Old Trifecta Strategy

[spilparc]

Old Trifecta Strategy

I remember this strategy from an old Dick Mitchell video. I'm paraphrasing, but I think I have it right.

The object is to have one key horse that you think will hit the board and is not the favorite, and if I remember correctly he should be at least four to one. You then structure your bet something like this:

Key
Place
All

Place
Key
All

All
Place
Key

If your horse hits the board along with your place and show contenders you have a good chance of catching a nice tri. In the attached chart I give five example scenarios.

Back in the 90s a friend of mine and I pooled $500 and played this strategy whenever we both could agree on a "key" horse. We arbitrarily set our maximum bet size at $60 a race. If it cost more than that we would discard it, or eliminate a horse or two to get the cost back down. I remember hitting two or three real nice signers with this strategy.

Maybe someone else remembers this method and can verify whether or not I remembered it correctly.

[Greyfox]

I can't find my Mitchell book to see what he says about tris.

I don't play them very often, but when I do, I prefer playing

2 x 3 x 5. or AB/ABC/ABCDE

[duckhunter3]

In 21st Century Handicapping, which can be purchased on Cynthia's website, Mitchell takes you through a few of his racing days at California tracks, and he uses pretty much the same betting strategy on all races (very expensive thought). It goes something like this:
1. Bet all overlay contenders to win at 6-1 or better.
2. Box the win horses in an exacta (personally I would eliminate this).
3. Key the overlay contenders on top and bottom of the underlay contenders in an exacta.
4. Key the overlay contenders in all slots with the underlay contenders in a trifecta.

You can see how expensive this gets, and you are making lots of bets that you have NO idea what sort of return you will get. With this much in every race you will have several losers, even if you hit a couple of these bets. But HE MADE IT WORK SOMEHOW!!!!!

If I have a long shot I like, I like to bet it to win, and then put it on the bottom of an exacta with the horses that can run to the pars on top, and then put those horses in the one and 2 holes, and the longshot in the 3 hole in a trifecta.

[KYJACK]

Originally Posted by spilparc

Back in the 90s a friend of mine and I pooled $500 and played this strategy whenever we both could agree on a "key" horse. We arbitrarily set our maximum bet size at $60 a race. If it cost more than that we would discard it, or eliminate a horse or two to get the cost back down. I remember hitting two or three real nice signers with this strategy

Spliparc

Just curious, how did you and your friend make out overall? I.e. was it a winning strategy?

Jack

[cj's dad]

My favorite play is after picking my two key plays and and playing exactas is to split the two with all in the tri. Have hit many signers by having a 4/1 and 6/1 split by a 25/1 shot.

Thank God for the "all"

[ArlJim78]

This method describes my favorite way to play races, and the way I’ve managed to make the biggest scores. I didn’t realize or forgot that it was in the Mitchell book, but I don’t do it exactly as he describes either. I sorta fell into this style of play because I noticed over time that I was fairly good at picking out live horses at big odds. Not necessarily winners but horses that were live to hit the board at big prices. So I started tailoring my wagers around these types of horses. A couple key points about the way I play it;

I don’t have hard and fast rules about odds for the key horse, although 4:1 is not good enough. Depending on the size of the field I’m looking for 8:1 or better. Another way I look at this is not so much by the actual odds, but how does the horse’s actual odds rank against the current field. In other words in a 10 horse field I look for horses that are ranked 7th-10th when looking at the other horses in the field. The 7th place horse might be 7:1 or it might be 20:1. But what I think happens is that most players will only go so deep on their tickets and if you can find something from the depths it really enhances the payout. So many people I see like to box 3 or 4 horses and since that is so expensive they are unlikely to use a horse from the bottom of the field.

If my key horse is a real bomb that I feel has very little chance to win, but a very reasonable chance to take third or second, I won’t even play the horse on top.

