The Horse Handicapper and Bettor

Structuring an Exacta Bet

2011-09-10T07:37:00.000-07:00

[For the beginner.]

What is an exacta bet? Very simply an "exacta" is when two horses in a race come in first and second after the race is over. An "exacta bet" is placed before the race. It is structured by you so you think you have the best chance to win the bet. Structuring an exacta bet can be quite simple or it can be much more elaborate.

Let's take the simplest case. Suppose you handicap a race and come up with a very strong opinion that horse 3 will win and horse 8 will come in second. A straight exacta bet would be placed as (for example) $2 exacta 3 with 8 or more conveniently as $2 exacta 3/8. Depending on how strong your opinion is it could be a $5 or $10 or $20 or $50 exacta bet.

Next, suppose you handicap a race and come up with a very strong opinion that horse 2 will win. However, you find three other horses that you think could come in second, say, horses 1,6 and 9. You would then structure your bet as $2 exacta 2/1,6,9. (We will use $2 in our example.) Three possible outcomes would be a winner with this bet: 2 with 1, 2 with 6, or 2 with 9.

Let's take our examples a step further. If you think that two horses (say 1,3) could win and three other horses (say 1,3,5,7,9) could place then you would structure your bet as (assuming a $2 bet) $2 exacta 1,3/1,3,5,7,9. Any of these outcomes would win the bet: 1/3, 1/5, 1/7, 1/9, 3/1, 3/5, 3/7, 3/9. Since there are 8 possibilities, we multiply by $2 and the cost of the bet would be $16.

Another way to look at structuring an exacta bet would be what is called an exacta box. Let's say, after you handicap a race, that three horses look to be contendors to win or place. Suppose 2,9,6 are these three horses. A $1 exacta box would be $1 exacta box 2,6,9. To win this bet here are the winning combinations: 2/9, 2/6, 9/6, 9/2, 6/2, 6/9. The cost would be (6 x $1 =) $6.

The last example I'll use will be one that involves all horses in the race. Let's illustrate this bet with a one million dollar Grade I race. A race like this usually has very strong (top level) horses in the race, so strong that any of the horses in the race could potentially and realistically win or come in second. To get coverage plus have a chance for hitting a large exacta payoff here is the way you could structure your bet. Say you like the 5 horse to either win or place. You would make two exacta bets. Assuming 8 horses in the race then a $1 exacta 5/ALL (ALL = all 8 horses) would win when the 5 horse wins and any of the other horses come in second. It will cost $7. (Note that the higher the odds of the second horse the larger the exacta payoff would be.) To cover the possibility that the 5 horse might place, a second bet (sometimes called a hedge bet) would be $1 exacta ALL/5 and it too would cost $7. Together you have $14 invested in these two bets.

I have given you several exacta bet examples to get you started. There are numerous other possibilities. Remember to always factor in the cost of the bet versus the potential payoff. Also always stay within the "bankroll" you go to the track with. Here is an article on my blog that talks about the bankroll.

http://handicapbet.blogspot.com/2010/07/betting-strategies.html

For a more advanced article on the exacta bet go to this link:

http://handicapbet.blogspot.com/2008/02/exacta-betting-using-tote-analysis.html

What I Should Know About Handicapping and Betting

2011-08-25T13:35:00.000-07:00

[I am being encouraged by friends and new acquaintenaces at my home race track to write some articles for beginners.]

What is horse handicapping and what should I know about betting?

Handicapping a horse race is about determining which horse (or horses) could win the race. Betting is about determining what kind of a bet to place and how to configure it. Let's talk about handicapping first. When you go to a race track you can purchase a newspaper called the Daily Racing Form (DRF). The DRF has long been the means to getting a look at the Past Performances (PP) for all horses in a race. If you have the internet you can use your PC to access the PP's before you ever get to the track. Just go to DRF.com, pick the track and date. Reading the DRF PP's, if you are new to it may seem quite formitable. If you want to become more serious about handicapping and picking potential winners I suggest you study the form (DRF) and become familiar with the terminology in it. Those who do not use the form may resort to tip sheets. These are put together and sold by individuals who rate horses in a race. I have found that if you are at the track strictly for fun then tip sheets may be an easy way to skip the handicapping, use someone elses picks and have fun.

Placing a bet is determining what kind of a bet you will make and how you will structure it. There are many bets that can be structured. 50 years ago when I first went to Saratoga Race Track, close to where I lived at the time, there were three main bets that you could make; WIN, PLACE, and SHOW. Today there are many more bets that can be made at the track, at a simulcasting location, or over the internet. I'll list a few of them. WIN, PLACE, SHOW, QUINELLA, EXACTA, TRIFECTA, SUPERFECTA, DAILY DOUBLE, PICK 3, PICK 4, PICK 5, PICK 6. Each track across the country has some or many of these bets that can be placed depending on the race.

Doing your homework: A lot of homework can be done ahead of time to prepare for placing the bets you will make. As I mentioned before for those of you, especially starting out, you may prefer not to do any of this homework. You can buy tip sheets at the track and rely on someone else's opinions. You can decide whether you want to become a serious player or go to the track just to have some fun. It's up to you.

I hope this helps out the beginner to get started. Here are some links to past articles in my blog for further reading.

http://handicapbet.blogspot.com/2007/11/can-i-play-horses-over-internet_29.html

http://handicapbet.blogspot.com/2007/12/stay-on-top-of-your-handicapping.html

http://handicapbet.blogspot.com/2007/12/tote-picks.html

Side-by-side Betting at Remington Park Spring Quarter Horse Meet

2011-04-04T13:06:00.000-07:00

In the first 18 racing days of the 2011 Quarter Horse meet there have been 51 side-by-side bet results. This is on average 2.83 side-by-side bet results per day. The average exacta payoff is $64.70. G R Carter was involved with either the win or place position of the side-by-side bet 17 out of 51 times. That's one third of the time. Carter's average exacta payoff was $47.41. His highest exacta payoff was $144.80 and the lowest was $7.80.

If Jimmy Brooks, and Larry Payne were included then 60% of the side-by-side bet payouts involved these three. 6 out of 51 were Black Swan results. The average Black Swan payout was $172.23.

The results for the first 17 days are found at this link.
http://billwinters.org/2011QuarterHorseMeet/SideBySideResults.pdf

Previously in my blog for those unfamilar with 'Side-by-side Betting' here are several articles about

"Playing the Quarter Horses at Remington Park"
(http://handicapbet.blogspot.com/2010/03/playing-quarter-horses-at-remington.html)
"Side-By-Side Quarter Horse Bets"
(http://handicapbet.blogspot.com/2010/03/side-by-side-quarter-horse-bets.html),
"Remington Park Quarterhorse Side-by-side Results"
(http://handicapbet.blogspot.com/2010/03/remington-park-quarterhorse-side-by.html),
"Side-by-side Betting with Trifectas"
(http://handicapbet.blogspot.com/2010/03/side-by-side-betting-with-trifectas.html),
"Side-by-side Betting with Ten Cent Superfectas"
(http://handicapbet.blogspot.com/2010/04/side-by-side-betting-with-ten-cent.html) and
"Black Swan Betting"
(http://handicapbet.blogspot.com/2009/08/black-swan-betting.html).

Going for the Big Payoff 10-cent Superfecta bet

2011-01-10T11:18:00.000-08:00

Betting this kind of 10 cent superfecta requires some careful planning and analysis of a race. It may also require tracking the tote pick in a race. Here is an approach that keeps the expense of the bet at a reasonable cost (say, under $40). Using the tote pick also requires that you be able to place your bet under 2 minutes before the race starts. Here's where using the internet is helpful.

How might one go about constructing this bet? First, let's find a horse in the race to key on. A race where there are 10 or more horses and one of the horses is a heavy favorite might be a horse to key on. If this choice is not favorable then you might choose a tote pick to help out? Doing a tote analysis on a race before hand can give you a horse to key on in your bet. [Check out articles from my blog " http://handicapbet.blogspot.com/2008/03/tote-analysis-of-mac-diarmida-handicap.html " and " http://handicapbet.blogspot.com/2008_01_01_archive.html ".] Using a horse to key on reduces the cost of the bet significantly.

Secondly, How much are we willing to spend on the bet? Putting long shots into your bet will require your willingness to spend a little more on the bet.

Thirdly, how does one pick high odd horses to include in the bet? There has to be something that gives you an inkling that this horse might have a chance to come in 4th or better. Some of the things to consider might be the following. A particular trainer, or jockey, or jockey-trainer combo might trigger throwing in the horse to the superfecta bet. Don't leave out certain jockey-trainer combinations especially
when a high odd horse has a jockey-trainer combination that is just too good to pass up. Don't forget to look at certain jockeys (even Hall of Fame jockeys) who chose to ride a high odd horse (particularly if it happens to be a 1st time starter with a very good works). These are a few possibilities. There are many more that horse players might use.

Does the number of horses in the race matter? You bet it does. Races with 9,10,11,12,13, and 14 horses tend to have much larger payoff's. After all in these races it's not uncommon to have odds of 50/1 on a number of horses. When one or more of these horses come in 1st, 2nd, 3rd, or 4th the payoff can be very large.

Let's put together a sample bet to see what the costs might be. ("ALL" refers to include all the horses in the race.)

(Key Horse)/ALL/ALL/ALL This bet
with 6 horses in the race costs $6
with 7 horses in the race costs $12
with 8 horses in the race costs $21
with 9 horses in the race costs $33.60
with 10 horses in the race costs $50.40

With 10 horses the cost begins to get too expensive. To keep the cost reasonable (say, less than $40) you can put in the five top morning line choices (H1,H2,H3,H4,H5) in the place position. Another choice might be to use Twinspires top Profit Line picks.

(Key Horse)/H1,H2,H3,H4,H5/ALL/ALL This bet
with 10 horses in the race costs $28
with 11 horses in the race costs $36

(Key Horse)/H1,H2,H3,H4/ALL/ALL This bet with 12 horses in the race costs $36

Note that with 12 horses the place position only has the 4 top morning line choices.

Good luck and enjoy. 'til next time.

The 50 cent Pick 4 and the 10 cent Superfecta

2010-12-21T06:10:00.000-08:00

I have had a number of discussions with some of my friends that like to play the horses. Recently we have been discussing both the 10 cent superfecta as well as the 50 cent pick 4. They both are now available at many tracks across the country. (Churchill Downs, for example.) Why are we interested in these particular bets? For one thing, the payoffs for these bets is very attractive. The payoffs can range in the 100's, the 1000's, and sometimes even in the 10,000's. Secondly, the 10 cent superfecta can be bet with a much smaller bankroll. You get a much bigger bang for the buck with the lower cost.

In the past when $2 superfectas were only allowed you had to pay 20 times more for the same 10 cent superfecta bet you can make today. For example if you pay $6 for a 10 cent superfecta today that same $2 superfecta will cost you $120. This can be the difference between making the bet and not making the bet.

The other attractive bet is the 50 cent pick 4. Let's analyze the similarities and differences between the 10 cent superfecta and the 50 cent pick 4. The obvious similarity is that both bets involve four horses. However, this is where the similarity ends. The superfecta involves just one race where you have to get the order of finish correct; 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th. The pick 4 stretches over four races. In each race you have to select the winner.

Why choose one bet over the other?

The 50 cent pick 4 costs you one fourth of what the same $2 pick 4 would cost you. A $2 pick 4 that costs $120 you can now get with the same 50 cent pick 4 bet for $30. Usually, in any one day at one track you can only bet at most 2 pick 4's. At a track that offers 10 cent superfectas in each race you can bet 8, or 9, or 10 times depending on the number of races on the card for that track. An attractive feature of the superfecta is that after the race is over you know how you did. However, with the pick 4 you have to wait until all four races have finished (usually about 2 hours) to know how you did.

