Mark Cramer
C & X Report

C&X 25

EDITORIAL
C&X issues do not follow a particular format. We seize whatever polemics and ideas that would make for the best possible learning experience at the time of each issue. In some issues we concentrate on other handicappers, as symbolized by the X (for x rated). Such articles take the form of free lance offerings or player profiles. The C (Cramer) is emphasized in particular issues, mainly when my triumphs or mistakes can offer a moment of learning for the reader.
In this C&X, the C takes precedence, and I do hope there is no narcissism involved. I would prefer to think that I am using a pedagogical tactic. By allowing you to see how I apply, sometimes clumsily, the “know thyself” principal to betting strategies, it may become apparent to readers that each and every one of us would do well to do some soul searching about betting attitudes and psychology. More than ever I think that betting psychology and the ability of the player to manage it would be the most important factor in leading to a positive or negative return on investment, though it is also true than no money management scheme can overcome bad handicapping.
While not taking away from the vital importance of handicapping (or horse selecting) itself, we are striving to integrate the handicapping process with decision making procedures that are intimately linked with the player’s concept of betting self.
Some of the best handicappers in the world are terrible decision makers, and a few of them are willing to admit it. Other players who may not be the sharpest at analyzing the past performances manage to pull a rabbit from the hat from time to time, assuring them a meaningful profit at the end of each fiscal year. Still others don’t have a clue about what’s going wrong, and I can assure you that most of them have never taken notes on their decision making and can not or will not go over the “why” of each decision they make. Too bad, because the best handicapping book available to a particular player would come from his very own decision making notes.
Before launching into a day at the races with yours truly, let me say that this issue also includes insightful letters from two “x rated” players that make the X of the C&X hold its own.mc

NOTES FROM THE BC TRENCHES:
Pass don’t piss
As I noted in the C&X website during the week leading up to Breeders’ Cup, I knew from my past records that the BC Juvenile Fillies would be a pass. I mentioned on the site that it would be ill advised to piss away one’s bankroll on early races of dubious playability, and for me that was the case with the two baby races.
For me, a pass became a victory. The favorite was legit, but legit faves have often lost this race. Damned if you bet the fave and damned if you don’t.
Note from race. Part of the race watching experience is taking notes about any anomalies that occur and figuring out why such things happen. I noted that the Jeff Mullins horse, Wild Fit, was probably the best horse in the race, having survived a hopelessly wide trip to finish second. I took note that, thanks to recent scandals, Belmont’s receiving barn and quarantine are so strict that cheating trainers would have no chance to get away with hankypanky. Mullins was one of those accused of cheating, and yet his horses have done remarkably well when he’s been under scrutiny. This mental note of mine was important, because the east coast version of Mullins, Mr. Dutrow, had a couple of horses running. If Mullins could “prove” that he could be a clean trainer and still overachieve, then so could Dutrow. [C&X readers have already read my hypothesis about quasi-legal steroids, which are not race-day medications, as a possible explanation for the existence of supertrainers who can win between 25% and 30% of all their races.]
The “action” bet
The nation’s best players diverge as to whether action bets are a worthy part of a horseplayer’s bankroll. An action bet means one in which the player has a bizarre angle or intuition that could pay a big price but which is not supported by enough evidence to be worth the size of a regular bet. Barry Meadow, for example, urges us to never make an action wager, even for $2. He’s in the minority. Most argue that an action bet allows the player to keep actively and intensely involved in watching and studying races. Meadow counters that a dubious race can be watched more objectively if the player has no money at all riding on it.
In the BC Juvenile, with several “big win” contenders, and a few other angles of relative significance, it looked confusing enough to be a pass for me. However, there was a wafer thin angle, the fact that the sire of Ivan Denisovich was a BC winner and that the horse’s trainer had won a previous BC Juvenile. Therefore I bet a paltry sum on Ivan to win. It was less than 4 percent of what I’d invest in a race that I liked. The horse got off slowly and looked terrible, making a belated and hapless move for partways before going backwards. It was a virtual pass for me, so I came out of it unscathed.
Compensating for overhandicapping
From my past BC decision notes, which I save for consultation, I had noticed that I have been the victim of overhandicapping. The process leading up to Breeders’ Cup lasts too long, and naturally, during this drawn out period of everchanging hype, the handicapper can waver from one decision to another. After all, these are all good horses, and you can make good arguments for most of them.