I do the same for supers as well, especially wherever dime supers are offered. You can sometimes land relatively huge supers with an even money winner accompanied by a couple horses from the bottom half of the odds field. Again, its because I think average players key the favorite on top, then follow that with the 2-4 favorites boxed, and then maybe open up more on the bottom.

Basically it’s just going against the flow of the majority of average players.

[KYJACK]

Originally Posted by spilparc

Maybe someone else remembers this method and can verify whether or not I remembered it correctly.

Spilparc

This may be it:

Commonsense Betting by Dick Mitchell
"Betting Strategies for the Racetrack"
(c) 1995, published by William Morrow and Company Inc ISBN 0-688-13396-7

Chapter: The Trifecta
Page 247 - A Strategy That You'll Love
- the "Key-place-all" strategy

Without giving away the farm:

1. The horses must pass a "final time" test using a current win profile for the track.
2. There's a "Skip the Race" Rule
3. Place horses should be at a pace disadvantage
4. I'd didn't notice anything about an odds restriction.
5. "The very best time to play the Trifecta is when ...."
6. "By the way, the twin trifecta is a wonderful bet..."
7. "You then purchase three trifecta part-wheels.."

"The idea behind this strategy is simple. If your Key horse hits the board, you have a good chance of hitting the trifecta. The good news is that you don't have to make a line and you don't have to use a computer to figure things out. There is only one restriction: Your key horse can't be the betting favorite."

Jack

[Behrens215]

Does anyone know if these Dick Mitchell DVD's have been helpful?


Commonsense Handicapping

Pacelines & Contenders

Advanced Speed & Pace Handicapping


Commonsense Maiden Handicapping:

Commonsense Form Factor Analysis

Commonsense Betting Strategy


Commonsense Money Management

Winning the Nonclaiming Race

Advanced Betting Strategies & Year in Review:

[Bruddah]

I have been a Trifecta player since the early 1990's. Very seldom do I bet straight bets or exactas. I met an old dog bettor at the Woodlands in K. City one night. I was there on business and the horse track was closed, so, I decided to walk across the parking lot and play the dogs.

He told me there was almost a sure way to hit the trifecta every time you played. He had hit three in a row and I hadn't scratched a nickle. The way he showed me was to:

1. select and play only races where the favorite is 2-1 or greater. Reason, better trifecta payoffs.
2. eliminate the two dogs, in your estimation, which simply have the worst chance to finish in the money. Not necessairly the two with the highest odds.
3. Construct a ticket with four (4) of the six(6) remaining dogs on the win line, using all six on the place and show line.
example. 1-2-3-4
1-2-3-4-5-6
1-2-3-4-5-6
4. the only way you can lose is if one of the eliminated dogs hits the money or one of the two dogs eliminated from the win line wins the race.

I used his system and hit 6 straight trifects, the rest of the night. I have since adapted this system to playing horses.

1. select and play only races with 8, no more than 9 horses.
2. eliminate the two horses, in your estimation, which simply have the worst chance to finish in the money. Not necessairly the two with the highest odds.
3. Construct a ticket with four (4) of the six(6) remaining horses on the win line, using all six on the place and show line.
example. 1-2-3-4
1-2-3-4-5-6
1-2-3-4-5-6

If you can become good at eliminating the two or three worse horses and picking 4 live horses for the win, you will be suprised at how many tri payouts you will get. I play $1 tri part wheels at a cost of $80 per race. The ticket as constructed above has 80 winning possibilities. A $2 tri need only pay $160 to break even. Anything above that is money in the bank. Playing races where is the favorite is a minimum of 2-1 and 8 or 9 in the field almost gurantees a payout greater than $160.

Try it on paper and see for yourself. You will be suprised.

[kitts]

I have enjoyed and gained much from the DVD of the Month from Cynthia Publishing, especially the one on Exactas.

[duckhunter3]

I second that. I joined at the beginning of the year at a discount as advertised, and every month's issue is super. the up to date modern techniques and ideas supplementec by Steve Unite are tremendous.

