Mark Cramer
C & X Report

C&X 24

CONTENTS
Editorial: Home and Away
Picking Winners and Making Money
RESEARCH: More on the Informed Minority
Review of Bain and Sweeney CDs
The Magic Box
Longshot Handicapping Primer
Bias in France: an amazing story
Just Go Away, by Nick Kling
On Burnout
C&X CAFE: Rectification (More on the takeout). Bob’s note from Laurel. Ron’s system of a lifetime.

HOME AND AWAY:
EDITORIAL ON MAXIMIZING BETTING PERFORMANCE
An editorial is usually a platform for pontificating, but I’ll lower the bar and use this spot to raise some tough questions. This is the type of subject where reader participation could provide us with a few answers.
For years now I have been intrigued by the complexities of decision making. I know many highly proficient handicappers who lose money and I know a few mediocre handicappers who make money. Decision making is just as much a part of our complex game as handicapping.
The classic scenario is the player who spends 95 percent of the time analyzing the past performances and then less than 5 percent making his betting decisions. The result is a series of repeated mental errors in the betting part of the game. Such tribulations are compounded with the bizantine menu of multi-card simulcasting.
We’re not going to solve all decision-making dilemmas in one editorial, and regular readers are aware that this is an ongoing subject in these pages. What we can do is raise a very specific issue and seek your responses, stipulating that the handicapper should dedicate just as much time and effort to decision making as to handicapping, and ideally blend the two.
The question we now raise is how does betting from home affect the player’s decision making? I know the answer in my own case, and I’ll share it with you, but the evidence I provide is anecdotal and may or may not apply to most of you.
By far my best betting decisions are made on my feet, as if the expression “thinking on one’s feet” were literal on not a metaphor. I pace here and there, like a Jesuit student, moving from the rail across the apron to various spots where I feel positive energy. At the OTB I’ll often leave the establishment and go out to the street, away from the craziness. On my best days I achieve brief moments of intense meditation, in which only the dynamics of the race are in my mind, in which I forget about family, friends and even self. It’s a kind of transcendance that Buddha never considered. These are the moments when I discover that one particular contender can be reasonably thrown out of the ticket, or that a bizarre longshot has the right to be included. These are the moments when I suddenly realize that a win bet makes sense, even if I’ve been concentrating on exotics, or the other way around. These are also moments when I sometimes come to the realization that I know nothing special about the race and shoud definitely pass it and go on to another. (Passing an impossible race is equivalent to a victory.)
I rarely have a similar peak experience at my desk in front of my computer. Sure, I can walk to the kitchen, stand by the window, or step outside my door, but it just isn’t the same as being there where it’s all happening. Seeing a real horse makes a difference, and even smelling the horses sends a message that this is not a deterministic game, that it’s a game of probabilities involving flesh and blood.
No matter how much I am aware of it, I tend to be a lazy thinker in my own den. An easy chair is a place where my brain is soft and fragile and only my ass has found a profound position.
This is an issue to be reckoned with since betting from home is the increasing trend. While race track stock struggles to grow in the equities markets, on-line betting businesses thrive. Ultimately, each one of us will have to decide whether there is a way to make betting from home as fine and precise as being at the track, or at least hanging out at an OTB.
The example I like to give is the cinema. Ask yourself whether a video you watch from your livingroom gets you as deeply involved as watching a film at a movie theatre. The question is: do you notice a difference. For some of you, this could be a non-issue. But I suspect that for most, it may make a difference. Some of you may actually be better off placing bets from the comfort of your own home than doing it at the race track.
If just two or three readers realize by way of this editorial that they are underperforming from their den and need to find a better setting to decide their bets, then it will have been worth it. In your mind, go over your best betting decisions and jot down where you were at the time of the decision. A pattern may develop. You may be surprised. A wealth of literature on the psychology of decision making tells me I’m asking the right question.
Let’s here from you.

PICKING WINNERS AND MAKING MONEY
You could say that this C&X issue is unified thematically by the common thread of decision making. The story we’re about to tell illustrates just how far apart are the concepts of picking winners and making money, with the first depending on handicapping and the second on decision making.
The Albany Times-Union covers the Saratoga meet as no other newspaper would cover a local meet, including front page articles on big races and feature articles on life at the track. Everyone residing in the Capital District knows about racing. The Saratoga meet extends far beyond hard-core players and is part of the culture of the region.
This same newspaper provides the excellent service of five highly proficient public handicappers, whose daily selections are useful for players like you and me.
All five, including a woman, have achieved a record of more than 30 percent winners on top, which is quite admirable considering that they must have their selections in before scratches and weather changes, and must make a selection for each and every race regardless of whether they love or hate the race.
With five days left in the meet, two gentlemen among them (names not necessary because we are talking about an idea and not about personalities) had achieved 34% and 32% winners respectively.
These two public handicappers were also given a mythical $1,000 bankroll for the whole meeting. At the point where I had obtained their Times-Union column, here were their results:
Handicapper A. 34% winners on top. Bankroll down to $472.75 from the original $1,000.
Handicapper B. 32% winners on top. Bankroll down to $599.05 from the original $1,000.
There are two possible lessons from these stats.
First, picking winners does not necessarily correlate with making money. Their picks were as successful as it gets. But their published betting decisions yielded the opposite result. These betting decisions, including both exotics and straight bets, got no leverage from their admirable pick percentages, and on the contrary, ended up with a loss that may have been worse than totally random wagering. But the first lesson (that decision making is just as crucial to winning as handicapping) is incomplete without a second lesson.
The second lesson may be that betting decisions were made in the comfort of their homes or offices and not at the scene of the action. The constraints of newspaper deadlines required such decisions to be in print prior to the actual race day. I’m reasonably confident that both of these sharp handicappers have had much more success in person at the betting windows than they performed in front of their computer screen when sending in their plays to the newspaper.
Back to the subject of picking winners, I’ve found that my own return on investment is higher when I’m picking about 22 percent winners than when I’m picking 33 percent. During my 22 percent periods, I’m taking more educated risks with higher odds horses. During my 33 percent periods, I’m more conservative in my handicapping.
In fact, I would venture to say that forcing a player to pick the most likely winner for each race and to publish those picks might have a negative effect on that player’s decision making, by having forced him to think conservatively.
I can think of a few rare moments when I loved a horse days or even weeks before a race and then dove in. But in the ultimate tally, the best decisions for most public handicappers come in the heat of the action.