In the BC F&M you could have made a case for virtually every horse in the race. There were too many contenders to make a personal odds line. Normally, I don’t make a line unless I can toss out at least half the field.
In the first C&X website post on 24 October, I mentioned that I would highlight my “first impressions”, suggesting that I might forget about such impressions as the week went on and needed to mark them indelibly. Having inscribed this mental process in writing, it was not difficult to return to that post when taking my final notes.
I had mentioned that INTERCONTINENTAL had an interesting pattern match. She was the full sister to a previous F&M winner, Banks Hill. And like Banks Hill, she was stretching out to this distance for the first time, which would discourage bettors from backing her.
Intercontinental was the only real front runner in the race, though there were several pressers. In previous C&X issues, various articles and letters from readers have focused on the value of lone speed stretching out.
Nevertheless, I had other arguments for other fillies in this race. I felt that the favored Ouija Board was vulnerable and therefore, complex as the race was, it seemed worthy for investing.
Please note that in a different post I’d also referred to a pattern match for Graham Motion’s FILM MAKER. The lass was coming into the race off the exact same two preps as last year, when she finished second in the F&M behind Ouija Board, at 16-1. And those two 2005 preps looked identical to Film Maker’s performance in the 2004 version of those same races. This made Film Maker a qualifier as an in-the-money exotic inclusion.
When I saw the odds, I decided to use a looser version of the personal odds line. Make a win bet on those of my preferred contenders that were going off at the highest odds. I played three horses to win in the same race: Intercontinental, Angara and Mona Lisa. I did not play Film Maker because her odds were lower than the above three.
Here, readers can take note as to why I may never be a huge winner but will always show a profit at the end of the year. Had I gone deep in the trifecta, I could have found reason to include Ouija Board in a backup psoition. I could have used the Intercontinental, Angara and Mona Lisa in the top position, and added Film Maker and Ouija Board in the place and show spots.
Could have! But in reality, I’d have had to add a few others in the third spot, in a very deep race.
I know from my own records that when I forget the win pool and concentrate on exotics, I will go deep. In fact, in one separate bankroll where I show my highest r.o.i., I concentrate on one specific exotic where I feel so comfortable that I will not bite myself if one of my contenders wins a big odds. Even if I get a bad beat and even if one of my longshot wins, I feel no regrets in this particular separate bankroll, because I know my longterm expectation. But for my other bankrolls, I will never let a legit contender get away at 15-1 without my win money on it, even if I have to play three horses to win in the same race!
So I collected on Intercontinental, made some money, virtually assured a profit for the day, but did not get rich.
C&X readers who bet to win and liked my argument would have no excuse for not playing
Intercontinental along with one or two other win bets. However, if you specialize in exotics,
then you should not kick yourself for not playing the win. With the pattern match on both
Intercontinental for a win and Film Maker for in the money, the ingredients were there for a
$1,167 trifecta score. But after the fact, it looks oh so easier, when in fact, you had another
four or five horses in the field that merited consideration for the show spot. I’d be pleased to
hear if a C&X reader, using the info we provided, was able to collection on that tri.
Supertrainer, Big Win Horse
In the Sprint, I faced a similar scenario. At varying moments in the website posts, I felt either positive or negative on Lost In The Fog, but it was always clear that this horse would be paying too little to get hot over him. The fact that I saw him as a legit but overbet favorite convinced me to go thinly into the tri and mainly check the win odds. I did a small tri with the favorite on top. In the second spot, I used Battle Won (three places in his last four races), Lifestyle (a potential toteblaster), Wildcat Heir, the logical second choice with his “big win”, and Silver Train, who was mentioned in my post on October 27 as having two Big Wins in his last three races. I also mentioned the same Silver Train on my October 26 post with the suggestion that Dutrow was badmouthing the horse’s condition in order to boost the odds.
For the third slot in the tri, I singled Imperialism, as I’d recommended on our site.
The win bet strategy on Intercontinental seemed applicable again for the Sprint, so I used the same strategy I’d followed in the F&M. Bet win on the highest-odds of my insight horses. In this case, prominent on my posts were Lifestyle, Wildcat Heir and Silver Train. However, Wildcat Heir had lower odds, so even though I “liked” him slightly more than the other two, I bet the other two to win and left out WH. Decision making is much easier when you let the odds help you.