[JustMissed]

Did you ever notice that the wps finishers are almost always 2 odd numbers with 1 even number or 2 even numbers with 1 odd number?

Seems you could eliminate combinations that were all odd or all even and save lots of bucks.

JM

[dav4463]

Originally Posted by Bruddah

I have been a Trifecta player since the early 1990's. Very seldom do I bet straight bets or exactas. I met an old dog bettor at the Woodlands in K. City one night. I was there on business and the horse track was closed, so, I decided to walk across the parking lot and play the dogs.

He told me there was almost a sure way to hit the trifecta every time you played. He had hit three in a row and I hadn't scratched a nickle. The way he showed me was to:

1. select and play only races where the favorite is 2-1 or greater. Reason, better trifecta payoffs.
2. eliminate the two dogs, in your estimation, which simply have the worst chance to finish in the money. Not necessairly the two with the highest odds.
3. Construct a ticket with four (4) of the six(6) remaining dogs on the win line, using all six on the place and show line.
example. 1-2-3-4
1-2-3-4-5-6
1-2-3-4-5-6
4. the only way you can lose is if one of the eliminated dogs hits the money or one of the two dogs eliminated from the win line wins the race.

I used his system and hit 6 straight trifects, the rest of the night. I have since adapted this system to playing horses.

1. select and play only races with 8, no more than 9 horses.
2. eliminate the two horses, in your estimation, which simply have the worst chance to finish in the money. Not necessairly the two with the highest odds.
3. Construct a ticket with four (4) of the six(6) remaining horses on the win line, using all six on the place and show line.
example. 1-2-3-4
1-2-3-4-5-6
1-2-3-4-5-6

If you can become good at eliminating the two or three worse horses and picking 4 live horses for the win, you will be suprised at how many tri payouts you will get. I play $1 tri part wheels at a cost of $80 per race. The ticket as constructed above has 80 winning possibilities. A $2 tri need only pay $160 to break even. Anything above that is money in the bank. Playing races where is the favorite is a minimum of 2-1 and 8 or 9 in the field almost gurantees a payout greater than $160.

Try it on paper and see for yourself. You will be suprised.

I play a similar way to this. I play 1-2 w 1-2-3-4-5-6 w 1-2-3-4-5-6. I found that I don't pick enough third or fourth choice winners to pay for the extra trifecta money. The only time my third or fourth choice is profitable is at 11-1 or higher so I just play to win if their odds are high enough. If I can get enough winners in my top two, my trifectas are more profitable, but hit less. I rank my horses 1 through 7, the seventh horse is in case of a scratch. Of my top three horses, I key the two highest odds usually unless I have a legit favorite that I can't play against. If the top two favorites are in my top three, I don't play the trifecta.

[spilparc]

Originally Posted by KYJACK

Spliparc

Just curious, how did you and your friend make out overall? I.e. was it a winning strategy?

Jack

We did well. My buddy was a much better handicapper than me and a longshot specialist. We probably made this play about 10-12 times hitting 3 or 4 signers.

If I happened to see him at the track, or if we could get together on a horse we would make the play. We also hit a few that didn't pay a whole lot.

We were looking at a race one day and I kept pointing to this horse on his form, and he kept ignoring me. Finally, after the third time I'd pointed to it he asked me, "why do you like that horse?"

"Throw out those last two races."

"I don't know."

"Throw out those last two races."

"OK, let's do it."

His third race back was a nice win, but his last two were either on the wrong surface or turf, or a troubled trip I can't remember.

He won at 17 to one. My buddy picked all of the other contenders, and I think we did a Key X 3 x 4 ticket. It paid $890.

Sure it would have paid more to bet the $54 to win (plus no tax man), but the nice thing about this strategy was that we also had a shot if he came second or third.

That was a long time ago, but I still remember the trainers name... Don Luby, in Southern Cal.