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Old 07-15-2017, 03:02 PM   #16
ReplayRandall
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In the 6th, # Lucky Town.
Box it up for a score with New Jersey John (NY) 15-1 J L Ortiz L Rice
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Old 07-15-2017, 03:55 PM   #17
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A subject very near and dear to my heart. I use no figures in my handicapping so race watching and trip handicapping is where I get my "edge." I'll elaborate further on Sunday, but I did want to introduce a horse who was on my watch list after his last that is running tomorrow at Belmont.

This is the kind of horse I look for when it comes to bet backs, which is the ultimate goal of trip handicapping IMO.

In the 6th, # Lucky Town. He broke well last time. And probably could have made the pace, but his rider yanked him back to 4th. He actually fell into a decent enough spot behind the leaders until he found himself directly behind one of the tiring pacesetters around the 3/8's pole. He shuffled from 4th to 8th in the span of a furlong and found himself in no mans land with a 1/4 mile to go. He had to wheel out into the 7 path as the eventual 1-4 finishers all got the jump on him and were in the midst of their rallies. He showed good courage to make up some lengths late, only beaten 4. Switches to the cold bug Diaz which should help the price.

This is the kind of trip I can't wait to bet back. Same class and trouble when the real running started. It left him with too much to do, but I saw enough in how he finished to think the trip cost him the race.
A sincere question:

Without any sort of speed and pace figures...how do you determine if Lucky Town's "best race" is capable of beating today's field?

I'm not trying to be a smart-alec here...I am honestly trying to gain some insight from someone whose handicapping I respect.
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Old 07-15-2017, 04:23 PM   #18
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Very tough beat. Abbot was my play of the day. Maragh moved him outside a little late - again. He won't be hidden next race.

I'm not a big fan of horses that are non-win types. Yummy Bear was 1 for 17 going into that one and while he looked solid in-the-money, I just have a hard time backing those horses to win.
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Old 07-15-2017, 04:32 PM   #19
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Originally Posted by thaskalos View Post
A sincere question:

Without any sort of speed and pace figures...how do you determine if Lucky Town's "best race" is capable of beating today's field?

I'm not trying to be a smart-alec here...I am honestly trying to gain some insight from someone whose handicapping I respect.
When I have more time tonight or tomorrow I'll elaborate.

Not the best of trips again for Lucky Town. Broke a few lengths slow, premature wife move. One more time.
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Old 07-15-2017, 04:56 PM   #20
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Originally Posted by thaskalos View Post
A sincere question:

Without any sort of speed and pace figures...how do you determine if Lucky Town's "best race" is capable of beating today's field?

I'm not trying to be a smart-alec here...I am honestly trying to gain some insight from someone whose handicapping I respect.
In my estimation, it was Beyer again who fostered much of the public awareness about trip handicapping through Wapo and his books subsequent to Picking Winners. That makes Beyer's "Charlie" the expert par excellence, who in Beyer's words "scarcely bothers with the Racing Form"...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archi...=.7334abfb55f6

...much less speed and pace figures.

I kept the yellowing, increasingly fragile print form of the above article, as Beyer's magnum opus to the handicapper for decades, until I lost it in a move.
I became a self-described, passionate trip handicapper from the fall of '78 until joining this board a few years ago, where I received final confirmation that I had greatly overestimated the explanatory power of trip handicapping, to be replaced by public odds, which are generated far more often by sexy figures and class drops, rather than the subtle aspects of trip handicapping.
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Old 07-15-2017, 04:57 PM   #21
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When I have more time tonight or tomorrow I'll elaborate.

Not the best of trips again for Lucky Town. Broke a few lengths slow, premature wife move. One more time.
I meant wide.
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Old 07-15-2017, 05:24 PM   #22
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Most races are framed by a favorite with a roughly 35% win rate, a middle rank of 3 horses comprising about 50% of the winners, and the longshots supplying the remaining 15%.

Any worthwhile, overlaid trip play with nondescript form is likely to come from that 15% group, especially when the favorite can be confidently downgraded. Using Benter's discovery that his "true odds" were approximately halfway between the public's and his own odds, one can get a disliked favorite down to about 17% (or less). Adding the remaining 18% to our 15% group of longshots we are salivating over, and preferring one of them as our "three star" trip horse, one can identify him ideally as having as good a chance as the public favorite at times.