MORE ON THE INFORMED MINORITY:
C&X RESEARCH FOLLOW-UP
I’ve become intrigued with the layout and format of the pocket-sized Sports Eye version of the past performances, called the Daily Racing Program and published by Equibase. One of the features is the four-public-handicapper display that is inserted just above the pps for each race, so that the player does not have to flip back to the first page.
This format provides us with laboratory conditions for researching a variation of the “Informed Minority”. Regular readers are already aware that the Informed Minority means that one single handicapper picks a horse on top when no one else picks that horse. Usually we need at least seven handicappers in the grid for this to function. With fewer than seven, we need a lone-handicapper pick on top with no one else picking that horse anywhere in the money.
There are only four handicappers listed in the Equibase racing program. However, they give their top four picks for each race. For this research, I only used a horse if:
(1) one single handicapper had him on top; and
(2) none of the other three had this horse mentioned in their top four.
I used all the tracks from this program for Saturday 3 September, beginning with Arlington, where Dennis, Harry, Larry and Rocky were the featured public pickers. The logic applied is that if one guy thinks enough of a horse to put it on top, then you’d expect that at least one of the remaining three handicappers would have this same horse somewhere among their top four. In all the tallied cases, no one else even mentioned the lone pick.
Saratoga
Race 1, Larry picked Stormy Forest. Off the board.
Race 2, Steve had Kelly K’s Pleasure on top. Off the board.
Race 5, Mike had Busters Rodeo. Off the board.
Race 9, Steve had Unbridled Behavior. Off the board.
Race 10, Rocky had Yankee Mon. Out of the money.
Arlington
Race 2, Larry picked Gumba. Gumba won and paid 37.80.
Race 3, Rocky picked Nombre De Dios. Nombre de Dios was out of the money.
Race 10, Larry picked Real Easy. Real Easy was off the board.
Del Mar
Race 3, Rocky picked Common Trust. Common Trust won and paid 12.80.
Race 6, Dennis had Ibetwin which was off the board.
Race 10, Larry had Shades Of Dixie which was third at big odds.
Delaware
Race 5, Harry had Devil’s Case who ran out.
Race 5, Larry had Mr. Got Rocks who was third.
Race 6, Rocky had Girl’s Best Friend, third.
Race 8, Rocky had Delta Street, who ran out.
Finger Lakes
Race 2, Harry had Blarney Stream, off the board.
Race 2, Mike had Greek Temper, who ran out.
Race 2, Rocky had the big longshot Adirondack Counsel, finishing second.
Race 7, Harry had Finn Cantwinatgin, who ran out.
Race 7, Mike had Wild Eye Bill, second at big odds, with the odds-on favorite winning.
Bay Meadows
Race 5, Harry picked Light Duty on top. Light Duty won, paying 21.80.
Race 6, Rocky had Barbecue Bob on top, who won and paid 7.00.
Race 8, Dennis picked Bartok’s Blithe, who was out.
Race 8, Rocky picked Crozet, off the board.
Monmouth
Race 3, Dennis picked Reckless Miss on top. Off the board.
Race 4, Dennis picked Better Than Ever who won and paid 7.20.
Race 4, Rocky had Avie’s Delight, second, triggering a 42.80 exacta with Dennis’s pick.
Race 10, Rocky picked Four O Won, who finished third at generous odds.
Ellis
Race 4, Larry picked Hobert, who was off the board.
Race 10, Larry took Ponte Vedra, who was also off the board.
Calder
Race 5, Larry picked Dancingonthegreen, off the board.
Race 8, Rocky chose Famous Frolic, who finished out.
Race 9, Larry had Success Affirmed, who failed to confirm.
Race 13, Larry picked Eurocharmer, who was out of the money.
Philadelphia
Race 8, Juris chose Unfundisi, an unfounded choice who ran out.
Race 8, Rocky picked Irish Warning who ran out.
TOTAL WAGERS: 36; WINNERS: 5 (14 percent)
INVESTMENT: 72.00 (based on 2.00 research bets)
RETURN: 86.60 (14 percent positive return on investment, rounded off)
There were five races with two lone picks. Boxing those two for an investment of $4 each race times 5 ($20) led to one winning exacta (20 percent hit rate), with a $42.80 return (above 100 percent r.o.i.).
Analysis
Once more we have a small sample. However, it’s yet another validation of previous samples, including those published in C&X that were taken from both Breeders’ Cups and Claiming Crowns.
Subsets from this sample would be too small to be significant. However, item analysis points to some possible ways to refine the method. For example, the larger the field, the more likely that there will be informed minority choices, because of the sheer number of horses that must be picked from. The smaller the field, the more authentic is the “minority” voice. The largest payoff came from a six horse field and returned $37.80. You can imagine that with only six horses in the field and four handicappers each picking four horses for the race, it would be more difficult for a top choice of one of the four to be completely left out from the top four of the others. This makes Larry’s pick of Gumba all the more minority in its conception.
In last year’s Breeders’ Cup, the informed minority underperformed in the win hole, with numerous high-priced in-the-money horses, but historically it has yielded a profit. With so many DRF pickers for this event, we only need to see the single handicapper picking a horse for win, even if others pick it in the money. I project that the informed minority bet could bounce back to its historic profit level for this year’s BC.
If you decide to do research on your own, the key is to find a handicapper grid of highly proficient handicappers. If you get too many plays on any card, then the mix of handicappers may not be right. A traditional handicapper who picks lots of chalk will not at all impoverish this method, for that handicapper’s lack of vision will never lead us to a bad bet, since he will be picking the same horses as others and will end up with no informed-minority picks.
The informed minority is a way to pick the best part of the brains of superior handicappers. You get the Beyers and Frees when they make an extraordinary discovery but you don’t back them when they lack vision and go with the chalk. In essence, you are taking a good brain and rejecting its findings when it functions in an ordinary way but accepting its discoveries when it functions in an extraordinary way.
In theory this should be a great system. In practice we have enough positive-ROI samples to be tantalized.

