Thursday, December 20, 2007

What are some of the horse betting sites on the internet?

If you go to your local track and watch the simulcast monitors you will see advertised several horse betting web sites depending on the track you are watching. For example, if you are watching Churchill Downs the betting site you will see is TwinSpires.com. This is the betting site that is a Churchill Downs Company. Twinspires has three sister sites at the present time: Brisbet.com, WinTicket.com, and TsnBET.com. Churchill Downs Incorporated has a number of race tracks. The tracks that have 'live' racing right now are: Churchill Downs, Arlington Park, Calder, Fair Grounds, and Hoosier Park. HRTV carries all of the Churchill Downs Incorporated race tracks in case you want to watch on your TV.


Magna Entertainment Corporation is another company that owns a number of race tracks around the country. These include Golden Gate Fields, Gulfstream, Laurel, Lone Star Park, Magna Racino, Pimlico, Portland Meadows, Remington Park, Santa Anita Park, The Meadows, and Thistledowns. All of these tracks you can bet on at XpressBet.com.

Another popular betting site is YouBet.com. It is US based and is listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange. A Google search on 'horse betting sites' will produce a number of other betting
sites also.

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Stay on top of Your Handicapping Information

With the internet the horseplayer can easily stay on top of the latest handicapping information. There are a number of tools for you to know about. Many of these tools are free. You just have to sign up for them.

Let me start with BrisNet.com. This is the Bloodstock Research Information Services (BRIS) web site. To use it you'll need to sign up for it but it is free. Once you sign up you can use all the free services as well as the 'pay for' services. The site is loaded with services and capabilities. You can also participate in the contests they offer.

I start off each day reading the 'Handicapper's Edge'. It's a free daily racing newsletter. It has the racing headlines, previews, selections and analysis. The coverage is usually grouped by New York, California, and Florida tracks. Especially on weekends the 'Track Bandit' furnishes some selections for major races that weekend.

Another nice feature is the 'Stable Alert'. I like to look for horses that have a good chance of winning next time out. I put the horse in my stable. I will then get a stable alert in my email box when the horse is scheduled to run again. You can put as many horses as you wish in your stable. You can also delete horses out of your stable.

If you want to wager on a horse you can go directly to twinspires.com. This is the new wagering site for Churchill Downs.

Another handy web site is drf.com. It's the Daily Racing Form web site. It too is loaded with useful tools for the horseplayer. You need to sign up with their member center. When you do you get your own Member's Page which you can personalize. I like to keep track of certain trainers and what horses they are sending out in the next few days. I also keep track of horses that I have identified as a 'Live' horse next time out. If your into betting the pick-6 you can get carryover watches for tracks you're interested in.

The last site is one of my favorites, it's equibase.com. Equibase is the data base that keeps track of all the horses racing in North America. It is indispensible to the horseplayer. One section of equibase that I particularly like is the "Who's in Today" section. You can find any horse, any jockey, or any trainer with the details of where they are racing today. Not only that but you can get the same information for tommorrow and the next day. This allows you to develop your strategies for up to two days in advance.

Another feature that I like in Equibase is the 'Leaders by Track'. It is important to know the leading horses, jockeys, and trainers at a track. Since Equibase covers all tracks you can keep up with many tracks. Your betting strategies can involve many tracks where the best bets can be made.

Happy Handicapping and Betting for the holidays!

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Exotic Bets: The Exotic Wager Calculator

I used to try to calculate the costs of the exacta, trifecta, superfecta, pick 3, pick 4, pick 6 and other exotic bets long hand with pencil and paper. Remembering some of my mathematics background with combinations and permutations, I can do quite well if the number of combinations is not too large. I kept thinking that there must be an easier way to do this.

I spent some time on the internet doing some searches with Google and came across a very useful tool. A tool that is free incidently. It's called the 'Exotic Wager Calculator'. (Just Google 'exotic wager calculator'.) If you happen to take your laptop to the track with you, you can calculate any exotic bet to see what the cost is before placing the bet. You can also whittle down expensive exotic bets by making handicapping judgements that will throw out some of the least likely horses and bring down the cost to fit within your bankroll. It's easy with this tool to make many 'what if' calculations in a short period of time.

Download the EWC(Exotic Wager Calculator) from http://www.sharpsportsbetting.com/forums/free/racing/index.cgi/noframes/read/3599
and start taking advantage of this useful tool.

Monday, December 10, 2007

Exotic Bets: The 10 Cent Superfecta

What is a superfecta? Why the 10 cent superfecta? A superfecta is a wager where the bettor, inorder to win, must pick the first four finishers in a race in the correct order. Just a couple of years ago the minimum bet on a superfecta was a $2 wager. This was a bet that only the high roller could afford to play. Consider a superfecta box of only four horses where any of the 4 horses could come in 1,2,3,4 as long as it included these four horses. The cost of this $2 superfecta box is $48. If you boxed 5 horses the cost would be $240. A $2 superfecta box of 6 horses would cost $720. Not many horse players would place these bets because they are outside the normal horseplayers bank roll.

Beside the high rollers with large bankrolls, only groups of players each putting in part of the money to cover the bet would be common. This would keep the cost of the bet down for each of the players.