My fellow horseplayers and I differ on which bet we like the best. For those of us with the patience to wait a couple of hours, the pick 4 is very attractive. For those that like the action in each race the superfecta is very attractive. It really gets down to one's preference.

Some of us like to handicap and pick just winners and not venture any deeper into the race. The pick 4 is ideal for this approach. Some of us like to go deeper into a race and to speculate which horses will come in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. The superfecta is attractive for this kind of speculation.

No matter which bet you choose, both bets have very attractive potential payoffs. Both bets offer a real challenge to structure. Both bets are fun to play.

Good luck and keep it enjoyable.

50 Cent Trifectas

2010-11-12T08:15:00.000-08:00

What is a trifecta? A trifecta is a bet where you structure the bet so that you have the three horses that come in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. Why would you bet a trifecta? Well let's ask Bob. Bob likes trifectas because they pay good when you hit them. Bob reserves a portion of his bankroll to trifecta bets. Some times he even commits one day to just betting trifectas. Now why do you do that Bob? Recently a number of tracks across the country have introduced the 50 cent trifecta. In the not to distant past there were only $2 trifectas. Then tracks began to allow $1 trifectas.

Now there is the 50 cent trifecta at many tracks. Bob likes to look at the combinations that he can cover with a bet in the range he is comfortable with within his bankroll. Bob says let's look at a simple trifecta bet where three horses are boxed. Here are the combinations for three horses that are boxed.
123 132 213 231 312 321
Any one of these six results will win the trifecta. Bob wants to now look at the cost of this bet if it was a $2 trifecta bet. Since there are 6 possible combinations to win this bet it will cost 6 x $2 = $12. If it was a $1 trifecta bet then the cost would be 6 x $1 = $6. A 50 cent trifecta would therefore cost 6 x $.50 = $3. Bob looks at this 50 cent trifecta as a way to get more combinations working for him in his bet than ever before.

Okay Bob what would it cost to box 4 horses? A $2 trifecta box of 4 horses would cost (4 x 3 x 2 x 1) x $2 = $48. A $1 trifecta box of 4 would cost $48 / 2 = $24. A 50 cent trifecta box would cost $24 / 2 = $12. As Bob sees it he can get 48 combinations that could win for $12 with a 50 cent trifecta box. With a $2 trifecta box that cost $12 he would get only 6 combinations that could win. Sure the 50 cent payoff would only be 1/4 of the payoff for a $2 trifecta but Bob says he can make 4 times as many bets. He likes this. The probability of winning with 48 combinations is much better than with just 6.

One of Bob's favorite trifecta bets is when he can find a race with two heavy favorites on the toteboard. Let's say that this race that Bob locates has 10 horses in the race. The trifecta structure that Bob likes is 1,2/ALL/1,2. A 50 cent trifecta with this structure will cost 2 x 8 x 1 x .50 = $8. As a hedge Bob would also bet 1,2/1,2/ALL which will cost $8 also. So for two bets that Bob buys for $16 he would be getting 32 possible winning combinations for his $16.

Bob likes the possibilities he gets with the 50 cent trifecta.

Good luck.

'til next time.

Handicapping versus Betting Strategies

2010-10-28T11:12:00.000-07:00

Handicapping is about finding the horse or horses that could win. Betting strategies are about configuring a bet to include enough combinations to win the bet. Let me give you some examples. I'll talk about Bob in these examples.

Bob brings up on his computer the past performances (PP's) for a race he wants to handicap. He looks to see the type of race and the length of the race. He then looks through all of the horses in the race. Bob likes to keep track of the hot jockey/trainer winning combinations at this track. He especially looks to see if any of these attractive combinations are in this race. Bob then looks at each horse in the race and carefully studies the PP's of each horse. Bob likes to go through and eliminate all the horses he thinks have no chance or at very little chance of winning this race. Bob is trying to determine just how many horses are solid winning candidates in the race. Bob would like to narrow his list down to as few horses as possible. Ideally it would be nice to single just one horse. In most races he knows that this is impossible. He can usually narrow his list down to 2, 3, or 4 horses. If there are more than that Bob has no trouble in deciding to just not bet this race. Bob knows that unrealistic bad bets can reduce his bankroll. He knows that Minimizing his losses contributes to a higher ROI at the end of the day.

Now let's see how Bob handles his betting strategies. Bob has favorite kinds of bets that he is most confident in making. If he can single a horse in a race, especially if it's not the favorite, he likes to place a win bet. Sometimes it is a sizable bet. As a hedge, Bob will quite often place a 'win-place' bet on this horse. Bob is aware that this situation is very infrequent. So Bob looks to other kinds of bets that he likes. Bob also likes exactas. He is fond of finding 2, 3, or 4 horses in his handicapping where these horses he expects to dominate the race. Infact he feels confident that anyone of these horses could win or place. When Bob finds just two horses he will box those two horses in an exacta. Depending on his confidence level, he will measure the size of his bet. For three or four horses he would box them in an exacta also. Bob is always mindful of his bankroll balance.

I hope that these examples give you an idea of the differences between handicapping and betting strategies. Also I hope you see how the two are connected and depend on each other.

I will follow up later in this blog to explain how Bob may make other bets he likes such as trifectas, superfectas, doubles, pick 3's, pick 4's. I will show you how Bob can combine his handicapping skills with thoughtful betting strategies.

Good luck and have fun playing the ponies.

'til next time.

Free Horse Handicapping Contests

2010-09-09T11:46:00.000-07:00

Recently I was with a few of my retired friends and they were asking me if there was a way they could get some experience playing the horses without losing a lot of money. I asked them if they had an internet account and were familiar with using the web. Most were, so I went on to tell them about some of the free horse handicapping contests that you can join and play to hone your skills.

There is a contest that you can play for free each day. All you have to do is sign up for a free account with Brisnet and play along each day. Just log in to http://www.brisnet.com/cgi-bin/daily-contest/index.cgi and click on "FREE Contest Registration". Follow the instructions to set up your free account. You're then ready to play "Race of the Day" each day. Brisnet keeps tab of your record and gives you one point each day just for playing. If you are in the top 50 of winning picks for the week you get a bonus of 50 extra points applied to your account for that week. Twice a year they have a drawing and you have a chance to go to the Kentucky Derby in May or to the Breeders Cup in October with all expenses paid for two.

If you only have time to play in a contest on weekends then there's a web site that you can join for free that lets you make your selections for four races each weekend. Just go to http://www.publichandicapper.com/ and click on "sign up to play for free here". You will get an email from the Public Handicapper folks each Thursday telling you what races you will be playing on Saturday. You can then use your favorite handicapping tools to make your three selections in each of the four races. Why three selections? Because if your top choice gets scratched then you have a second choice. If the top two get scratched (an unlikely event) then your pick is your third choice. They keep score for you and you can check at any time to see where you are in the standings. There are prizes at the end. It's a lot of fun and if your hit the winning horse in each race you get recognition as well as some free Past Performances for a period of time.

There is another web site that you can join, http://www.equibase.com/index.cfm, that has free contests at various times during the year. Go to "Equibase Virtual Stable" and click on "Register Now". It's free to set up an account. If you are registered then whenever Equibase has a contest they will send you an email so you can participate. The contest is for one track on a particular day, usually a Saturday, and you make a win and place bet on one horse in each race. There are cash prizes for the largest accumulated bankroll. It's fun and they keep score for you.

These contests are FREE so get started and have some fun. Good luck.

Betting Strategies

2010-07-26T15:04:00.000-07:00

Fifty years ago when I first started betting on the horses, the win, place and show bets were about the only choices you had. If you wanted to bet you had to go to the race track to do it. At that time the computer wasn't used to determine the payouts. It was done manually at the track.

As the years passed and the computer started to be used to determine the payouts the exacta and the quinella were introduced. Then came a new stream of what became known as exotic bets. The trifecta, superfecta, rolling doubles, pick 3, pick 4, pick 5, and pick 6 all became popular.

In 1993 the internet opened up betting from a personal computer. As the race tracks one by one began to allow betting from all over the country through simulcast betting at the home track, it then became possible to bet from your computer at home. Youbet, Expressbet, TVG, Twinspires (and others) were internet websites that allowed betting at most tracks around the world.

The process of betting now becomes quite complex. You have so many choices that you must resolve where, when and how much you're going to bet. Here is where betting strategies come into play. I remember as a kid going into a candy store and there were so many choices that with the dime I had to spend I had to decide which were my favorite candies and how much to spend on each. That's the situation that one is faced with today with horse betting. You have a bankroll that determines how much you have to wager with. If you bet exotics you must calculate and know for a particular bet what the cost will be. Your choice of bets, their cost, how the bets fit into your bankroll and how many of your bets have positive payouts will determine your success or failure. There is an old track saying "you can't win them all but you can lose them all". Let's summarize with some betting strategies.

Betting Strategy #1:
Determine the track and the race you're going to bet on.

Betting Strategy #2:
Determine the kind of bet that you are going to place and figure out what it will cost.

Betting Strategy #3:
Keep track of the running balance in your bankroll. Never exceed your bankroll if losses accumulate. Don't bet money that you can't afford to lose.

Betting Strategy #4:
Use discipline in the bets you make. Know when to "fold'um" if you hit a losing streak. Be able to accept your loses and never "double down".

May luck be with you.

Approaches To Betting the 10-Cent Superfecta

2010-06-27T09:46:00.000-07:00

Most horse bettors have their own way of making personal choices when they determine how they will place a bet. With the internet there are dozens of ways to get the support information you need to make your choices. There is Equibase, Brisnet, Twinspires, Youbet and many, many others. I won't get into which ones to use (I'll leave that up to you), but merely say that each horse bettor has his own personal way to get to his choices.

Let's approach the 10-cent superfecta bet with three top choices: 1st choice, 2nd choice, 3rd choice. Next there is the 'confidence level' you have in your three choices for a particular race.

For a high level of confidence one approach to a 10-cent superfecta bet might be 1/2,3/ALL/ALL.

For a medium level of confidence the bet might be
1,2,3/1,2,3/ALL/ALL.

For a low level of confidence the bet might be
1,2,3/ALL/1,2,3/ALL.

Then there is the Black Swan bet
ALL/ALL/1,2,3/1,2,3.

The other consideration to take into account is the size of your bankroll. Depending on you tolerance level you may bet several of these.

May luck be with you. There's nothing to compare to good luck.

Side-by-side Betting with Ten Cent Superfectas

2010-04-02T17:14:00.000-07:00

The payoffs for ten cent superfectas can be huge. In side-by-side betting with ten cent superfectas the wager is constructed as follows: assume that the horse you are keying on is the #7 horse then the bet would be 6,7,8/6,7,8/ALL/ALL. At Remington Park during the quarter horse meet there is a maximum of 10 horses in any race. The cost of the bet is dependent on the number of horses in the race.

7 horses $12
8 horses $18
9 horses $25.20
10 horses $33.60

This size bet can be handled by a modest size bank rolls so the risk-reward is well worth it.

Let's look at some results from last weekend.

March 26

Race 1 G R Carter on #5 - result 4,5 payout $469.83 cost $33.60
Race 2 G R Carter on #5 - result 4,5 payout $183.74 cost $33.60
Race 6 G R Carter on #4 - result 4,5 payout $190.31 cost $25.20

March 27

Race 1 G R Carter on #6 - result 6,7 10 cent super $173.18 cost $33.60
Race 7 Larry Payne on #2 horse - result 3,2 payout $216.77 cost $33.60

To check these results go to http://equibase.com

Side-by-side Betting with Trifectas

2010-03-24T09:22:00.000-07:00

In my previous articles I have shown how to structure a side-by-side bet using an exacta. Let's now extend this to a side-by-side trifecta bet. Why would we want to do this? Because the trifecta payouts are much larger and more profitable. Let me give you an example from last Friday, March 19. In race number 3, our side-by-side bet keyed on Larry Payne who was riding the #7 horse. Our exacta side-by-side bet was to box 6,7,8. The cost for this $2 exacta box was $12. The result was 8-7 with Payne placing. The exacta payout was $85.60.