REVIEW: CD-ROMS / VIDEOS
How to Profitably Construct Wagers by Susan Sweeney and Automatics by Ed Bain.
I entered into this task with a dilemma. I am a great admirer of Ed Bain and Susan Sweeney, and I consider them friends as well. I felt like a judge who should be removed from a case.
Then there was another dilemma. I have long argued against “talking head” video products, assuming that you could put the same in writing. I was skeptical from the get-go as to whether Ed and Susan could make it work, even knowing that they are winning players. The price of $88.88 for each one was another hurdle I’d have to get over.
I decided that assume the role of a smart-ass player and watch these videos from the point of view of what-do-you-got-to-tell-me-that’s-new?
Though both videos cannot be termed as technological breakthroughs, I was extremely excited by the content. Ed’s video is clearly aimed at beginners. He defines things that regular readers of the DRF would consider elementary. But then we see his purpose. He is extracting from the millions of possible information combinations within the pps, the few relevant factors for his anti-handicapping approach (what we refer to as “thin slicing” in a separate article in this issue). If anyone has ever been troubled by dealing with the information-overload headache, Ed’s achievement at reducing things to their essentials is masterful, and for many of us, it would do well to go back and begin at the beginning, purging ourselves of bad habits and misconceptions. There are a few surprises. I learned that several high-profile trainers like Baffert, Pletcher and Frankel, whom I’d always assumed were unbettable, can be invested in when they conform to Ed’s 4-win minimum stat with a 30 percent minimum win percentage. Ed divides his stats by sprint and route, but especially by first, second, third and fourth after a layoff, first, second, third, and fourth after a claim, and a similar approach for debut horses.
With this approach, Ed has latched on to the phenomenon of contemporary racing: that fresh horses outperform stale ones in an era of year-round racing.
What differentiates these two videos from talking heads is the focusing upon statistics. Be prepared to do some reading here and not just listening. When seen together, these two products illustrate what Ed and Susan have in common (using statistics that are considered “secondary factors” by most handicapping gurus) and what they do not have in common (Ed’s a straight win bettor and Susan plays exotics).
Ed’s steely discipline is highlighted by his insistence that once you have a positive stat, you have to play it all the time, through both winning and losing streaks. In this sense, Ed’s video is of special value for those players who always seem to be zigging when they should be zagging. Ed is all about discipline. Do not expect to find any theatrics in his video. He just wants to get the job done. Included with the video is a worthy 5-page booklet with the same title, which lists the highest performing trainer stats at numerous race tracks. These include win and in-the-money stats as well as average win mutuel and return on investment. This booklet will be of value to the most advanced of players.
Ed’s successful approach is essentially technocratic while Susan’s is gymnastic. In Ed’s case, decision making is easy. Bet the stat to win.
Susan’s may be one of the first ever approaches that totally integrates handicapping and decision-making, and this is a major achievement. Another radical departure form handicapping as we know it is Susan’s vision of handicapping equally for the win, place and show positions, which gives her a decided edge in exotics. The essentrial focus is to search for horses that have a 60 percent in-the-money record for today’s track and distance, and with a 7/2 morning line or higher.
She takes the viewer step by step through her exotics decisions, including winning and losing races (the professional way to do it!) and I believe that her unique way of constructing tickets for both single-race and serial exotics is a true innovation. The screen focuses in on each stat, and you scan the numbers exactly as Susan does.
After finishing with the first view of her stats for each race, she shows us how to incorporate other factors, including Ed’s 4-plus-30 trainer stats, and angles like common trainer-owner and reclaim.
Susan does not speak like a performing artist but her mind functions like one, and her thinking is pristine. She is a gifted player who knows how to extract what is essential from the information overload of the past performances. All great artists must find a structure for their creativity and Susan’s betting structure is neatly explained.
Both Ed and Susan are proponents of using what the handicapping establishment labels “secondary factors”. It makes sense in any competitive investment scenario that the more popular facts will return less than the ones that are considered secondary by the public. Susan’s maximum use of the minimalist performance box is nothing short of magical.
Both Susan and Ed have learned that in an age of information explosion, knowing how to zoom in on the “focused few” pieces of information will set a player apart from the confused crowd.
For more on Susan Sweeney and Ed Bain, check out their website: www.edbain.com

