might be true if it was the only betting pool available, but it certainly isn’t. (Issue #1) Even it were, the problem with this whole scenario is the idea of focusing this entire relationship on a single entry just because of evidence of elevated betting activities. In actuality, (one pool or not) there’s betting activity being applied to any number of entries. Any attempt to arrive at a foregone conclusion drawn based on the movement of money has to take into consideration ALL of the entries in a race. (Issue #2) This seems easy enough if you really believe the Win pool has all the answers. Unfortunately it doesn’t, and common sense indicates that this can be (more often than not) very misleading when you simply consider the percentage of how many betting favorites actually win a race.

I’ve just scratched the surface with regard to recognizing tote board activities, but because that’s my only tool for playing this game, I thought it might be of interest to get a different perspective.

So what is this different perspective? We heard about what you don't like. What method do you use instead?