Glanced through this 20 year old book last week and was struck about how much he got wrong. He viewed the future as some, very sane orderly Tom Ainslie world in which 1+1 always equaled 2 and if you followed a correct procedure, you pretty much had the game nailed.
Well 20 years later and we have data at our finger tips that wasn't even considered possible 20 years ago. We have lots of data. Some of it conflicting. I'm finding that my biggest problem is finding a way to hold or put all of the data in a context that I can view & weigh. Last week I bet on a MSW race that was won by a first time starter that paid $22. Upon looking over my early notes I had jotted down that it was a contender on breeding even though his trainer was 0 for 20 in the last year on 1RL.
I use Netcapper and occasionally Formulator. As I can get the digital issue of the DRF free, when betting $25 on a card am considering incorporating it as a normal part of my daily handicapping. As I grew up using the DRF, I can use it to view a race in a certain way. It's comfortable.
My Procedure
Look at the last few days charts and see if there any bias or trends. The HDW charts are superior then others for this. I could probably do this in a more organized and disciplined way.
I print out the HDW trainer stats for the card. These list how a trainer has done in the last year in the relevant factors by horse in each race. It also gives breeding data for each horse.
I look at the Netcapper past performances and may or my not change the pace line the program has selected. If I have a DRF product, I'll view that and see what pops out.
My next step is to view the predictor page of Netcapper. It keeps a Brohamer type of model for each track-distance and class. It shows the Win%-ROI & Impact Value for about 17 different factors. The program uses these to create an odds line. I click on the odds line page-note them and see if I agree with them.
At this point, I try an see the best way to play this race. Win-Exoctic-or pass
Finally 20 minutes before the race, I turn on the ATR tote program and see what's being offered. During the next 15 minutes, 2 to 4 different strategy's seem to suggest themselves, the odds shift, and so does the game plan. A minute or so before the race, and I'll place my bets. At some point I post the placed bet to Netcapper & over time it points out strengths & weakness in my game.
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More about the way I play that I'm sure anyone wanted to know
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3 things I'm considering to improve my game.
A visual basic program to log in data from the result charts and kind of create a notebook.
Subscribing to an Acrobat program that would allow me to add data to the trainer data page.
Putting a 2nd computer,next to the one I play on, that just displays the past performances.
Anyone else considering any changes to the way they play?