Now comes the $1 superfecta. Some tracks now offered the $1 superfecta. This brought in more players to the superfecta pool. Although it reduced the cost 1/2 it still was not a bet for the ordinary horseplayer with a $200 bankroll. Then about a year ago the 10 cent superfecta was introduced and there was an immediate increase in the superfecta pool. Here was a bet that the ordinary horseplayer could now afford and it was attractive to him. For a 10 cent superfecta you could now box 4 horses for $2.40, or box 5 horses for $12, and even box 6 horses for $36. The payoffs for 10 cent superfectas can be very rewarding for a very modest cost. I have seen at my local track payoffs as high as $8000. However, even payoffs of $50 to $200 are very common and an attractive return for the horseplayer.

Check with your favorite track to see if the 10 cent superfecta is available. Not all tracks offer this bet. For 10 cent superfecta betting strategies check out Paul Lambrakis ' http://www.10centsuperfecta.com/ and Bill Winter's http://handicapbet.blogspot.com/2014/11/10-cent-superfectas.html .

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Tote Picks

What are tote picks? How valuable are they? When you go to the track and watch the monitors for each track you'll see that the odds start out at the beginning with the morning line odds. As money is bet on each of the horses the odds begin to change. The tote board now begins to reflect the opinion of each of the bettors in aggregate.

Over the years I have kept track of the odds on each horse in the race as the tote changes and as you get closer and closer to post time for the race. It's an interesting exercise if you have never done it. All it takes is a pad of paper and a pencil. You just list the number of the horses vertically and then record the time (minutes before post time) at the top. You then copy the odds from the tote board each time recording the minutes to post.

Here is a sample of what that might look like.

........M/L 18m 15m 12m 9m 6m 3m
1........12.....10.....11....10....9...10....9
2.........8......9.....9......8....7.....7.....7
3........2....5/2...5/2....2...2...9/5..9/5
4.......4......5.......4......4...3....2.....8/5
5......20....99....80...50....30....25...22
6......10....20....15.....14.....15.....12...11
7........6......9......9......8......8.....8.....7
8......30....70....40...30....28....25...22

Notice that the 4 horse began to take some significant money bets beginning at the 9 minute mark (9m). Money continued to be taken on the 4 horse and at the 3 minute mark he became the tote pick at 8/5. The morning line favorite was at 9/5. Now this doesn't mean that the 4 horse will necessarily win but it does indicate that the betting public believes, for whatever reason, that this horse will win. The 4 horse (tote pick) and the 3 horse (morning line favorite) should be in any exotic bet you make.

In a later post I will point out some tote pick patterns that can be very useful, especially when you combine them with some handicapping.

Thursday, November 29, 2007

Can I play the horses over the internet?

I was asked the other day "is it possible to play the horses over the internet?" I'm a senior citizen approaching 70 and I have a lot of friends who have played the horses over the years at their local race track. Many of them are now familar with simulcasting at the local track but don't realize that it is now possible to bet on the horses from the comfort of your home over the internet. I's true. You can.

I spent most of my career working with computers since the mid-1950's. The capabilities today over the internet are so awesome and the technology changes so fast that vast numbers of people don't realize where we are today. For just a sampling of what's available let me start with cable and satellite television. There are two horse racing channels that together cover most of the tracks in the US and around the world. One is TVG Interactive Horse Racing (offered on Direct TV and Dish Satellite Network and Cox Cable). You can find it on the internet at TVG.com. The other is HRTV (Horse Racing Television). It is located at HRTV.com on the internet. TVG offers betting in several ways. If your lucky enough to be located in a state where TVG can operate you can bet from TVG's web site or directly from your TV. You can bet on HRTV tracks over XpressBet.com if again you are in a state where XpressBet can operate. Check HRTV.com and TVG.com to find out if you are in a state where betting is permitted.

Friday, November 23, 2007

Focus on top trainers: Todd Pletcher

I have watched the amazing career of Todd Pletcher over the last 5 years. A former assistant trainer for D. Wayne Lukas, Todd has built a huge stable of his own of top flight horses and has won the 'Eclipse Award as Champion Trainer' for the last three years. He was also the leading trainer at Saratoga from 2002 to 2006. At only 40 years old Todd already has built a stellar career for himself.

Todd has a wonderful web site that I visit often. It is located at http://toddpletcherracing.com/. Here you can learn more about Todd Pletcher and learn about the horses he is training. As of today (November 23, 2007) his statistics for this year are stounding.

STARTS: 1140

WINS: 260

SECONDS:172

THIRDS: 169

$$ EARNED: $26,722.621

WIN %: 22.8%

IN THE MONEY %: 52.7%

Todd uses some of the best jockeys in the country to ride his horses: John Velazquez, Garrett Gomez, Edgar Prado, Mike Smith, Rene Douglas, Ramon Dominguez and Chris DeCarlo.


At his web site you can see each day the horses he is sending out at each of the tracks around the country. Particularly interesting about his site is the Entries/Results Summary, Workouts and Entries/Results w/Ultimate PP's. There is a lot of handicapping information here especially in the Ultimate PP's. I am sure you will enjoy Todd's web site as much as I have.