The trifecta side-by-side bet was structured as follows: 6,7,8/6,7,8/ALL. There were 10 horses in this race so the cost of this $2 trifecta bet was $96. Since this size bet is usually out of the range of many bettors bank roll a $1 trifecta for the same bet was $48. This $1 trifecta paid $905.10. The minimum trifecta bet at Remington Park is $1. This turned out to be a 7-1 return on the exacta and a 19-1 return on the trifecta.

With a large enough bank roll to manage these size bets the return can be very rewarding.

Remington Park Quarterhorse Side-by-side Results

2010-03-17T05:11:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend March 12-14 the side-by-side results continued with remarkable payouts. 10 races out of 30 were side-by-side results. That's one out of every three races. The average side-by-side $2 exacta payout was $103.68. Here is a summary of the results.

Friday, March 12

Race 1 Result 2-1 (#1 was the ML favorite)..........Payout $121.60
Race 4 Result 5-4 (#4 was the ML favorite)..........Payout $72.60
Race 5 Result 7-8 (#7 was the toteboard favorite)...Payout $67.80
Race 9 Result 7-8 (Hard one to pick, I missed it)...Payout $141.20
Race 10 Result 1-2 (G R Carter rode #2)..............Payout $23.40

Saturday, March 13

Race 4 Result 3-4 (G R Carter rode #4)..............Payout $145.40

Sunday, March 14

Race 1 Result 6-5 (#5 was one of 2 favorites).......Payout $250.20
Race 4 Result 9-10 (Larry Payne rode #9).............Payout $76.20
Race 7 Result 3-4 (#4 was the ML favorite)..........Payout $52.00
Race 9 Result 4-3 (G R Carter rode #3)..............Payout $86.40

Read the previous two blog articles to see what a side-by side bet is and how to structure one. For those of you who like to check things out go to equibase.com for Remington Park results.

Side-By-Side Quarter Horse Bets

2010-03-13T11:56:00.000-08:00

In my previous blog article I demonstrated that side-by-side results for win-place had a high occurrence. Infact almost one-half of the time, on opening weekend at Remington Park, ended in side-by-side results. This is a statistical occurence waiting to be taken advantage of.

I will enumerate several steps to take in order to structure these bets.
1 - Identify a 'high probability to win' horse to key on. In my last article I pointed out jockeys and trainers that can be keyed on, also ML favorite and tote board favorite.
2 - If there are high odd horses on either side of this keyed horse then that's what you want. The payoffs will be larger. (Having a hangup about odds can ruin this bet.)
3 - Is there more than one horse to key on in this race?
4 - Depending on your bankroll, start with exactas, then trifectas, and superfectas.

Let's use examples to illustrate. The first thing I do is go to the newspaper or the internet and lay out on a piece of ruled paper the post number of each horse in the race and order them by morning line odds. Here's an example.

Race 6 Post Position ..6..9..8..10..(1)..3..4..7..5..2
Morning Line ..7/2..4..9/2..5..6..10..12..15..15..15

Let's assume that one of the jockeys I mentioned in the previous article is riding horse #1 above. An inexpensive way to play this side-by-side bet is to use an exacta box 1,2. The morning line odds on #1 is 6/1, the ML odds on #2 is 15/1. I would play a $5 exacta box and it would cost $10. Another bet on the same race would be to key on the ML favorite #6. A $1 exacta box would be 5,6,7. It would cost $6. If either or both bets won your payout would be outstanding. You might even want to quit for the evening. Yes, Remington Park has all evening racing this meet.

UPDATE: Last night I went down to Remington Park. I used my side-by-side betting strategy using only exactas. Would you believe, 5 of the 10 races had side-by-side results. Race 1, result was 2-1 and the $2 exacta paid $121.60. Note that #1 was the 5/2 ML favorite. #2 had a ML odd of 15/1. Race 4, result was 5-4 and the $2 exacta paid $72.60. Again #4 was the 5/2 ML favorite and the #5 horse 15/1 ML. Race 5 result was 7-8 and the $2 exacta paid $67.80. The #7 horse was the tote board favorite. Race 9 result was 7-8 and the $2 exacta paid $141.2. The #7 horse was again the toteboard favorite. Race 10 result was 1-2 and the $2 exacta paid $51.60. G. R. Carter rode the #2 horse.

To check these results for yourself go to equibase.com and look at the summary results for Remington Park for March 12.

Playing the Quarter Horses at Remington Park

2010-03-09T16:49:00.000-08:00

This last weekend March 5-7, the Quarter Horse meet began at Remington Park. I enjoy being right down at the rail and watching them go flying by at 50 to 55 miles an hour. What a thrill! So far this last weekend there was a lot of futurity qualifying going on. 250, 300, 330, and 350 yards was where most of the action was. In most of the races there 8, 9, or 10 horses. This meet every race has 10 cent superfectas available. A real opportunity. I'm going to give you some of my opinions on how you can take advantage of these 10 cent supers.

Over the years I've found a few things to watch for that makes quarter horse racing just a little different. First, getting out of the gate cleanly is everything. Times are measured in hundreds of seconds between winning and losing. Another feature to take into account is that quarter horses like to keep up with the horse next to them. Many large exactas are collected by boxing horses next to each other in the gate. A high odd horse may perform way beyond his expectations just by competing with the horse next to him. With this bit of information exactas, trifectas, and superfectas can be constructed to take advantage of the situation.

The next thing to take into account are specific jockeys and trainers. At Remington Park you do not want to leave out two trainers, Eddie Willis and Rodney Reed. Eddie Willis horses always seem to be live and ready to roll. The same is true for Rodney Reed horses. The jockeys you never want to overlook are Hall of Fame jockey G. R. Carter and Larry Payne. Therefore in your betting strategies you can use their horses to key on.

Now why bet 10 cent superfectas? One answer is that you can get a lot of combinations at a low or at least reasonable cost to the bettor. Some times the payoffs can be huge. For this last opening weekend here are the average payouts on 10 cent superfectas.

Friday, March 5 $313.94
Saturday, March 6 $150.61
Sunday, March 7 $518.47

The largest payout was $2506.33 and the smallest was $5.18.

There were 28 races and G. R. Carter won 4, Larry Payne won 7, Eddie Willis horses won 7. There were 13 out of 28 races where win and place were side by side. For example, race 4 on Friday #7 won and #8 placed and in race 6 #2 won and #1 placed. A side by side betting strategy over the weekend could have been very profitable.

In my next blog article I will show you how to structure these side by side bets.

May the racing Gods be with you.

When to Bet?

2010-02-02T16:52:00.000-08:00

More and more horse bettors are using the internet to bet on the ponies. Using the internet has some fantastic advantages. I know that some of you will point out the opposite also. However, for this article I'll be looking only at the advantages (I'll cover the caveats and opposites at another time.)

When your betting over the internet you have a large variety of options to choose from. First, you have dozens of race tracks to choose from across the country and around the world. This in itself can give you flexibility that you have never had before. Let me give you a few examples. When you were captive in the old days at one race track you had just the races on the card at that track to bet on. The temptation was to bet each race on the card. The choice of not betting on a race because you felt unsure about it was one hard choice to make. You had only eight or nine races to bet on. Fast forward to today's betting over the internet it is much easier to skip that race because you have so many other choices from other tracks. There is no reason to bet on a race that makes you uneasy or about which you feel uncomfortable. You can work in a strategy that allows you to bet only when you feel the odds are with you and you feel comfortable about the bet.

Another example is the fact that over the internet you have so many more tools in front of you to make your betting more deliberate and focused. Let's consider just three tools. Assume that you have a Twinspires account. Here are three things you can use to control your betting. First, you have the Morning Line, the Profit Line, and the Tote to assist you prior to placing a bet. Secondly, you have the ability to place a conditional bet. Thirdly, you can cancel a bet if for some reason the conditions change before the race goes off. (Horse(s) may be scratched, the tote does not respond the way you expect, the horse does not look right in the paddock or when (s)he comes out on the track, etc.)

There are many more tools but I think you can see that with just the few that I have mentioned that 'When to Bet' can be much more than a guess. It can be a choice that can put the odds more in your favor.

I will be writing more about this so stay tuned. I also have a poll on the side of my blog. Feel free to let me know how you bet.

Superfectas are Popular

2009-11-18T16:25:00.000-08:00

I recently ran a poll on my blog for a couple of months asking the question: "What bet returns you the most money?" As I had expected superfectas are very popular. I talk with other horse bettors at my local track and they are crazy about 10-cent superfectas because of their low cost and high return potential. They can construct with almost reckless abandon superfecta combinations that seem ridiculous but can often times be winning tickets and pay fantastic returns.

This was not a scientific poll but the folks who visit my blog are interested in betting on the horses and therefore their opinions are significant. Here's how the results from the poll came out. The bet that returns the most money is the superfecta with 32%. In the second spot is the trifecta with 18%. In the third spot is the win bet with 16%. The quinella and exacta both with 8% each. The pick6 had 10%. It's interesting to note that about 80% of the bets that make the most money for the bettor are exotic bets.

I want to thank those who participated in the poll. With your participation it gives all of us an idea of what bets to try. Good luck to each of you.

Using the Profit Line

2009-11-01T05:49:00.000-08:00

If you have a Twinspires account you are probably familiar with the Profit Line (PL). It is a tool provided by Twinspires for its account holders. I have used it alot and found it very useful.

As many of you may know my home track is Remington Park. This meet I have been concentrating on pick3's and pick4's. I have used the profit line (PL) to my advantage in making my pick3 and pick4 selections. Being a statistician by profession (although retired now) I like to keep track of my bets and the corresponding results. I have put together for 34 racing days so far this meet a chart of my findings
( http://bwinters_2.tripod.com/ProfitLineAnalysis.jpg ). My chart has the PL positions from most favorite to least favorite along the top and the race number down the side. Keeping track of the winning PL position in each race here are my findings.

Remington Park (RP) has rolling pick3's starting with race 3 through race 7. Most of the time RP has 9 races on the card each racing day. Sometimes there are 10 races when special days have stakes races. In this case the pick4 will be races 7-10. Otherwise, the pick4 is races 6-9.

I kept track each race day from August 22 to October 26 in this study. Here is a summary of my results. It appears that race 5 is the most difficult because you have to go 5 deep in the PL on most days to find a winner. Races 3,7 and 8 can be singled on many days with success using the top PL choice. Using my results here is the pattern for the pick3 bet starting with race 3 PL1/PL1,PL2,PL3/PL1,PL2,PL3,PL4,PL5 (THESE ARE PROFIT LINE CHOICES). For a $1 pick3 this is a $15 bet. Getting past race 3 occurs about 50% of the time. In race 4 the PL choices PL1,PL2,PL3 win about 70% of the time. In race 5 the PL choice PL1,PL2,PL3,PL4,PL5 will win about 80% of the time. In summary then if you were to bet this pick3 each day then one half of the time you will get past race 3 which is the first step necessary for the bet to win and pay off. The five pick3 combinations starting with race 3 and going through race 7 are as follows:

Race 3 PL1/PL1,PL2,PL3/ PL1,PL2,PL3,PL4,PL5 cost $15

Race 4 PL1,PL2,PL3/PL1,PL2,PL3,PL4,PL5/PL1,PL2,PL3 cost $45

Race 5 PL1,PL2,PL3,PL4,PL5/PL1,PL2,PL3/PL1 cost $15

Race 6 PL1,PL2,PL3/PL1/PL1 cost $6 (assume a $2 pick3)

Race 7 PL1/PL2/PL1,PL2 cost $4 (assume a $2 pick3)

My two pick4's bets in race 6 are:

Race 6 PL1,PL2,PL3/PL1/PL1/PL1,PL2 cost $12 (assume a $2 pick4)

Race 6 PL1,PL2,PL3/PL1,PL2,PL3/PL1,PL2,PL3/PL1,PL2 cost $54 (assume a $1 pick4)

Depending on your bankroll you can use as many of these as you choose or limit the number of pick3's you bet on to stay within the cost constraints of your bankroll.