THE MAGIC BOX:
A DAY AND NIGHT AT SARATOGA
When you read this story, you may decide that this issue of C&X should be called the Susan Sweeney issue. I am going to walk you through a race in which I put into practice what I adapted from the Sweeney video, though I must also say that it also relates to the short-form method published in C&X and in some ways can be seen as deriving from James Quinn’s The Handicapper’s Condition Book.
Quinn is a comprehensive player who was the first to write about lightly-raced horses having an edge over proven losers. That writing became one of the fundamentals in my short-form methodology.
The story begins with my nearly annual visit to Saratoga. This year’s horseplaying component of the visit was curtailed by the fact that I have a wonderful 93-year-old aunt in the Saratoga region who had suffered a stroke. This tough woman was fighting back and still holding on to the independence of her existence. Normally when I visit her, I go racing every day, at the track or the Albany OTB theatre. But this time, because of her condition, I planned for only one day at the races, followed up by an evening at the Saratoga harness races.
The day I chose was the wrong one, according to Dave Litfin, whom I met in the pressbox. It had rained heavily and the track was washed out.
Never a good off-track handicapper, I did my best. Since it was my only day, and was essentially recreational, I played nearly every race, a very uncramerian practice.
The Backwheel
Long before I’d met Ed and Susan, I had written about the backwheel. I had noted that in some races, it’s easier to find a place finisher than the winner. With the win wide open, it is possible to catch a significant exacta payout by nailing down the second place finisher and using him in a backwheel or partial backwheel.
Thanks to Susan’s video, my consciousness was centered around picking all positions and not just the win. As Litfin warned, it was a horrendous day for the handicapper and it could have spelled disaster. But I got out unscathed thanks to two partial backwheels.
The track had been sealed and early speed projected to be the prevailing factor. In the fourth race (the first two steeplechase events had been canceled because of the foul weather), I found nothing I could bet on top with confidence. However, the big favorite, Steve Asmussen’s Last Romance, looked vulnerable at 4/5. In his one and only race, he’d come from tenth place, fourteen lengths behind, to finish fourth by 3. He had been claimed out of that race and now had Jerry Bailey aboard. At the moment, Asmussen was 10 for 29 during the Saratoga meet. Only one other horse in the field had a previous race. All the others were firsters.
Last Romance raced without mud caulks and figured to be chasing, with the sealed track not favoring the closers. It was a classic backwheel situation. You have the best horse with the wrong running style. I played exactas with Last Romance under the three horses that were using mud caulks. One of them won. No big price but a stabilizing 6-1 payoff.
In the Eighth Race I found another backwheel candidate: the 14 horse Shady Lane. It was an off-the-turf event and Shady Lane got in off the alsos as Entered for Main Track Only. Her lifetime performance box showed 9 2-4-0, with one place in one try at Saratoga. Her only off-the-turf race was a second-place finish. Sealing the place notion was the fact that Shady Lane’s four place finishes had sometimes been as a front runner and other times as a closer, indicating that the confusing pace configuration of this race did not affect her chances to finish second. I used her under four horses. Unfortunately for me, the one that did win the race happened to be the favorite. But I collected the exacta and left the track with the same amount of money that I had come with.
In this case, the backwheel was not a money maker but it did serve a vital purpose: to get me out on a day where none of my favorite betting propositions had been available.
From the flats, Stan Gutkowski and I walked over to the harness track, where we’d left the car. I decided to concentrate on the two tracks displayed in the harness program: Saratoga live and Northfield simulcasted. The bad racing scenario of the afternoon was compounded by the fact that none of my favorite mile harness tracks was being simulcast.
I scanned the pps for a Susan Sweeney type race and found one at Saratoga and the other at Northfield. Admittedly I was using a variation from Susan’s method without sticking strictly to her required percentages, in the spirit of the law, a combination of her performance box method and my short form method.
The Performance Box System
This hybrid method works equally well at harness races and at the Tbreds in the lower claiming ranks. You are looking for a field where most of the horses are proven losers and have either zero or one win for the year in many starts. You want to lean heavily on the one or two horses that are multiple winners.
A “system” is something that pops out from the page, something that simplifies the handicapping process. This method is nearly a system but does require some judgmental application from the handicapper. Let’s look at the 2005 performance boxes of the eight starters in Race 8.
Horse 1. 15 0-1-1 (toss)
Horse 2. 22 1-5-2
Horse 3. 13 1-1-4 (this was the favorite)
Horse 4. 18 2-1-4 (a legit multiple winner; was 8 2-2-0 in 2004)
Horse 5. 9 0-1-1 (toss)
Horse 6. 24 2-3-7 (I decided to judgmentally eliminate this horse. The 2-for-24 was equivalent to 1-for-11, and going back, it was 2 for 26 lifetime: not really a win type. The only good races for this horse came from two-turn mile tracks. Tonight he was going on a four-turn half-mile track.)
Horse 7. 9 0-2-1 (toss)
Horse 8. 11 3-0-0 (this was the other legit multiple winner, and clearly a win type, since he did not place or show)
The eight horse was also an overachiever, having won races at 8-1 and 9-1.
Thus, from the performance box, with no other information considered, I had two horses that could be used on top in the trifectas. At 6-1, the eight horse was also a win bet.
And with only two legit multiple winners, the four and the eight, I’d box those two in the exacta.
For the tri I decided to key the favorite, the three horse, in third place (where he liked to finish), and also key him on a lesser backup ticket in the place hole. He had finished in the money in six of his last seven races, and the one time he did not make it was a close-up fourth.
I now had the two win types and the one ITM horse. The only other ITM horse I could possibly use was the 2 with his 22 1-5-2 record.
Following Sweeney’s method of handicapping and constructing a ticket simultaneously made it easy for me to come up with an 8,4 with 8,4,2 with 3 and with a backup of 8,4 with 3 with 8,4,2.
The 8 won it, paying $14.20 and the 4 finished second. My exacta paid $67.50. The three-horse ended up in third, completing a $231 trifecta.
The short-form method allowed me to throw out the proven losers. The Sweeney method permitted me to handicap for all three positions simultaneously as well as to construct a ticket during the handicapping process.
In retrospect, I could argue that the 8-horse, with his 11 3-0-0 could have been used in win only. However, from his post, I envisioned a possibility of his losing ground and pacing a winning race without winning.
The Northfield trifecta paid less money but was satisfying from a performance box perspective. To make a long story short, we used the 1 horse in third place only in the tri. His 2005 record entering the race was 20 0-1-4. In this horrendous field, no other horse had a better ITM record except for the heavy favorite.
In watching the race, it looked as if our 1-horse show key had been able to pass the second horse and finished second. In fact, he had passed into second place, but then he hung and allowed the horse he had passed to get the better of him and recover the place.
It was as if this 1-horse had read the past performances and known that he was supposed to finish third.
This perfomance box method is not deterministic. Win types can finish third and hangers can win races. But in the long run, it validates itself. It provides a methodology for both handicapping and constructing tickets, and for me, it’s especially productive when combined with the short form method. That short-form article has been reprinted on my website at
www.altiplanopublications.com for new subscribers who have not seen it before.
My application of this method does not follow the letter of the law of Susan’s method. However, it gains intellectual energy from Susan’s gifted view of horse betting.
In conclusion, making money on a race involves much more than picking out the best horses. It involves handicapping for all the in-the-money positions and constructing a ticket accordingly. This method works especially well at tracks like Penn National, Charles Town, Mountaineer, and similar emporiums, where fields are full of proven losers, where multiple winners have a special advantage, and where some of the proven losers may love to be in the money at big odds.

