ADW's & free PPs; DRF & TimeformUS
I spent $15 on TimeformUS pps before I realized that they no longer came for free with wagers in my TVG account. DRF has a promotion with free TF pps, no minimum wager, so I made the switch to DRF Bets. I'll have no trouble picking up the $300 bonus with late summer and fall meets, and the "10% takeout" on win and place bets is a clever promotion. I don't wager enough to get meaningful rebates.
I still have a Twinspires account. I like the interface and a few aspects of the free-with-wager BRIS pps, particularly the race summary. The BRIS stats on post position, running style, pedigree, and class are useful and unique. Even the Prime Power ranking is useful as an alternative ML of sorts. Sorting the field by live odds rank seems so simple but Twinspires is the only place I can find it.
DRF's Ticketmaker is useful but a little clunky, it seems to be on the DRF platform rather than the DRF Bets (XpressBet) platform, so I get lots of repeat login requests when wagering directly from Ticketmaker. Seems essential for horizontal wagers, which I may try more now, but I've been more of a vertical guy. There's interesting vertical functionality with a value calculation on the probables and comprehensive layout of all the combos. It trades off simple checkboxes and key box options for the ability to select out specific combos. I really like carving out specific combos without conceding to symmetric key boxes or adding up lots of individual combos.
When I saw Mike Beer go back to DRF and TimeformUS analysis hosted there, I didn't see much commentary on PA. Anybody have a view on what transpired there and where the DRF/TF relationship is headed? I guess it's no surprise then that TVG no longer has the TF promotion given the DRF hookup.
One TVG promo I'll miss is the win bet refund when the horse runs place or show. I'm sure there's a clever way to work that into exacta strategy.
Unlike most horse bettors, I never used DRF pps much, although I like the picks and qualitative analysis in Closer Looks. I've dabbled with Formulator a few times, but it kind of turned every race into a rabbit hole of analysis. I've refined my game a bit since, so I'll try a few cards with the new account promo I got.
Interesting that TF now withholds the previous race data from the free/free-with-wager versions. It is handy to have everything in one place. I suppose I could just pony up the six bucks or whatever to get that, but I have more data that I can analyze as it is with free pps.
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