Black Swan Betting

2009-08-06T10:25:00.000-07:00

I just completed reading Nassim Nicholas Taleb's book "The Black Swan". It is an amazing book that has caused me to rethink the way I now look at the occurence of events. Naturally, because of my interests in horse racing and especially in betting, I have started looking at how the Black Swan concept may apply in horse racing.

For those of you not yet familar with the Black Swan it refers to the "impact of the highly improbable". In horse racing the "highly improbable" are the extreme long shots. One of the advantages in horse betting is that you can include the extreme long shots in your betting strategy.

My wife and I were back at the Kentucky Derby in 2005. I had a gut feel before the race that any horse could win so I bet $5 to win on all 20 of the horses entered in the race. Mike Smith brought Giacomo in at over 50/1 odds. For the $100 it cost me to make this bet the return was $256.50. At the time the Black Swan concept didn't exist. What did exist was the feeling I had and to take advantage of that feeling "I bet them all".

Just to show you that this is not such a crazy bet I did a little research on the internet and found from my analysis that if you had "bet them all" in the Kentucky Derby each of the last 5 years (2005 through 2009) that you would be $38.60 ahead assuming just $2 bets. Further, if you had "bet them all" for the last 11 years from 1999 to 2009 that you still would have come out even. You would have not lost any money and had a fantastic time.

So what does this prove? Well, it establishes the fact that this is not such a crazy betting strategy after all. It has some merit under the right circumstances.

I have a feeling that from years of experience observing that Grade I races may also have many Black Swans. I will be researching this in the coming weeks and I'll report back to you what my findings are.

For those of you who may doubt my numbers above go to
http://www.drf.com/tc/kentuckyderby/2009/stats/stats.html and run the math for yourself.

Stay tuned and good luck betting.

What Odds do you look for in a bet?

2009-06-26T11:49:00.000-07:00

I have often wondered what is going through the other guys head at the race track. I thought it would be interesting to set up a poll to see what odds a horse bettor looks for when he is about to bet at the track. Compared to other polls I have conducted this one turned out to be quite popular as well as informative. Actually at this point in time (half way, I set it up for two months) there has been 29 horse players who have voted with 28 days remaining for the poll to be active.

The results so far show that 55% of you look for a horse with 4/1 but less than 10/1 odds. Now what does this tell me. I'd say that more than half of you are looking for some value with your bet. After all at 4/1 odds a $20 win bet will return $100 at the low end. At the high end at 10/1 a $20 win bet will pay $220. Now that's value if you are right and the horse wins.

Now some of you are looking for the long shot to come in. 13% of you say that you look for a horse with 10/1 odds or more to bet on. They do come in. Look at the Kentucky Derby this year when Mine That Bird went off at greater than 50/1 and took home the prize, $1000+ on a $20 win bet. I'll just bet that there were more than a few folks down in El Paso, Texas who collected on this bet too. In the Belmont Stakes there was another Bird, Summer Bird that went off better than 10/1 too - and won. Now you see that with some courage and conviction that these folks can be handsomely rewarded!

Add together 55% and 13% and this amounts to 68% of you out there are looking for "value" or "super value" with your bets. Hey, I'm with you. Go for it!

Now about 30% of the time the favorite wins. I'd say most of you have the right idea. Favorites don't give back much bang for the bet. However, from the poll it looks like 32% of you like those favorites.

A Ten-Cent Superfecta Favorite Bet of Mine

2009-03-30T13:06:00.000-07:00

These days where can you get a return on ten cents? The ten cent superfecta is certainly one place to look. I have heard from a number of people that it is hard for them to structure a ten cent superfecta bet. I have suggested to a number of my horse betting friends an approach that has a simple structure and at the same time has a fairly high probability of success.

If you play the horses even occasionally you can usually pick one or two horses in some races that look, in form, a head or two above the other horses in the race. Using this piece of information you can structure a ten cent superfecta that is inexpensive yet has a good chance of paying off.

I will label these two horses 1 and 2. Let's assume there are 10 horses in the race you have chosen. A simple ten cent superfecta structure would be 1,2/1,2/all/all. This bet would cost you $11.20. If there were 9 horses in the race it would cost you $8.40. These are inexpensive bets but they do include all of the horses in the race and if you are correct about your top two picks then your superfecta will payoff. Further, if the horse that shows and the horse that comes in 4th are long shots then the payoff could be very rewarding.

For those of you just trying the ten cent super for the first time this bet can get you started and give you some experience beyond just placing win and place bets or even exactas with your top two choices in a race.

Good luck.

Trifecta Poll Results

2008-12-16T08:45:00.000-08:00

I have been running two polls since last May 2008. One poll was about the 'Trifecta Cost' and the other was about 'Trifecta Success'. I had a total of 28 respondents. Thank you for those of you who visit my site for your responses.

Here are the results of those polls.

When you bet trifectas, what is the average cost of your bet?

$6 or less ............................. 32%
$12 but more than $6 ......... 32%
$24 but more than $12 ........ 26%
$48 but more than $24 ........ 0%
more than $48 ................ 11%

What is your success with trifecta bets?

Over 100% net gain ........... 0%
50% to 100% net gain ......... 22%
0 to 50% net gain ............ 44%
negative net gain ............ 33%

It is interesting to note that 89% of the respondents bet less than $25 when they place a trifecta bet. That represents most of you out there. However, 11% of you bet over $48. (This may be those of you who follow TVG and place there suggested bets.) Unfortunately, I don't have coordinated data to know how many of those 11% collect on their bets and what is there net return. Looking at Golden Gates recent statistics the average payoff for trifectas is $288. If you win at least 25% of the time with your $50+ bets you may be making some money.

Looking at the Trifecta Success poll the respondents say that 2/3's of the time they are scoring a net gain. 22% say their net gain is between 50 and 100%. 44% say their net gain is between 0 and 50%. 1/3 of you say your losing money on the bet.

I hope that this sheds some light on your chances with the trifecta bet. Good luck with your bets.

Pick 3 Poll Results

2008-10-28T16:27:00.000-07:00

As you have probably noticed for those of you visiting my blog on a regular basis over the last two months that I have had a poll about the pick 3 bet. The poll turned out as follows.

Poll: What is your success with Pick 3's?

over 100% net gain ..... 0%
50 - 100% net gain ..... 11%
0 - 50% net gain .......... 33%
negative net gain ......... 56%

It is apparent from this poll that the pick 3 is a losing bet over 1/2 the time for my poll participants. This is disappointing to me but I can understand why.

I have played the pick 3 quite a bit and the big mistake that can be made is using 'bet combinations' that are too small to have much of a chance of winning. If you have access to TVG you can get an idea of the cost of a pick 3 that needs to be made to have a good chance of winning. The analysts on TVG who share their picks with you hardly ever have a pick 3 selection under $18.

Some rough calculations of mine based on my own experience reveals that on the average (assuming $1 pick 3's that have won):

Combinations that cost Win %
less than $18 ....................8%
$18 to $27 ........................20%
$27 to $42........................ 32%
greater than $42............. 40%

You can see that to be successsful with pick 3's that you need pick 3 combinations that cost over $18. The payoffs for pick 3's can be large at times when you put long shots in your combination. To do this, however, you need to invest enough money in your bet to raise the probablility of your winning.

If you do not want to risk larger amounts of money with your pick 3 bets then it may well be best not to wager these bets.

10 Cent Superfecta Poll Results

2008-07-29T14:42:00.000-07:00

My 10 Cent Superfecta Poll has been on my blog for a couple of months now and the final results are now in.

What is your success with the 10 cent superfectas?

Over 100% net gain 7%
50 to 100% net gain 13%
0 to 50% net gain 40%
negative net gain 40%
Total 100%

The results are very encouraging to me. 20% of the horseplayers participating in my poll are getting a net gain of 50% or more. 60% of those using the 10 cent superfecta are making money on the bet. It's the small time bettor that is using this bet (the high rollers use $2 superfectas that can run into hundreds and thousands of dollars) and it certainly seems from the poll results that 60% have found a way to make some money.

I have a new poll that will run for a couple of months. What is your success with the Pick 3?

See the side panel on my blog. Let me know how you are doing with your pick 3's.

Thanks to all who have participated.

Conditional Betting

2008-07-01T13:31:00.000-07:00

What is conditional betting? Recently Twinspires offers the capability of making conditional bets. These are bets that are only executed if the condition you specify is satisfied. Why would you want to make a conditional bet? Some horse players already watch the toteboard to see if certain conditions are met before they place a bet. This is a rather intensive activity that can play upon your emotions. Many times not a good situation to be in. Also waiting to right before the race starts, 1 or 2 minutes before, you may not be able to get to a window at the track to place the bet. Rather than having to watch the toteboard constantly you can enter the conditional bet and not even be where the toteboard is available to you. You can be at home and enter the bet over the internet. Then you can check later and see what the result is.

So what does a conditional bet look like? Here is an example.

Race #3 07/01/2008
Philadelphia
$20.00 Win (6/5 @ 2mtp)
#4
$20.00

In race #3 on the 1st of July at Philadelphia Park I entered a $20 win bet on the #4 horse with the condition that the tote must be 6/5 or lower with 2 minutes to post. If that condition was satisfied then the bet was entered and executed.

Right now you can place conditional bets on win, place and show bets and exactas. The restriction on exactas is that the bet is a simple exacta bet like horse A with horse B. No boxes or key exactas can be conditional. This doesn't keep you from making multiple simple exactas however. That's a little laborious to do but it can be done if you have the patience.

I am experimenting with strategies that include conditional betting. I'll report back to you later on how well the strategies work.

Stay tuned.

Pick 3 Aberrations

2008-06-15T12:09:00.000-07:00

As you know from my previous blog I have been testing new strategies using the pick 3. In this article I want to show you two extreme aberrations that have occurred in the course of a week; the Belmont Stakes on June 7th and high profile races at Churchill Downs on June 14th. Since writing my last blog "Pick 3 Research" I have been concentrating on pick 3 strategies that locate races where the favorite has a high probablility of winning. A race that had one of the highest probabilities of winning was the Belmont Stakes. Big Brown was a certain winner if there ever was one. (I was not alone in this assessment.) It was almost certain until the race was run. Probabilities are just probabilities, no matter how high they are and nothing more. Anything can happen in a race and it did.

As a strategy that I was testing on June 7th I chose to arrange three pick 3 bets using Big Brown to win in the 11th race. The first pick 3 started in race 9, the second started in the 10th, and the third started in the 11th race. Here is a case where all three bets lost with Big Brown losing in the 11th. What is the lesson to be learned from this. The outcome in one race can affect several other bets. Betting across races can be very costly even with smaller amounts of money. Also you have to wait until the races in the bet are completed to know whether you have a winning ticket. Betting within a race has more immediate gratification. This experience has given me insight into aberrations that can occur in strategies that sometimes are overlooked.

On June 14th, a week later, I experienced a new and highly improbable aberration at Churchill Downs. I saw before my eyes 6 morning line favorites win 6 consecutive races. These races also happened to be the 6 races in the pick 6. The probability of this happening is very very small. Starting with the 6th race there were 4 consecutive pick 3's that had 3 favorites in the outcome. The probability of this happening is .03.