LONGSHOT HANDICAPPING PRIMER
In this article, veteran C&X readers will appreciate a few new twists to our longstanding approach to handicapping while newer subscribers can catch up on our various methodologies.
I’ve chosen the first race at Philadelphia Park from September 3. Increasingly I have found that the conditions of claiming races at the cheaper tracks provide us with advantages not available in major circuits like California or New York.
One of my favorite race conditions is: which have not won 2 races. This represents a second degree maiden race. These are horses who have only defeated non-winners and never defeated winners.
Following the basic precept of James Quinn’s The Handicapper’s Condition Book, the longer a horse has been trying at a particular condition, the less likely he will every break that condition. In the “which have not won 2 races” condition, the public continues to overestimate finish position and underestimate the intrinsic class factor described by the conditions of the race.
Now let’s look at the field.
MOKYSKA (1). 2005: 12 races, no wins. Life: 21 races, 1 win.
ONE TUN CARR (2) 2005: 8 races, 1 win. Life: same.
ENGLISH RAIN (3) 2005: 14 races, 1 win. Life: 17 races, 1 win.
DANCER SONATA (4) 2005: 9 races, 0 wins. Life: 52 races, 1 win.
ZANDAM (5) 2005: 10 races, 1 win. Life: 11 races, 1 win.
USS LAKE CHAMPLAIN (6) 2005: 8 races, 1 win. Life: same.
GETTING GREY (7) 2005: 11 races, 0 wins. Life 26 races, 1 win.
None of these horses showed 60 percent in the money, nor did their pps show any propensity to finish second or third, so the ITM factor was discarded by yours truly.
The two most lightly raced horses are the 2, ONE TUN CARR, a longshot at about 14-1, and
USS LAKE CHAMPLAIN, one of the favorites.
In theory, these are the two horses we can key. USS LAKE CHAMPLAIN deserves to get bet, thanks to his being in the money in his last three races, as well as his 17 percent trainer.
Handicappers looking for all systems go will never cash in on a good longshot, and such players could have become skeptical because of ONE TUN CARR’s having been more than 10 lengths back in his last three races following his maiden win at Philly. However, those three “bad” races were at a higher class level than today’s event, and his previous win also followed races in which he’d finished more than 10 lengths behind.
The pattern match
C&X readers are always encouraged to scan the pps for meaningful pattern matches. In the case of ONE TUN CARR, he had been losing in horrendous performances with riders Faine and McDonald. His maiden win came with the switch to Mello. His last two embarrassing results were with McDonald and Faine aboard. Today he is switching to ... Mello!
Skeptical players would naturally intervene with a question on trainer stats, for C&X research shows that high percentage trainers get more than their fair share of longshot winners while low percentage trainers get far less than their fair share. In the case of ONE TUN CARR we were dealing with a 7 percent trainer.
However, we already have some big things going for this horse: the lightly raced factor and the switch to Mello, so it is in our interest to dig beyond the basic trainer stat for any other pertinent information.
The first thing we discover is that trainer Peter Wasiluk has had two winners for the meet, with an average payoff of $47.20. So he is not one of those low-percentage trainers who finally wins a race with a $5.20 payoff. Furthermore, ONE TUN CARR won for this trainer at 20-1, which adds fuel to the pattern match. (The horse looked bad then, prior to his previous win for this trainer-jockey combination, and he looks bad now, prior to the same combination.)
Given that the pattern match is a powerful indicator for longshot winners, we have to use this horse in some way. The basic way is to bet him to win. The next step would be to combine him in an exacta box with the other lightly-raced horse: USS LAKE CHAMPLAIN. Finally, for only 10 bucks, we can do the trifecta sandwich: play ONE TUN CAR with ALL with USS LAKE CHAMPLAIN and also USS LAKE CHAMPLAIN with ALL with ONE TUN CAR. That’s the convenient way to cover in case our exacta finishes first third. It costs only 5 bucks each way since there are only five other horses in the race.
Other handicapping factors
Certainly there were other handicaping factors for this race. However, with such a striking conditions edge in this race, and with a pattern match to back it up, we are liberated to practice “the art of thin slicing” (see later article “On Burnout”), which illustrates how handicappers would do well to discover what is essential and avoid information overload. When the essential turns out to be secondary factors (the conditions of the race, the pattern match, etc.), all the better for us, since the public is wasting its time with poorly paying primary factors.
Result
ONE TUN CARR did indeed win the race, paying 31.20. However, USS LAKE CHAMPLAIN sagged to third place beaten out by the 1-horse, MOKYSKA. The backup tri sandwich paid $236.80 for a buck.
In retrospect, I noticed that the place finisher, the 1-horse MOKYSKA, had had a 2005 record of 12 0-4-2, which meant he did indeed have a proclivity for finishing second. I suspect that Susan Sweeney would have seen this and had more money on the combination 3-1-6 and 6-1-3. Seems like there’s always some detail I don’y notice.
Conclusion
The ideas from James Quinn’s The Handicappers’ Condition Book are most valuable today at small tracks where we still find conditions such as nw2 lifetime, nw2 for the year, nw3 lifetime, etc. The performance box is a valid shortcut method for focusing on bets based on such race conditions, where lightly raced horses hold the edge. A striking pattern match is a specific piece of evidence that adds fuel to the general approach. All viable longshots will show some negative traits. Otherwise they wouldn’t be longshots. Handicappers who want all factors to fall into line will never find a winning longshot. When a tried-and-true statistic seems to become an obstacle, look more deeply into that statistic for an underlying sub-stat that might provide rationale for bypassing the initial broad-brush stat. In this case, the trainer in question showed counterstats (average win mutuel) and the significant pattern patch supported the counterstat.

