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The way I like to assign class to a horse is I look at the last ten outs and
find the highest class race the horse has won. Then I rank those horses
and look at the top two or three and if there are two that seem to be about
the same, I look to see how well the performance was in their winning races.
Also, at that time, I give more weight to recency of the win. The best being
last out. Sometimes, I can eliminate a horse because it attained a high class
but does not seem to be able to hold on to it. As with everything in horse
racing, there are exceptions that have to be considered as well. Lightly raced
horses with two or three outs only can be dangerous to your money if you
do not evaluate them properly. I can say with happiness in my heart that I
got one Wednesday that paid $60.80 per $2 at Laurel Park. It was a horse
that had only been out twice and the crowd had made the mistake of
backing two horses entered by a high % Trainer, as if the trainer was going
to be out there on the track running instead of his horses. I looked at his
two entries saw one had not even finished his last out and the other did
not look like a heavy favorite to me. The long shot I won with finished his
last out winning by almost 4 lengths and doing so by being 5 wide. When
I see a horse do that I sit up and take notes. I do not believe that on their
next out they should be the longest shot on the board. That last race was
on a mile and the race last Wednesday was for 8.5 F or 1 Mile 1/16. I use
a ballpark figure of 7 seconds to evaluate the final segment of route races.
I read in one of my manuals that on average, it takes a horse around 7
seconds to travel 110 yards or 1/16th of a mile in the final segment. So I
figured my pick could handle going the extra 1/16th since he gained so
much in that part of his last race. Turns out I was right. I watched the
race and had given up that he could win since he was so far back at the
stretch. I began to watch the two front runners and it looked like one had
it in the bank. In the final moments I noticed a horse coming inbetween
them and fast enough that it was ahead at the wire. It was my longshot.
So the moral to this is that we can figure class in a race and that will help
us a lot but it is still important to try and figure out why the crowd is
making horses heavy favorites for no apparent good reason.
__________________
If at first you don't succeed....don't go Sky diving!
Last edited by jerry-g; 11-22-2013 at 02:19 PM.
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