Let me summarize the results for both weekends. On Belmont Stakes day there was no ticket that hit the pick 6. It carried over to the following Wednesday. The horseplaying public could not visualize Big Brown losing. (That included me!) However, there were some pick 3 and pick 4 players who won on the pick 3 starting in the 9th race, $6,475.00, and $34,287.00 on the pick 4 that started in the 8th race. Because of the cost factor being lower there were long shots (infact, the longest on the board) included in the pick 3 and pick 4 combinations for race 11. On June 14th at Churchill Downs the morning line favorites Hystericalady, Pure Clan, Pyro, Tizdejavu, Curlin, and Dreaming of Anna were the winning picks in the pick 6 which paid $48.00. The $2 pick 3's starting with race 6 paid $14.60, 47.00, 31.80, 19.40 respectively.

What a difference a week makes in the extremes of horse racing. Stay tuned for results of my research.

'til then.

Pick 3 Research

2008-05-28T11:31:00.000-07:00

Thanks to a comment I received on my blog from a reader, I was pointed to an article (http://www.econ.washington.edu/user/ellis/econ482/horse1105.pdf) on research about the pick 3. The article was couched in some mathematical statistics but has revealed some interesting results that may prove to be quite useful in developing some betting strategies. I am in the process of using these results in some experiments to see their usefulness. I will report to you at a later time about what I have found out.

Here are the obvious points that sparked my interest from this article. First, when you look at a pick 3 you are looking for the horses that will win in three consecutive races. Further, you focus in on whether the favorite in the race will win. It is well known that the favorite in a race will win about 30% (+-3%) of the time at any track in the country. Concentrating on the pick 3 you wonder how many pick 3's will have 0 favorites in the final outcome. How many will have 1 favorite in the final outcome. How many will have 2 favorites when the races are finished. How many will have 3 favorites in the final outcome. This article gives us some statistical evidence about what to expect.

An empirical analysis at Santa Anita by the author showed that out of 176 wagering opportunities that a pick 3 with no (0) winning favorites in the outcome occurred 36% of the time. With 1 favorite in the outcome, this occurred 42% of the time. With 2 favorites in the outcome, this occurred 19% of the time. With all three favorites in the outcome, this occurred just 3% of the time. What does this suggest? Don't depend on the favorite in your pick 3's. If you do include the favorite expect only one favorite in the outcome. 78% of the time there will be only 1 favorite or no favorites at all in the outcome. It takes guts to follow these results because the betting public tends to always include the favorites in their choice of pick 3 combinations. This therefore raises the cost of the bet when the cost does not match the benefit.

I will be looking at some strategies that take into account these statistical results.

Stay tuned ... I'll report back to you later.

Bets Within a Race and Bets Across Races

2008-05-18T12:09:00.000-07:00

When you bet an exacta, quinella, trifecta, or superfecta your bet is completed when the race is over. These bets are within a race. When you bet a daily double, a pick three, a pick four, or a pick six your bet is completed when the last race in the bet has finished. The strategies for these two kinds of bets are quite different. The principle of "bets within a race" is to pick the best 2,3,4,5 or 6 horses in a race. The principle of "bets across races" is to pick the possible winners in each race.

Let's start with "bets within a race" first. For an exacta and a quinella to pay off you need to concentrate on the horses that you feel can come in first or second. Let's suppose that there are 10 horses in a race. You get your Daily Racing Form and start studying the 10 horses in the race. After considerable deliberation you come to the conclusion that there are only two horses in this race that you believe can win or place. With this belief your bet is easy and inexpensive. You can do an exacta box of these two horses ( a quinella if this bet is allowed in this race at this track). If however, you come to the conclusion that out of the ten horses in the race that 5 of them are capable of winning or placing then you have a bit more to consider. You can place an $1 exacta box of these five horses but it will be a bit more expensive, $20 to be exact. I want to illustrate here that two factors that are all important. One is the cost of the bet and the other is how badly you want to win the bet. Using similar logic for a trifecta, or a superfecta it always gets down to cost and your desire to win. To increase your probability of winning it will cost more for the bet. How much you will spend depends how big your bankroll is and how much you are willing to spend on any one bet. The best thing you can do is to understand your tolerance level.

Bets across races need a different strategy. These kind of bets depend only on the horse that wins the race in each race of the bet. You can start with "singles". A "single" is using only one horse in a race. You need to be very confident in your belief that this horse will win the race. Big Brown in the Preakness was a good example. The other races where you need 2, 3, 4 or more horses for that race is where the cost of the bet goes up. Daily doubles, pick 3's, pick 4's can be more attractive to the horseplayer with a modest bankroll. Magna 5's and pick 6's are bets where you need a significant amount of money to have a good chance of winning. Twinspires had a pool for the pick 6 on Derby Day that you could get in on for as little as $10. You could even bet as much as $1000 which was the limit. Some of the pick 6 bets in the pool were $50000 +. To show you how difficult the pick 6 is, on Derby Day there were no tickets that got 6 out of 6. The total pool was $75000 +. Fortunately, in the pool there were several superfecta bets on the Kentucky Derby. Two of them paid almost $30000 each. If you were in the pool even though the pool didn't win the pick 6, the superfectas earned back enough to almost break even. A very nice strategy in the pool.

'til next time.

Trifecta Research

2008-05-07T12:23:00.000-07:00

I would like to solicit your help. I'm looking into the Trifecta bet to see how horseplayers use the Trifecta bet in their tool kit of bets. I have set up two polls that I would ask you to participate in.

Here are the two polls:

1) When you bet trifectas, what is the average cost of your bet?

2) What is your success with trifecta bets?

Click on the following two links to enter your data. (Click on the back button after you have finished making your entries.)

http://www.geocities.com/wm_kyran/TrifectaCost.htm

http://www.geocities.com/wm_kyran/TrifectaSuccess.htm

I will follow up later with an article on my blog.

Thanks for your participation.

More on the 10-cent Superfecta

2008-04-26T11:02:00.000-07:00

In my previous article I had results from just one track, Beulah Park. In my continuing research on the superfecta I have used two other tracks, Keeneland and Tampa Bay, because they tend to have a larger field of horses in all of their races and you can bet the 10-cent superfecta in each race. Most of the other tracks have just selected races where they offer the 10-cent superfecta bet. Also, after studying the results for superfectas for a couple of weeks the payoffs are much larger at Keeneland and Tampa Bay.

I have put together an analysis that gives some insight as to how to structure a 10-cent superfecta bet so the probabilities are in your favor. Click on the link below and take a few minutes to study the analysis summary I have put into a table.

http://www.geocities.com/wm_kyran/SuperfectaAnalysis.jpg

Notice from the analysis that 84% of the time that the top 6 ranked profit line (PL) horses will be in the superfecta. Take note that the top 3 ranked horses will place more often than win. Using this information let's structure a preferred bet that will give us an edge and keep the bet to $18. So you will understand my notation PL1 stands for the number 1 ranked profit line horse. PL2 stands for the second ranked profit line horse. And so on. ALL6 equals PL1,PL2,PL3,PL4,PL5,PL6.

Our Preferred Bet then is ALL6/PL1,PL2,PL3/ALL6/ALL6.

As an example if PL1=horse#6, PL2=horse#9, PL3=horse#3, PL4=horse#2, PL5=horse#7, PL6=horse#1 then the preferred bet would be

6,9,3,2,7,1/6,9,3/6,9,3,2,7,1/6,9,3,2,7,1.

May good fortune come your way.

'til next time.

A 10-cent Superfecta Experiment

2008-04-09T13:22:00.000-07:00

I have been running a poll on my blog "What is your success with 10 cent superfectas?". Take a look on the left side of my blog. The results so far are interesting. 45% are losing money using the 10-cent superfecta bet. 27% are making a net return of 0 to 50%. 18% are getting a net gain of 50 to 100% gain. 10% are getting over 100% net gain.

I have some useful statistics that can help with an experiment I ran today (April 8, 2008) at Beulah Race Track. If you use the Profit Line (PL), available at Twinspires.com, I have found that of the top three PL picks, one of the three will win better than 60% of the time. I have therefore formulated a High Probability 10-cent Superfecta bet that looks like this.

PL1,PL2,PL3/ALL/ALL/ALL (ALL = PL1,PL2,PL3,PL4,PL5,PL6) If there are just 6 horses in the race then ALL is all of the horses in the race. If there are more than 6 horses then use the first six Ranked PL horses. In my experiment I chose not to go above an $18 bet.

A second bet that I wanted to test was what I called the Lower Cost Obvious Bet. It again involves the first six Ranked PL horses. The Lower Cost 10-cent Superfecta bet looks like this. PL1/ALL/ALL/ALL It costs $6.

Go to the link below to see how the first and second races were bet.

http://www.geocities.com/wm_kyran/BeulahApr820081.jpg

I followed the same pattern for each race. Go to the next link below to see the bets on races 3 and 4.

http://www.geocities.com/wm_kyran/BeulahApr820082.jpg

The links to races 5 and 6 follow next.

http://www.geocities.com/wm_kyran/BeulahApr820083.jpg

Races 7 and 8 are next.

http://www.geocities.com/wm_kyran/BeulahApr820084.jpg

Race 9 follows and that completes the card for the day.

http://www.geocities.com/wm_kyran/BeulahApr820085.jpg

What is most revealing is SUMMARY of results for the day. Click the link below to view the SUMMARY.

http://www.geocities.com/wm_kyran/BeulahApr82008Summary.jpg

The 10-cent super PL1,PL2,PL3/ALL/ALL/ALL paid in 7 of nine races. The Lower Cost 10-cent Superfecta bet PL1/ALL/ALL/ALL paid in only 2 races. This shows you the difference between an $18 bet and a $6 bet.

The net gain for the day was $85.21.

I hope that some of you horseplayers out there will try this approach and let me know how you do. I will be doing the same for some of the larger tracks and report on this at a later time.

Good Luck and God Bless.

Exotic Bets: The Trifecta

2008-03-30T08:22:00.000-07:00

I have been running a poll that asks: What type of bet do you use most often? ( http://vote.pollit.com/webpoll2?ID=329064 )Just behind the win bet and the exacta is the trifecta at 20%. Infact these three bets make up 71% of the betting that horse players say they use most often.

Let me talk about the trifecta and how it can be played. With a trifecta we are concentrating on the horses that will win, place and show when the race is over. Before the race starts some good handicapping is usually needed to determine which horses could win, place or show and which horses you can throw out. Removing horses from your bet can many times make the difference between a profitable wager and a losing one. Let's first consider a trifecta box (a very common wager with horse players). The number of horses you put in a trifecta box can run up in cost very rapidly. For example, $1 trifecta box 3 horses costs $6, box 4 costs $24, box 5 costs $60, and box 6 costs $120. It gets rather expensive fast. The difference between boxing 3 horses and 6 horses is a huge $114. Now can you see why throwing out improbable horses is so important to a smart bet.

What if you like 6 horses in a race? What can you do to whittle down the cost of boxing 6 horses? Here are some suggestions. First, consider how much you will (or can afford to) put into the trifecta bet. Let's say $40. Next go back to your handicapping and see if you can reduce the number of horses that you think could win to say three. Let's say horses D, C, and B. Next look at the horses that you consider could place, say D,C,B,E. Now look at any other horses that could show, say A and F. Your bet is now CB/DCBE/DCBEAF. This will cost $36.

Some other examples of common trifecta bets are the following:

$1 trifecta A/BCDE/BCDE costs $12
$1 trifecta A/BCDEF/BCDEF costs $20
$1 trifecta A/BCDEFG/BCDEFG costs $30

$1 trifecta BCDE/A/BCDE costs $12
$1 trifecta BCDEFA/BCDEF costs $20
$1 trifecta BCDEFG/A/BCDEFG costs $30

Remember to keep your trifecta bets to what you can afford or are willing to spend.