BIAS IN FRANCE :
AN AMAZING STORY
Watching the Deauville turf races this past summer, I noticed progressively that riders were looking for outside lanes, even on turns. Occasionally, a rider would try to slip in along the rail, gain ground, and steal a race. Most of the time, he would be caught.
Evidently, the meet began with a poor track, for whatever reason, and it was too late to amend the situation. Normally a firm track in dry weather, Deauville started with a loose and cuppy turf surface. As the meet progressed, the turf condition was visibly annoying. From the grandstand you could not see the details, but the middle and especially the outside of the course ended up relatively more stable and firmer than the inside.
It got so bad that jockeys were seeking the outside rail for the stretch drive, and railbirds on the grass apron got a close-up view.
The first race on Tuesday 23 August was the one designated as the MULTI, which meant there was a wager in which you try to pick the top four finishers in any order. You can buy fractions of tickets; for the same price, you can ask for 4, 5, 6 or 7 horses on your ticket.
Essentially, a 7-horse combo gets you only 1/35 of the payoff of a 4-horse combo. But even 7-horse combos were paying prices of 200-1 in some recent multis.
On 23 August, the mile and a quarter MULTI race with a 20-horse field began on a turn, and an American player would assume that there would be some ground-saving advantage for the inside horses. On the other hand, the MULTI player who decided to go with the bias could purchase a 6-horse combo for three dollars and sixty cents, asking for the horses between posts 15 and 20. Call it a “partial ALL”.
As they started on the far turn, the outside horses did not try to jockey for an inner position. They remained in their lanes. It was an amazing sight for an American horseplayer. The same was true as they came through the last turn, and visually it looked as if the inside horses had a tremendous advantage. Then a fan of colorful pastels opened like glorious peacock feathers. The outside horses moved up and the inside horses seemed to be on a treadmill. The outside horses intentionally drifted even farther outside, practically scraping the rail. Railbirds could smell ‘em close up, and feel the breeze from their tails.
The winner was the post 19 horse. The other three in the mix were the 15, and two huge longshots, the 17 and the 18.
The payoff was in signer proportions, though in France, to compensate for a higher initial takeout, there is no retaxing of big payoffs.
In my lifetime as a horseplayer, I have never witnessed a more pronounced example of track bias.


JUST GO AWAY
by Nick Kling
(with thanks to the Troy Record of 23 August)

I've had it up to here with people who complain about the presence of steeplechase racing during the Saratoga Thoroughbred meet. If you don't like it,don't watch. Get a hot dog or head to the restroom. Just go away and leave fans of the sport alone.The latest barrage of "outraged" letters and commentary was caused by anAugust 17 Spa event which had nine starters, with only two finishers. According tothe attackers, this somehow indicates that steeplechase racing is too dangerous toinflict on a helpless public.In a recent letter to Daily Racing Form, a writer said, "I say to tracks allover this country that the offering of pari-mutuel wagering on steeplechase events hasrun it course, and it should not be offered to the betting public..."That's not to say the author and others don't have a right to express their opinion. Of course they do. However, the complainers either don't know the history of sport in this country, or choose to ignore it. Here are some facts, and unless you believe the written record of the past is fiction, they are indisputable.The two most popular sports in America are football and NASCAR Nextel Cupauto racing. Both have a controversial past that could have led to their demiseif adherents had given in to opponents with similar arguments as those who now decrysteeplechase racing.Organized American football began in the 19th century. It was not universallyembraced by a public more familiar with table games, or genteel outdoor sports likethe precursors of our modern baseball.Football as we know it was considered by many a violent pastime -- one thatinflicted so much mayhem on its participants that it should be banned. In fact,some major American colleges, where football competition primarily took place at thetime, eliminated the game from their campuses and declared that any students who took part would be expelled.Those that allowed the game to continue closely regulated its play. Whenthe 1873 Cornell University squad, which had one of the strongest teams in the nation, proposed to take a trip to play the University of Michigan, school officialsruled otherwise. Andrew Dickson White, President of Cornell, declared that he"(would) not allow thirty men to travel 400 miles merely to agitate a bag of wind."For those unfamiliar with football history, Cornell remained powerful inthe sport until the start of World War II, fielding the nation's number one teamfor part of the 1930's.Rather than surrender to the naysayers, football's supporters promoted thesport and improved the game.Nextel Cup racing has descended from humble beginnings. Country boyssouped up their jalopies and raced head-to-head over rural roads. A few tooktime off from that to carry contraband tobacco and alcohol past state and federal taxofficials.Eventually this tradition, mostly a southern U.S. phenomenon, graduated intoorganized racing. Early editions of the Daytona 500 were actually raced overFlorida beach sand. Archive films of those races show the surf coming up to withinfeet of where the cars were traveling.NASCAR remained relatively unpopular in the remainder of the country wellinto the 1960s. The organization branched out by bringing a version of its programto small venues like the Fonda Speedway. King Richard Petty made an appearance,along with most of the other top NASCAR drivers, at the Montgomery County oval.The action was furious, lots of fenders got bent on the half-mile dirt surface,and the public loved it.Nevertheless, as the money grew bigger, the cars got faster and the drivers took more chances. Men died, driving cars beyond their limits on super racewaysthat allowed nearly uncontrollable speeds.NASCAR responded, controversially, by requiring cars to have so-called restrictor plates, devices that governed their speed, on the super speedways.The result in those events has been slower speeds that produce a large pack of cars racing in uncomfortably close proximity. Inevitably, someone will make a mistake. Accidents that claim a dozen or more cars have been relatively common.Like mishaps in steeplechase racing, restrictor plate accidents produce few injuries to the participants. It looks messy, but most of the stricken walk away unharmed.No one has suggested NASCAR racing at restrictor plate tracks should be eliminated.The critics of steeplechase racing fail to grasp that fewer Thoroughbreds get injured training and racing for jump events than in flat racing. Few fallers actually get hurt. Horses that train over grass break down far less than those working on dirt. Catastrophic injuries that require retirement or euthanasia are mostly confined to dirt racing.The Sunday letter to Daily Racing Form itemized several arguments against steeplechase racing: 1) handicapping jump races is difficult; 2) wagering handle drops for steeplechase events; 3) the falls are disturbing; and, 4) bettors and fans prefer flat racing.No one is holding a gun to anyone's head requiring them to watch or bet jump racing. That is reflected in handle figures, and the strongest advocates of the steeplechase sport accept that result. Similarly, no one likes to see horses fall. However, for the most part, they are no more dangerous than the average collision in a professional football game. Critics might try explaining that to fans and children unfamiliar with how the game works.Clearly fans prefer flat racing. But that does not mean steeplechase racing should go away. More people eat steak than oysters. Does that mean we should sweep oysters off the menu of restaurants around the nation?Steeplechase racing has been part of the Saratoga tradition since the 19th century. Those who believe it should stop need to open a dictionary and look up the words "tolerance" and "diversity". There have been 336 flat races and nine steeplechase events in each of the last two Saratoga seasons. Those who can't accept that limited schedule over the jumps get no sympathy from me.