It's difficult, at least for me, to wait out those 2 races on a card I may be able to win by being contrarian, and then win them, at best, 30% of the time. I used to think "Charlie" expertly won almost all the time, before I became aware of the daunting percentages in the game.
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Old 07-15-2017, 06:15 PM   #23
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It's difficult, at least for me, to wait out those 2 races on a card I may be able to win by being contrarian, and then win them, at best, 30% of the time. I used to think "Charlie" expertly won almost all the time, before I became aware of the daunting percentages in the game.
It's difficult for ANY player whose prime motivation is making money in this game. There is no "steady flow of profit"...no matter HOW advanced the "winning player' thinks he is. The only "sure thing" that we could depend on is that there will be turbulent swings in our betting results...which will have us thinking that we are "geniuses" one day...and IDIOTS the next.
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Old 07-15-2017, 06:37 PM   #24
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When I have more time tonight or tomorrow I'll elaborate.

Not the best of trips again for Lucky Town. Broke a few lengths slow, premature wife move. One more time.
I used to do this, DaHoss. The best of us did.

"Class, take out The Winning Horseplayer and turn to page 47, where Andy makes excuses for Brasher Doubloon in 3 successive races before the horse experiences an easier trip."

The chances are that when Lucky Town finds a beneficial potential trip, the odds will reflect it. But I'm truly rooting for you to cash.
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Old 07-15-2017, 11:44 PM   #25
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Very tough beat. Abbot was my play of the day. Maragh moved him outside a little late - again. He won't be hidden next race.

I'm not a big fan of horses that are non-win types. Yummy Bear was 1 for 17 going into that one and while he looked solid in-the-money, I just have a hard time backing those horses to win.
Abbot was a big overlay, good bet, even though it lost.
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Old 07-15-2017, 11:48 PM   #26
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My favorite trip, by far, is setting the pace against the bias on a dull rail. I also like to see a horse race well off a wide trip, especially from outside posts. Many horses that run 5 to 7 points slower than their average speed figure do so simply because they were caught wide around two turns.

Young horses are better for trip handicapping...for instance, a horse that has only raced once or twice and got buried along the rail, now draws an outside post. If a horse has never had the opportunity to race outside of horses, we may not have really seen what it can do.
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Old 07-16-2017, 12:08 PM   #27
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A sincere question:

Without any sort of speed and pace figures...how do you determine if Lucky Town's "best race" is capable of beating today's field?

.
How about who beats who by how much under what conditions given their respective and relative trips?
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Old 07-16-2017, 12:13 PM   #28
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Young horses are better for trip handicapping...for instance, a horse that has only raced once or twice and got buried along the rail, now draws an outside post.
I agree.

If a horse has a full record to evaluate, a single trip related bad running line might raise the price a little, but people will still see the horse's other good races and build that into the price even if they don't know about the trip.

If a horse only has 1 or 2 races and was hindered by a bad trip, there are no good back races to bet the horse off. So people that don't know about the trip assume the horse is bad. That can get you a much better price.
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Old 07-16-2017, 12:26 PM   #29
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How about who beats who by how much under what conditions given their respective and relative trips?
I don't understand. Let's say that we are handicapping a field of horses...and we are trying to do what you suggest here. Unless the horses in the field have raced against identical competition in their prior races...how is this "who-beat-whom" comparison supposed to work out? We expect a certain PRECISION in our work...NO?

That's why I often say that comments such as yours here should come equipped with some sort of "live example".
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Old 07-16-2017, 03:07 PM   #30
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A sincere question:

Without any sort of speed and pace figures...how do you determine if Lucky Town's "best race" is capable of beating today's field?

I'm not trying to be a smart-alec here...I am honestly trying to gain some insight from someone whose handicapping I respect.
A big part of it is looking at the races whatever horse I am interested in has been running in. And then looking at whatever horses they have been running against and seeing how they have come back to run. Obviously that's a little harder if they are coming from different circuits. But I also have made it a point to be very familiar with the circuits I play and the conditions of the races.

is it a perfect system? No way, far from it. But it works for me and has for some time now. I've tried a little bit of everything, including trying to use figures and they have not helped. I understand how they can be useful, but for me, it just muddies up the picture.

I look at races probably very similar to figure players. I try and envision how I think a race will be run. I don't only play trip horses. I play horses that I feel have a good shot of winning that also offer what I perceive to be value based on their odds. Some of it is based on an instinctual guess but I think figure players operate the same way. For me it's probably more instinct, or trusting my eyes.
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