Making good use of the Morning Line (M/L)

2008-03-23T08:29:00.000-07:00

One of the statistics available to the horse player is the morning line (M/L). It's available in the program at your local track as well as on the internet at http://equibase.com in the free 'entries' for every track.

The morning line is often overlooked and not given much value by both the beginning horse player as well as the seasoned player. I took a recent look at a large sample of race tracks around the country and found that at the end of the track meet that the morning line favorite won at the track between 25 to 33 percent of the time depending on the track. So on average let's say that the M/L favorite wins about 30% of the time. If you were to bet the M/L favorite all of the time you would expect to win 30% of the time. This is a pretty good average for a baseball player but it's a losing proposition for a horse player.

So what good is the morning line and is it useful? I say yes. I use the M/L as a base for comparison at the track. If you have a pad of paper with you at the track or at home while watching the tote board on your PC screen, it is very useful to watch the tote change on some horses. For example, if you see a horse in a race whose M/L is 4/1 and as post time nears you see the actual tote odds go down to say even odds or 1/1, something is going on here. There is a lot of money being bet on this horse. Why? There can be a lot of reasons which you may not know about but this horse should gain your immediate attention and you should factor this in your handicapping of the race before you bet.

Another use of the M/L, particularly in grade I, II, or III stakes races is when the M/L favorite is a heavy favorite at say, even odds (1/1). Sometimes the tote goes against the heavy favorite. It maybe 2/1, 5/2 or even 3/1. This tells you that the money bet on the horse does not match the M/L expectations. This should get your attention and you should take a second look at how you will bet the race.

I believe the morning line has some value if you integrate it in your thinking properly.

Tote Analysis of the Mac Diarmida Handicap

2008-03-17T12:49:00.000-07:00

The featured race, race 8, on Sunday, March 16th at Gulfstream was the Grade II Mac Diarmida Handicap. It started out with 14 horses but two were scratched. Here was a race with some quality horses. I want to illustrate with this tote analysis the choice of a race to bet on, how the tote analysis works, and the placement of the bets from the analysis.

The tote analysis for this race can be found at
http://www.geocities.com/wm_kyran/GulfstreamSundayR8Mar16.jpg . First observe that the 3 horse, True Cause, ridden by John Velazquez, at the 20m (20 minute) mark immediately took a lot of money and the tote odds were at 2/1. The morning line (ML) started at 5/1 and the profit line (PL) was at 9/1. The 3 horse was indeed one to watch closely. Down to the 10 minute mark True Cause was still at 2/1. Both the morning line (3/1) and profit line (9/5) favorite was the 9 horse, Stream of Gold ridden by Eibar Coa. At the 5m and 3m marks the 9 horse began taking a lot of money and the odds went down to 8/5. The 3 horse odds came up to 7/2. Both horses looked very strong on the toteboard.

To bet this race I will use $2 win bets, $1 exacta bets, and $1 Trifecta bets for illustrative purposes. My actual bets were higher than this. I chose to place $2 to win on both 3 and 9 ($2 win 9,3). I placed a $1 exacta box on 3 and 9 ($1 exacta 3/9 and 9/3). As a hedge I also bet the exacta 3,9/1,4,11. My trifecta bets were 3,9/3,9/1,4,11 and the hedge bet was 3,9/1,4,11/3,9. The finish for this turf race was 9-3-11. The 9 horse paid $4.60 to win, the $1 exacta paid $10 and the $1 trifecta paid $47.80.

Note from the tote analysis that I used the top five tote picks in my bets. Horse 9 was the top tote pick at 8/5. The 3 horse was second at 7/2. The 1 horse was third at 6/1. The 11 horse was fourth at 9/1 and the 4 horse was 5th at 10/1.

The cost of the bets in this race were as follows: Win bets cost was $4. The exactas cost $2 for the exacta box 3,9 an $6 for 3,9/1,4,11. The trifecta cost $6 for 3,9/3,9/1,4,11 and $6 for 3,9/1,4,11/3,9. The net gain for this race was (4.60+10.00+47.80)-(4.00+8.00+12.00)= $38.40.

Exotic Bets: The Exacta

2008-03-16T09:20:00.000-07:00

I have been running a poll on my web site http://geocities.com/wm_kyran/handicap2.htm for quite a while now. The results of this poll show that the exacta bet (26%)is about as popular as the win bet (25%). This leads me to taking a look at the exacta and how it can be used as a profitable bet.

The concept of the exacta is to focus on who will win and who will place after the race is over. The horseplayer considers what horses can win the race as well as the horses that can place in the race. The bet takes into account your best possible combinations for a particular race. For example, if you believe horse A will win and horse B will place then an exacta bet is very simple and inexpensive to buy (A $2 exacta costs $2.). You merely bet the exacta A with B (written as A/B). This will rarely pay off no matter how good your handicapping is. The approach to placing exacta bets is to use your handicapping results to choose those horses that you believe can win over those horses that you believe could place and see what those combinations will cost you.

Example 1: You believe that horse D will surely win but you also believe horses A,B,E and F could place. In this case you would place a bet as D/A,B,E,F. If it is a $1 exacta it would cost you $4. You would have 4 possibilities working for you: DA, DB, DE and DF.

Example 2: You believe that horse C will win and that any of the other horses in the race could
place. Your bet would be C/ALL. (A race with 10 horses in it will cost $9.)

Example 3: You believe there are several long shot horses in the race that could win and that
horses A and D will place. You would place the bet ALL/A,D.

A popular bet is the exacta box. This is a bet that allows for any of the horses in a box to win or place and you win the bet as long as both horses are included in the box bet. The limitation of the bet is the cost. Using a $1 exacta, for example, boxing two horses will cost $2, three horses $6, four horses $12, five horses $20, six horses $30, and seven horses $42.

The approach to betting the exacta is to doing some careful handicapping ahead of time. Use the
technique of throwing out those horses that you believe from your handicapping can not either
win or place. This way you can bring down the cost of the bet and at the same time maximize
your profit.

Reference: http://vote.pollit.com/webpoll2?ID=329064

Win Bet Stategies

2008-03-09T07:03:00.000-07:00

Placing a win bet seems simple enough ... but is it? All to many times one has the tendency to just 'do it' without too much thought particularly if it's just a $2 win bet. Now a $100 win bet is a different matter unless you just have plenty of money to throw away. With a $100 win bet you want to have a very high confidence level that your bet will pay off. This is where your handicapping comes into play.

Just concentrating on a 'win bet', there are lots of considerations. If you pick a race to bet on you may come to the conclusion (from your handicapping) that there is just one horse that you are convinced will win the race. In this case scale your bet to your level of confidence. For example, you may be so convinced that you are willing to bet $50 to win on that horse but no more.

Now in another race that you have handicapped you find two horses, or maybe even three that you are convinced could win the race. You just don't know which one. With a little knowledge of the odds on each horse you can do a quick calculation to determine if you'll place a win bet on these 2 or 3 horses. For example, let's say these three horses have odds of 2/1, 3/1 and 5/1 on the tote board at race time. Quite simply you could place say, a $10 bet on each of these three horses to win. If the 2/1 odd horse wins your return would be (2 x 2 + 2) x 5 or $30. You bet $10 on all three horse so your cost was $30. You get your money back. Now if the 3/1 horse wins your pay off will be (3 x 2 + 2) x 5 or $40. So you come out $40 - $30 or $10 ahead. If the 5/1 horse wins your return is (5 x 2 + 2) x 5 or $60. That's $60 - $30 or $30 ahead. If you're totally wrong and one of the other horses comes in you lose $30.

Notice that in the above example that you bet the same amount "$10" on each horse. What if you wanted to scale your bets on each horse so that you come out ahead no matter which horse wins. This technique is called 'dutching'. By going to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutching you can learn more about dutching. If you google 'dutching' you can find calculators to take to the track with you to perform these strategies. A specific tool I have used is called 'hedgehog'. It can be found at http://www.crowncity.com/speedplus/hedgehog.html. I will dedicate a complete article at a later time to dutching.

My Favorite Exacta Bet

2008-03-03T12:54:00.000-08:00

Sunday, March 2, 2008 I played the horses at Gulfstream. I wanted to combine both tote pick analysis and my favorite exacta bet. I set the threshold for a tote pick at less than 0.5 and used both the morning line (ML) and profit Line (PL) as my base. So to do the computation you just divide the tote odds by the ML (tote odds/ML) and/or the tote odds by the PL (tote odds/PL). The tote odds will be at the 3 minute mark(3m). You will see in my notes for each race what I did.

My favorite exacta is one where I take the favorite either on the basis of the ML or the PL or the tote pick or any combination of the three. My ideal would be when the favorite is the ML favorite, the profit line favorite, and the tote pick favorite. This doesn't always happen often enough so I may use the favorite who is both the ML and PL favorite. My exacta bet would then be the favorite/ALL (ALL is all of the other horses in the race). However, my hedge for this bet is ALL/the favorite. Actually the hedge is what I am hoping will happen. Why? Because the pay off can be quite large if the favorite is beaten by one of the long shots in the race. I have seen it happen hundreds of times where a heavy favorite is beaten in the last hundred yards by one of the other horses in the race. I don't have exact statistics on this phenonemon but it is often enough to play the hedge bet.

I am going to show you my notes for every race so you can see the tote analysis as well as my thinking for each race. Let's start with race 1. Click on
http://www.geocities.com/wm_kyran/GulfstreamSundayR1R2R3.jpg to see my notes. In race 1 at the 3 minute (3m) mark, the 7 horse is a strong tote pick with 0.375 (ML) and 0.125 (PL). For purposes of illustration I'm going to use a $2 win bet on the 7 horse. (I actually bet $20 to win. I came with a $200 bankroll.) The 7 horse did win and paid $6 for each $2 bet. A good way to start for the day.

On to race 2. Click again on http://www.geocities.com/wm_kyran/GulfstreamSundayR1R2R3.jpg to see my notes and the tote analysis. The tote pick in this race was the 5 horse with a 0.333 (ML). Again we bet $2 win on the 5 horse. Luck is with us again and the 5 horse wins. This time the pay off is $6.40 for each $2 bet. We're feeling pretty good at this point. Let's not get too over joyed at this point and emotional. We want to keep our emotions at a minimum.

Race 3 is next so click on http://www.geocities.com/wm_kyran/GulfstreamSundayR1R2R3.jpg and take a look at the tote analysis for this race. At the 3m mark the 2 horse has a 0.3 (ML) value and a 0.171 (PL) value. Again we have a strong tote pick so we bet $2 win on the #2 horse. This time the 2 horse fades and isn't even in the money. So back to reality.

The 4th race is next. Click on http://www.geocities.com/wm_kyran/GulfstreamSundayR4R5.jpg and take a look at the tote analysis. The 5 horse is the ML and PL pick. I took a look at the Daily Racing Form (DRF) and came to the conclusion that several horses could beat the 5 horse. I took a break and didn't bet this race. The hamburger tasted pretty good.

The 5th race had a couple of scratched horses. One scratch was early (#6) and one scratch was right at post time (#5). Click on http://www.geocities.com/wm_kyran/GulfstreamSundayR4R5.jpg and take a look at the tote analysis. Here is another race where there was no obvious tote pick so I opted to not bet this one either. As it turned out I hadn't finished my hamburger and I got in a conversation so I lost my focus. I don't like to bet in this instance.

With the hamburger and conversation out of the way I now am ready to concentrate on race 6. I have to admit that one of my favorite jockeys is John Velasquez. He is riding the #4 horse.
Click on http://www.geocities.com/wm_kyran/GulfstreamSundayR6R7.jpg and take a look at my notes. The 5 horse is my ideal pick however. The horse is the ML, PL, and tote pick in this race. Now is the time to to play my favorite exacta bet: 5/ALL along with the hedge bet ALL/5. Johnnie V on the 4 horse leads all the way to win the $1 exacta for $13.40. The hedge bet (4/5) pays off. However, the net gain is only $3.40.