Cramer comments:
I’ve learned to treat the jumpers as any betting proposition, and not as a different culture. In fact, steeplechase races can offer the selective player with an occasional bonanza. The primary factor I use in playing the jumpers is early position. Horses that can stay on or close to the early pace have the best chance to win, since long-winded jumpers are less likely to prolong a burst of speed in the stretch.
The horse-for-course factor is heightened in importance since jump meets are shorter and horses travel from meet to meet. A horse returning to the scene of his last victory is likely to thrive. A pattern match of first- or second-after-layoff/switch to winning race course is teh key factor to scan for.
Finally, the trainer factor is essential. High percentage trainers get the job done.
I’ve found that jumping races are more formful than flat racing, and yet, you can get a good price because flat handicappers try to apply other less essential factors and sometimes miss the winning pattern.

ON BURNOUT
Recently two of the nation’s best handicappers mentioned to me that they were afloat in the doldrums. The fire within was subsiding. The joy of the past performances was diluted by other concerns.
Burnout is nothing new to the human species. Try eating the same food every day, even at a 5-star restaurant. There are tennis players who retire in their early 30s and never come back to the sport. How many careers of novelists begin with their best book and then gradually subside. You better hope that the doctor who is now operating on you is not suffering from medical burnout.
But our game should be different. That’s what we think. It’s an infinite puzzle and should offer new joys with every card.
When we study the performance of athletes, we often note a gradual decline and we assume it’s a physical thing when in most cases it is the mental factor that first kicks in. Burnout for the horseplayer may be similar. It may be a diminishing of the drive of the creative process, so necessary for uncovering nuances that the public does not see. It may consist of cutting corners in the information search or the analytical process in order to save time.
Burnout is a serious issue for horseplayers, for it directly affects the bottom line.
Some marriage counselors advise their clients that a blunted marriage can be reinvigorated when the couple dumps their routine and agrees to embark on new adventures. In the case of good marriages, the enemy is not necessarily each other. It is often the daily grind.
In horse betting, the new-adventure formula is certainly one valid approach. Such adventures may be geographical, such as Mr. Beyer embarking on horse betting sojourns to far off racing cultures in Australia or Hong Kong. It may be purely mental, with the player getting involved in a new methodology. (I have observed winning players exploring new methodologies and have wondered why they would give up a good thing. Now I suspect that they were avoiding burnout before it came to pass.)
The typical dilemma is that we are now in a time when there are many more races to look at and there is more information, and quantitatively we need to invest more time and energy, just at a time when some players would prefer to invest less.
One thing for sure, cutting corners aimlessly is NOT the answer. With this in mind, we now present several ways to confront burnout.
The most radical solution is to give up the game entirely. If it is costing too much in money and emotional energy, then dropping horse betting altogether is a valid solution. For most of us, this solution is unacceptible. We are still very much in love with this game.
One of the best players I know offers a second solution. He has decided to reduce the quantity of his play without diminishing the quality: by focusing on one single racing circuit. He does Southern California, he explains, because there are fewer shippers and therefore it’s easier to get to know everything about the horses he must consider on a daily basis.
A third solution is specialization. I know many talented players who have become specialists in one or two types of races or handicapping factors: turf, low-level claimers, stakes, etc.
A fourth solution is to streamline the process methodically. Steve Fierro admits that he uses a short-form method, which allows him to do many races in the most expedient way. Susan Sweeney certainly does this in her own way, by concentrating on the performance box in conjunction with Ed Bain’s trainer stats. Ed has survived professionally by reducing this further and using his own highly focused trainer stats along with a set of filters as the determining factor.
A fifth solution is to concentrate on certain meets and only play professionally during those meets, as James Quinn has often recommended.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder
Periodic vacations are recommended by the best of players. You have a total separation from the game and then you come back to it. The day you get back, you feel like a teenager in love.
Beyer’s bicycle trips separate him from the game, and he admits that bicycling is his other passion. So he goes from one passion to another and racing remains as intense as always.
The art of thin slicing
The two horseplayers I mentioned in the beginning of this article happen to be comprehensive handicappers, meaning that they must do everything: study every trip by seeing replays again and again, reading every past performance in all its complexity, calculating the pace configuration of each race, projecting who is hot and who is not, etc.
Comprehensive handicappers are most susceptible to burnout because their job is so all-encompassing. But such burnout is also an intelligent reaction to the fact that there are too many variables to be studied when in the end, it is usually one or two variables that emerge to determine the result of a race.
In his book Blink (not about horse racing), Malcolm Gladwell refers to “the art of thin slicing”, which means “filtering the very few factors that matter from an overwhelming number of variables”. Thin slicing (a creative or objective choice) differs from cutting corners, which is often a random or haphazard option. To me, this seems like the wisest way to avoid burnout (a negative) while improving one’s ultimate analysis of a race (a positive), resulting in a winning return on investment.
The concept of “thin slicing” resembles the concept of “coarse graining”, covered in a previous issue of C&X and originating in a research article called “Too Much Information” (New Scientist, 26 February 2005).
Zooming in on the one or two most significant variables among the many dozens may be easier said than done. Gladwell suggests that much thin slicing is a process that involves inspiration and intuition. There’s a question as to whether or not intuitive reasoning can be taught. I believe it can, and I feel that recognition of pattern matches is one of the keys to learning it.
Skeptics may chime in that I may be rationalizing, that burnout may indicate purely and simply that the player is fed up with this whole game, including its thin-sliced parts. They can argue that even Bobby Fisher got burned out from playing the great game of chess, and so he dumped it entirely.
But I heard an interview of Fisher on the BBC in which they asked him whether of not he was or would be playing chess anymore. Fisher responded (I’m paraphrasing) that he gave up chess because it depended too much on raw memory. Instead, he has invented a new game which depends more on creative decision making and less on memory.
Chess is a great game indeed. But in the end, it is finite. Horse race handicapping, integrated with decision making, is an infinite game. For me it is a great intellectual challenge, a refuge from an unjust world, and, yes, a superb spectacle as well. When a person truly appreciates the depth and vibrance of this game, the only reason for giving it up completely would be a consistently negative bottom line.
I’ve written before that horse racing is the other woman in my life. I commune with her, I share joys with her. Sometimes I chase her and she scorns me. But sometimes she gives me the key to her flat and tells me to come in anytime I want. It’s a great relationship. Like all great relationships, it has its ups and downs. She can get catty with me. And I admit that it is often my own fault for not treating her with the dignity she deserves, expecting something for nothing. She changes so often and is so surprising, that I doubt our relationship could flatten out. However, she is very demanding, and I have to earn her respect on a daily basis.
If one day she changes her lock and never wants to see me again, then I will consider that I’ve lost my touch and it will be time to take my life elsewhere. I will do everything possible to prevent this from happening.


C&X CAFE

RECTIFICATION
[Another Mark, reader of C&X, has sent an important rectification. I was wrong in my calculations on the takeout as it affected the payoff of Desert Boom.]

Hello Mark,I had a chance to read your latest issue and I wanted to comment on the takeout percentage. Because the issue was sent out a while ago I am probably not the first person to respond.All calculations were done by hand but I think if you check them you will find them accurate.With a 17% takeout and a $10,000 pool, $3608 bet on the winner would pay $4.60 with no breakage. If $3459 were bet the payoff would still be $4.60 but it would have paid $4.79 except for the breakage.With a 14% takeout in the same $10,000 pool, $3608 bet on the winner would still pay $4.60 but would have paid $4.76 if not for the breakage. If $3459 were bet the winner would pay $4.80 but would have paid $4.96 if not for the breakage.There is no way that the payout could have been $5.20 or even $5.Keep up the good work and if you decide to comment on this in your monthly just say a reader named Mark wrote in with this.Cordially,Mark

Cramer responds :
Mark’s calculations add one more page of evidence to what I have often alleged: that takeout is of secondary importance compared to the relative degree of sophistication of the betting public we are up against. When they had that obscene takeout at Hialeah some years back, and many professional players declared that they would boycott the Hialeah pool, I made the point that I’d rather play that high takeout pool where smart money is not present, than a low take where my rivals know as much as I do.
mc

BOB’S REPORT FROM LAUREL
Laurel is debuting with its new turf course. even leatherbury, an habitual dirt trainer is pleased. leatherbury, says, "it's better for the players. The fields are larger and you get better value." (that sort of reminds me of the blonde that gave up bowling for sex.
her reasoning, "the balls are lighter and you don't even have to change shoes!")
for a change we will see full fields..this should be a bonanza for dickinson......

RON’S SYSTEM OF A LIFETIME
Ron sent us a long letter from the advertiser of “The World’s Greatest Horse Racing System”. It contains the usual superlatives, that you can win thousands per month, with the inevitable signatures and blurbs from those former losers who have now become rich from the system. But there’s something unusual about this advertising piece. It flies in the face of all pari-mutuel logic, but nevertheless, it’s cleverly worded. I’ll print it with no comment. It’s written by one Charles Kellis, who charges $80 for the system. Here we go.
The question is always the same when someone is selling a system or method on how to win at Horse Racing... "If it's so good, why don't you keep it to yourself, and win all the money you want"? The question is a good one, and worthy of an answer. But the fact is, every method of play, except for "The World's Greatest Horse Racing System"... can only be hurt by more people playing it... On the other hand...the exact opposite is true for my FANTASTIC METHOD !!! I keep saying how "different" this is from anything you've ever seen before... but I don't think you understand just how different... Let me explain this INCREDIBLE fact about my method. Within each race there is a balance! of factors involved. When one factor dominates, other factors tend to dissipate in direct proportion. Regardless of which horse is the best horse at the time of the race, overall...the factors in a race will always balance each other out. Most fans, in fact 99.9% of them, use "singular" or what I call "direct use" factors. That is, factors that have been shown to be dominate in an overall way in most other races. The problem is, you can never really be sure of just how strong a certain factor is for each particular race. So, when many people rely on the exact same factor or factors... for a certain race, they tend to bet on the same horses, which in turn causes the winners that are selected to pay less and less. However... with the "World's Greatest Horse Racing System".. we use a set of factors which are adjusted "randomly"for each race, which causes everyone using the method to have slightly different selections from race to race... EVEN THOUGH YOU ARE USING THE EXACT SAME RULES AS EVERYONE ELSE !! The more money entering the race from those using the exact same rules, will cause the prices of your selections to actually rise, so you win more than you would have, had no one been using it at all !!! I want as many people as possible to be using my method... because I will win more money when they do... in addition to the money I make when I sell it !!!

Maybe Mark can figure how this apparently preposterous affirmation can be mathematically valid. He wants as many people as possible to be using his method, so that he can win more money. I guess he realizes that he can write anything he wishes for he only needs to fool some of the people some of the time in order to cash in.