Race 7 is the first race on the card with a lot of horses in the race (11 horses, one was scratched). This race had three particularly good indicators. Click on
http://www.geocities.com/wm_kyran/GulfstreamSundayR6R7.jpg to take a look. Notice that the 12 horse was both the ML and PL favorite. He looked to be the quality in the race. See how the odds started at the 20m mark at 7/1. Money kept coming in on the horse for 15 minutes until at the 5m and 3m marks the horse was at 5/2. I really liked seeing this. I played my favorite exacta bet 12/ALL along with the hedge (for insurance) ALL/12. The 12 horse came around wide at the 3/4 pole and went on to pass all the horses in front to win. The 2 horse came in second at 22/1 odds to produce a nice $1 exacta of $79.10.

Race 8 was a nice allowance race with 6 horses after the 4 horse was scratched. Johnnie V was on the 1 horse who was a heavy ML and PL favorite as well as the money odds 1/2 favorite at 3m to post. Click on http://www.geocities.com/wm_kyran/GulfstreamSundayR8R9.jpg to see my notes on this race. Again I placed my favorite exacta bet 1/ALL and ALL/1. Sure enough the 1 horse won by 8 1/2 lengths. Keep your eye on this horse for the Kentucky Derby, "One Hot Wish".

Click on http://www.geocities.com/wm_kyran/GulfstreamSundayR8R9.jpg for the 9th race. The feature race of the day, the Davona Dale Stakes, has John Velasquez and Todd Pletcher teaming up on "Game Face" a very heavy favorite. My favorite exacta is 4/ALL and ALL/4. The 1 horse beat the 4 and again the hedge bet pays $9.40 to just about break even.

The last race, race 10, Johnnie V and Pletcher again combine on "Linkin". Click on
http://www.geocities.com/wm_kyran/GulfstreamSundayR10.jpg . There were 14 horses in the race. Two were scratched. The ML and PL favorites were the 5 horse Linkin. I bet my favorite exacta again, 5/ALL and ALL/5. The 11 horse at 14/1 outfinished Linkin at the finish by a length and 3/4. A really nice way to finish the day. The hedge bet $1 exacta paid $109.70.

For the afternoon the net gain was $152 (assuming $2 win bets and $1 exactas). This was a nice Return On Investment of 295%. Click on http://www.geocities.com/wm_kyran/GulfstreamSundaySummary03022008.jpg for the summary.

'til next time.

Test your handicapping skills for free

2008-03-01T05:38:00.000-08:00

There are two locations that I like where you can try your hand at handicapping the horses and you can do it for free. One is a daily contest to pick the winning horse. The other is weekly on Saturdays.

Brisnet.com has a free contest called 'Race of the Day' that you can enter each day at http://www.brisnet.com/raceoftheday. The contest builds up entries toward a drawing that is made twice a year. The first part of the year the contest ends with a round trip for two to the Kentucky Derby on the first Saturday in May. The second half of the year the contest ends with a trip for two to the Breeders Cup races in October. In addition, each week or month that you are one of the top 50 handicappers, you will receive a bonus of 50 additional entries. The Grand Prize Winner is chosen at random at the end of the contest.

PublicHandicapper.com is a weekly handicapping contest that is free and you can enter by going to http://www.publichandicapper.com. They usually have four races (sometimes more) each Saturday at different tracks around the country. You pick a horse to win with two alternate horses in case of scratches out of the race. The results are based on $2 win bet. You run up dollar winnings based in the payoffs from the winning $2 bet. There are three contests run during the year. The 'Publichandicapper Prep' runs from February through April ending with picks on Kentucky Derby Day at Churchill Downs. The 'Publichandicapper Challenge' runs from the Kentucky Oaks to the Breeders' Cup in October and has the biggest prizes. The 'Winter of Our Discontent' Runs from December through January. Prizes are awarded weekly and at the end of the contest period. Check out the 'Rules and Prizes' on their web site.

Try both contests out and hone you skills for free.

One of My Favorite Trifecta Bets

2008-02-24T07:38:00.000-08:00

After years of watching hundreds, if not thousands, of races there is a pattern that occurs quite frequently. It is a pattern that the horse player can look for and spot by doing some homework ahead of time and then watching the tote board from 16 minutes before post up to 2 minutes before post. During this time you record the tote odds for each horse every 2 minutes. This is how you confirm the pattern.

The homework you do ahead of time is to look at the morning line (M/L) of the races at several tracks several hours (or even a day) before a race goes off. What you look for is a race that has 2 superior horses in the race. Looking at the M/L you may spot a race where these two horses have ,say, an M/L= 6/5 and 8/5 respectively. You also notice that the other horses have M/L at 3/1 and higher. Usually these races are allowance or stakes races where the quality of the horses is superior. You can further go to the Daily Racing Form (DRF) online or the printed version and see who these two horses are and look at their past performances (PP) compared with the rest of the horses in the race.

As you watch the tote board and record the odds you want to see if these two horses continue to be the two favorites up to 2 minutes before post time. Now here is a favorite trifecta bet that I have won hundreds of times over the years. Let's assume that there are 10 horses in the race and that 3 and 8 are the heavy favorites. The trifecta bet would be placed as follows: 3,8/ALL/3,8 (and 3,8/3,8/ALL as a hedge).

Let me explain this bet. Over the years I have found that there is a high probably that either 3 or 8 will win. Further it is likely that these two horses will duel for the lead around the track with one of the two winning out in the last quarter or eighth of a mile to the finish line. There is also a good probably that the second horse will weaken toward the end and one of the longer shots will come on to place second. To discover whether this pattern is true, I suggest you test this out a few times before you ever bet it. See for yourself.

As a hedge bet you can use 3,8/3,8/ALL in case the second horse doesn't tire out and stays with the winner to take second.

More Profits by Eliminating Bad Bets

2008-02-14T16:27:00.000-08:00

What is a bad bet? It is a bet that you have no idea of the chances for winning it. Why would someone want to make such a bet? When a horseplayer goes to the track there is the strong tendency to bet on every race just because you are there. It is just plain difficult to not bet every race. The emotion of it all is just too consuming. Many bets are made on pure emotion. These are bad bets.

There is a case for betting over the internet. When you go to the track you have the tendency to bet on all your local track races. You may also bet on a simulcast track or two. This leaves a lot of room for placing bad bets. However, when you bet over the internet you can remove most of the emotion associated with being at the track. You can look for and pick and chose the races that have a high probability of winning. Leave most of the races alone. Just don't bet them. Bet just those races that you have the edge in. I am planning a future article where I will chose
races from many tracks and I'll explain why I chose each race. This approach will allow you to remove the emotion from your betting and allow you to control the amount you bet.

In a previous article, "A Day at the Track using Tote Analysis", I explained why I did not bet 3 of the 9 races on the card that day. If you are using tote analysis it is a good way to prevent bad bets.

It takes courage not to place a bet on a race. Every bad bet you eliminate is money you keep in your bankroll. Your return on investment (ROI) can be much higher at the end of the day. The difference between a winning day and a losing one may be the bad bets you have eliminated.

A Starting Point for Betting Simulcast Tracks

2008-02-10T09:22:00.000-08:00

Several years ago I set up a web page for myself that would allow me to go to the resources that I needed to get ready for a day of racing. It became popular by word of mouth to others, especially those horseplayers at Remington Park my home track, who also started using it. That web page has had over 125,000 hits in the last several years and is reached at
http://www.geocities.com/wm_kyran/handicap2

There is a selection bar on this page that includes the following: Race Tracks/E-ponies/Equibase/Handicapping/Twinspires/Brisnet/TVG/Racing Channel/Daily Racing Form
A click on "Race Tracks" takes you toUSA Horse RacingTracks - Listed by State.
http://www.officialusa.com/stateguides/horseracingtracks/index.html

A click on E-ponies takes you to Computer-based handicapping - the best source for free picks
http://www.e-ponies.com/

Official source for thoroughbred racing information
http://www.equibase.com/

To listen to daily free audio selections/ race of the day free selection
http://www.trackmaster.com/

A Churchill Downs Corp. Wagering Site
http://www.twinspires.com/content/

Bloodstock Research Information Services
http://www.brisnet.com/

TVG Interactive Horseracing
http://www.tvg.com/

Provides Toteboards for Thoroughbreds, Harness Racing, and Greyhounds
http://www.racingchannel.com/

America's Turf Authority Since 1894
http://www.drf.com/

I have found that the favorite link used by many horseplayers is the E-ponies link with the free computer-based handicapping free picks. I have done some studies on the E-ponies picks and can offer some advice. Just picking the top choice in each race is a losing proposition over the long run. Choosing the top three choices will get you close to making some money in the long run. The best advice is to use some handicapping tools along with the E-ponies free picks. I like Brisnet's Ultimate PP's.

Enjoy and good luck.

Exacta Betting using Tote Analysis

2008-02-01T07:39:00.000-08:00

In a previous blog article, "A Day at the Track Using Tote Analysis", I chose Gulfstream on January 24, 2008. In that article I kept it simple and only used win bets. Let's look at how you would have done if you did exacta betting on the same races that day. The tote analysis for the first three races are found at
http://www.geocities.com/wm_kyran/BillsBlog/GulfstreamJan24Races123.jpg .

In race 1 we do not bet since our analysis showed that any horse in the race could likely
win.

In race 2 the morning line favorite at 9/5 as well as the profit Line favorite at 9/5 was going to also be the tote pick. The exacta bet here was to bet the 3 horse (on top in the win position) along with the rest of the horses in the place position. The bet then is written 3/ALL. As a hedge, in case another horse beats the 3, we place the bet ALL/3. [In summary then the bet is 3/ALL and ALL/3.] The cost of this bet (assuming a $1 exacta bet) is $5 + $5 or $10. The result of this race was that the #1 horse beat out the #3 horse who placed. We won the bet with the hedge part of the bet. 1 - 3 was the finish order. The $1 exacta paid $15.60. A net gain of (15.60 - 10.00) $5.60.

I wrote in an earlier blog article, "One of My Favorite Trifecta Bets", that I liked this bet when the conditions were right. The conditions were right in this race. The tote analysis showed at the 3m mark that the #3 horse was at even odds (1/1) and the #4 horse was at 2/1. These two horses were solid favorites in the race. The trifecta bet then was 3,4/3,4/ALL. The race finished with 3-4-7. The $1 trifecta paid $13.20 and cost $10. This gave us a net gain of $3.20. The $1 exacta box of the two favorites paid $4.50 and cost $2.00, a net gain of $2.50.

[Tote analysis for races 4 and 5:
http://www.geocities.com/wm_kyran/BillsBlog/GulfstreamJan24Races4and5.jpg ]

The 4th race had four scratched horses. We don't pay as much attention to the M/L and P/L favorite with all these scratches. This is the kind of race where we pay attention to the tote analysis and where the money is coming into the betting. It can really pay off. At the 3m mark #1 had gone from (M/L) 9/5 down to 6/5. #2 went from 6 down to 7/2. #7 went from 9 down to 7/2. #10 went from 12 down to 7/2. I did a quick calculation in my head. Tote divided by M/L. For the 10 horse this was about .3 and anything below .3333 I like. The exacta bet here is to use all 4 of these horses in an exacta box (1,2,7,10). The race result was 10 - 7. A nice $1 exacta payoff of $27.00. The net gain was ($27.00 - $12) $15.00.

Race #5 had 3 scratches: 5, 8 and 10. Again we can ignore the M/L and P/L and concentrate on the toteboard. At the 3m mark no horse seemed to be taking a lot of money. I decided not to bet this race.

[Tote analysis for races 6 and 7:
http://www.geocities.com/wm_kyran/BillsBlog/GulfstreamJan24Races6and7.jpg ]

On to race #6. Again 5 scratches this time including the favorite, the #6 horse. Among the six remaining horses the #1 horse was the tote pick. The exacta bet here was 1/ALL and ALL/1. 2B came on to beat 1 with an exacta payoff of $16.90 and a cost of ($5 + $5) $10.00. The net gain was $6.90.

In race #7 the #4 horse was a very strong pick. The exacta bet was 4/ALL and ALL/4. The result was 4 - 6 for a nice exacta payoff of $34.30. The cost was $18.00. A very nice net gain of $16.30.

[Tote analysis for races 8 and 9:
http://www.geocities.com/wm_kyran/BillsBlog/GulfstreamJan24Races8and9.jpg ]

The quality race of the day, race #8, had a late scratch of the #1 horse. The tote and P/L pick was the #3 horse. John Velazquez, Gulfstreams leading rider brought the horse in for the win. The exacta bet was with the two favorites, 3 and 7 both at 8/5 odds at the 3m mark, 3,7/ALL. The $1 exacta paid $18.60. The cost was $14.00 so the net gain was $4.60.

Race #9 had 1 scratched horse and ended up with 12 horses in the race. The tote analysis was in conclusive and didn't show much so I didn't bet this race.

The total net gain for the exacta betting for the afternoon was ($5.60 + $3.20 + $15 + $6.90 + $16.30 + $4.60) $45.60. Not bad for $1 betting.

Note that the net gain for win betting was $15.80. Which type bet do you like?

'til the next article. Good luck and enjoy yourself.

A Day at the Track Using Tote Analysis

2008-01-25T14:24:00.000-08:00

Yesterday (Thursday, January 24th) I went to my local track (Remington Park) and chose Gulfstream as the track to play for the day. I went for the purpose of writing this article for my blog and to give you some insight into toteboard analysis.

Before I went to the track I did some preparatory work in my notebook and wrote down the morning line (M/L) and Profit Line (P/L) for each horse in each race. After getting to the track I located a good seat where I could watch the toteboard and record the odds as they came up. Basically from the 20 minute (20m) mark to the 5 minute (5m) mark I recorded the odds on each horse at 5 minute intervals. This is simple enough to do provided you don't get distracted. At the 3 minute mark I would go to the betting machine (there are lots of them at the track) and place my bet. For instructional purposes I kept everything very simple. I would only make $2 win bets on any race. (I'm usually a bit more agressive than that.) In later articles I will demonstrate other kinds of bets, but not today.

Here is how things went for the day along with my thinking as we went from race to race. I have scanned my hand notes and furnish them for you so you can see what (I recorded and) what I was looking at before the race started.

[Tote analysis for races 1,2,and 3:
http://www.geocities.com/wm_kyran/BillsBlog/GulfstreamJan24Races123.jpg ]

Race #1 was scheduled to go off at 1:15 Eastern time. At 12:45 I was ready to start recording. I started noting that at the 20m mark that the #2 horse and the #5 horse odds both got competitive with the rest of the horses all between 2/1 and 5/1. This pattern remained about the same right down to the 5m mark. I concluded that it appeared that any of the 5 horses could win. I decided to not bet (NB) this race. (There were 8 more races to go and with plenty of opportunities to choose from.)

Race # 2 was scheduled at 1:44. There were 6 entries in race 2. As I recorded at each 5m interval I could see that the number 3 horse (the morning line favorite at 9/5 as well as the Profit Line favorite at 9/5) was going to also be the tote pick. I bet $2 to win on the #3 horse. The result was that #3 came in to place. I lost this one. There's an old saying at the track "you can't win them all, but you can lose them all".

On to race #3. 7 horses in this race. After getting down to the 3m mark it is obvious that the M/L, P/L and tote pick point to the #3 horse. Glancing at the program I noticed that Elvis Truillo was riding #3. (He's one of the leading riders in Florida.) It looked like a solid bet. #3 did win and paid $4.20.

[Tote analysis for races 4 and 5:
http://www.geocities.com/wm_kyran/BillsBlog/GulfstreamJan24Races4and5.jpg ]

Race #4 has 10 horses. However, 4 horses were scratched. (4,5,8,9). We now had a 6 horse race. With so many scratches the race changes with the M/L and P/L having little significance any longer. As I began recording the odds I began to focus on 4 horses: 1,2,7,and 10. Why? Because at the 3m mark #1 had gone from (M/L) 9/5 down to 6/5. #2 went from 6 down to 7/2. #7 went from 9 down to 7/2. #10 went from 12 down to 7/2. I did a quick calculation in my head. Tote divided by M/L. For the 10 horse this was about .3 and anything below .3333 I like. The #10 horse at the 5m mark was taking a lot of money. I bet the 10 horse to win. The horse won and paid a handsome $15.

Race #5 had 3 scratches: 5, 8 and 10. Again we can ignore the M/L and P/L and concentrate on the toteboard. At the 3m mark no horse seemed to be taking a lot of money. It was too inconclusive. I decided not to bet this race.

[Tote analysis for races 6 and 7:
http://www.geocities.com/wm_kyran/BillsBlog/GulfstreamJan24Races6and7.jpg ]

On to race #6. Again 5 scratches this time including the favorite, the #6 horse. Among the six remaining horses the #1 horse was the tote pick. I bet the #1 horse. 2b beat the 1 horse and I lost this one.

In race #7 the #4 horse was a very strong pick. The horse won and paid $3.40.

[Tote analysis for races 8 and 9:
http://www.geocities.com/wm_kyran/BillsBlog/GulfstreamJan24Races8and9.jpg ]

The quality race of the day, race #8, had a late scratch of the #1 horse. The tote and P/L pick was the #3 horse. John Velazquez, Gulfstream's leading rider brought the horse in to win. #3 paid $5.20 to win.

Race #9 had 1 scratched horse and ended up with 12 horses in the race. The tote analysis was inconclusive and didn't show much, so I didn't bet this race.

For the afternoon $12 was bet and $27.80 was won for a net return of $15.80 for the afternoon.

You can see a table of the results at
http://www.geocities.com/wm_kyran/BillsBlog/GulfstreamJan24Results.jpg

Where do I find horse statistics and handicapping information?

2008-01-15T12:43:00.000-08:00

Fortunately there is a wonderful web site that provides this information. That web site is http://Equibase.com. There is so much on the site that I will just give you a sampling of what you can find.

I have been using Equibase for years to keep track of my favorite jockeys, trainers and horses. Every day I look in the section called "Who's in Today". This is where you can find your favorites. You can look for today, tommorrow, the next day, and by track. If you are betting online this allows you to home in on horses that you like and what race they will be in for that day.

Another feature is the "North American Racing Leaders". Here you can keep track of the top horses, jockeys, owners and trainers. They are listed by 'Leaders By Track', 'International Races', 'Top 100' and 'Top 10 All Time'. In addition they have Free and 'Pay For' products. These include: Race Entries, Race Programs, Expert Selections, Thoro-Graph Form Ratings, TrackMaster FlashNet, Daily Racing Form, Results, as well as Video Race Replays. As you can see you can get as sophisticated as you wish and are willing to spend.

Lastly, let me point out another feature especially for beginners. This is the 'FREE selection of the Day'.

If you are unaware of this site I think you will soon find it extremely useful and informative. Check it out.

A Days Analysis at the Track

2008-01-10T11:50:00.000-08:00

So many times a horseplayer goes to the track and at the end of the day he only knows he has less money in his pocket than what he went with. He doesn't really keep track of what happened that day. It may be just a blurr in his mind. I'm going to go through a little exercise that can give some control and insight into your betting.

I've started as simple as possible with just the win bet. I'll also pick a track and the complete card (all the races) for the day. I'll also choose the M/L (morning line) favorite for my pick in each race. (This is to keep things simple.) First, there is no way to tell which races that the M/L favorite will win so we must bet the M/L favorite in each race. Again, just for simplicity let's just assume we place a $2 to win bet on the M/L favorite in each race.

I have arbitarily picked Turfway Park on the 9th of January to analyze. Here is the analysis at the end of the day. Click here:
http://www.geocities.com/wm_kyran/BillsBlog/TurfwayWedJan9MLpicks.jpg
Note that the cost of our bets was $18 (that's $2 X 9 races). Note that the M/L favorite won in races 1, 4, and 8. Our winnings were $15.40. So we lost $2.60 for the day with this strategy.

As an alternative to the M/L I have also done an analysis using the P/L (Profit Line) that is available to you with a Twinspires account (http://twinspires.com/). Click on http://www.geocities.com/wm_kyran/BillsBlog/TurfwayWedJan9PLpicks.jpg
to see what the P/L picks were for the same day. Note that the P/L pick won in races 1,2,4 and 6. Again note that the cost of betting the P/L pick in each race is $18. However, the winnings amounted to $25 so the net winnings for the day was $7.

What does this analysis tell us? First, we know where we stand at the end of the day. Secondly we are adding some discipline to our betting strategy. We also gain some insight into the lack of rewards of going with the M/L favorite all the time. I also picked a slight variation with the P/L picks to show how sensitive your betting can be. It may be the difference between winning and losing for the day. This should in no way convince you that the P/L will always produce better results. (This would need to be tested over a long period of time. I've been working on this.) However, it does show the sensitivity of outcomes depending on how you bet. This is what I am trying to illustrate here. I am also trying to show you how to raise your level of awareness in your own betting.

May luck always be with you 'til next time.

Where to Find Free Picks

2008-01-05T09:21:00.000-08:00

One of the questions I am asked the most is: Where do I find free picks on the internet?Indeed an interesting question. Right now (01/05/08) there are a number of tracks having live racing. Some of the most popular tracks are: Calder, Santa Anita, Fairgrounds, Aqueduct, Turfway, Laurel, and Hawthorne.

One of the first places to look is Eponies at http://www.e-ponies.com/racingpicks.htm . There are free picks at Eponies for all the tracks except the Fairgrounds. If you want free picks at the Fairgrounds you can go to the Fairgrounds web site ( http://www.fairgroundsracecourse.com/ ) and Jessica Pacheco has free picks for you.

A second place to look is at the web site for the track you're interested in. For example, if you go to Calder ( http://www.calderracecourse.com/ ) under "Racing information/Handicapping" you will find free picks by Ron Nicoletti, an excellent handicapper with a 34% win percentage. He is dynamite with all Florida tracks.

At Santa Anita ( http://www.santaanita.com/ ) select Racing Information/Handicapping. You have your choice of "House Handicap" or "DRF Handicap".

At Aqueduct, http://www.drf.com/nyra/nyra.html , there is Dave Litfin's Race Analysis.

Here are the links to Turfway, Laurel, and Hawthorne:(Hint: look under "Racing Information/ Handicapping".)

Turfway http://www.turfway.com/

Laurel http://www.laurelpark.com/

Hawthorne http://www.hawthorneracecourse.com/

Free picks are just fine but remember to do some handicapping on your own. Nothing is "free" if you lose the bet. Free picks should be just your starting point. (Money management hint: keep bad bets to a minimum.)

Good luck and have fun.

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

2007-12-20T12:53:00.000-08:00

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.

Stay on top of Your Handicapping Information

2007-12-18T08:32:00.000-08:00

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!

Exotic Bets: The Exotic Wager Calculator

2007-12-13T09:01:00.000-08:00

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.

Exotic Bets: The 10 Cent Superfecta

2007-12-10T05:35:00.000-08:00

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/ .

Tote Picks

2007-12-05T08:17:00.000-08:00

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.

Can I play the horses over the internet?

2007-11-29T13:40:00.000-08:00

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.

Focus on top trainers: Todd Pletcher

2007-11-23T07:15:00.000-08:00

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.