Partly influencing my decision was the overachievement of the Mullins horse in the first BC leg. For me, Mullins and Dutrow represent the same issue: the supertrainer who continues to do a super job even when scrutinized by the best racing detectives that the tracks and D.A. can offer. Silver Train was a Dutrow horse. Such race-day intuitions cannot be communicated the day before on a website. This is strictly in-the-trench stuff.
Lifestyle ran like the dog that veterinarian Dr. Billy M. said he would, but I made up for that and more by having win money on Silver Train. He paid $25.80. In fact, he was probably not the best horse in the race, as Taste Of Paradise was forced to take the long way home and just missed. That’s racing, and I’ve been on the losing end of such switches as well, so I feel neither lucky this time nor unlucky when it’s a bad beat.
This is a game of probabilities, and decision making is based on investing in what is potentially the best return in relation to the probability of winning. For me, Lost In The Fog had the best probability of winning, but the potential return was nowhere near fair value, so I could invest elsewhere.
The tri was no woulda-coulda-shoulda this time. Had I gone deeper and used Silver Train on top, I still would not have come near to collecting.
Nowhere near
The great thing about racing is that you can be badly wrong more often that neatly right and still win money. I was badly wrong about Valixir in the Mile. I played the Fabre horse to win and boxed him in the exacta with Whipper, seeing the French connection as the classier alternative. I stayed out of the tris, seeing too many in-the-money possibilities.
Two logical horses finished first-second, with part of the French connection participating in the superfecta. There’s no blaming Valixir’s outside post, even though the race begins at the chute, since the BC mile has been won by outside posts more often than not in the last decade.
To pass is to win
I made it clear on the website that I did not like this race, and considered myself unskilled in such a scenario. I mentioned that the smartasses were going for Stellar Jane, and so often in C&X website commentary, the smartasses have been wrong, though they usually deflate the odds on their horse. They were wrong this time as well.
I toyed with an Ashado to place as a backwheel but backed off. It happened, in a platonic way, for Ashado did finish second but was moved back to third after a foul. No way I would have come up with the winner.
On making money and not getting rich
For the BC Turf, there was no question on my website recommendations. It was Shirocco and Bago as the two keys, with Shirocco as the preferred horse because of the more generous odds. When you have two horses which are deemed to have a comparable chance of winning, you play the longer of the odds to win. Sometimes you can play both if both offer generous odds. In this case, Shirocco’s odds were considerably higher than Bago’s and I liked Shirocco a little more than Bago. No trouble making that decision.
In my 24 October post I mentioned that Shirocco had even more right to improve than Bago, since he was coming from fewer prep races, and I stressed that Shirocco’s trainer had more BC credits than the trainer of Bago.
In later posts I reiterated that Shirocco and Bago were the keys, and in that order. In the final post, we discovered that there were two “informed minority” horses, both of them longshots: Ace and Gun Salute. (Remember that the “informed minority” is a term I coined to represent a situation when a horse is picked only by a single public handicapper on a grid of many handicappers. In the case of Ace and Gun Salute, the handicappers that picked them had been “informed minority” winners in previous BCs.
My play was as follows. To win on Shirocco, above all. Then box Shirocco and Bago in the exacta. Finally, play the trifecta sandwich in case my top two finished first and third, which meant sandwiching Ace and Gun Salute in the place spot of the tris. No question that I should have played exactas as well, with Ace and Gun Salute in the place hole. But the intensity of my concentration had subsided, and I must say that I valued Bago over the eventual show horse, Azamour.
Shirocco’s win made me well, but once again I allowed a good win bet to diminish my spread in the exotics. In deep stretch it looked as if I would not have to second guess myself, as Bago was in third, Ace in second and Shirocco cleanly in first. But Bago hung enough for Azamour to catch him for the show.
Frankly, there is no excuse for having missed the exacta and the tri. The same race that made me a very tidy profit was the one that exposed my weaknesses. I can identify what they are, but there is no insurance that I won’t make the same mistake again.
The year 2005 has led to one of my highest percentage-or-profit years in my playing history, but not nearly the most money won, for I have played with ruthless selectivity. Some colleagues call me Passadena.
As mentioned, In reviewing the records, I have learned that the greatest percentage of profit has been derived from a particular type of race in which I play exotics exclusively and do not bet to win. That piece of information from my records should provide me with a few good lessons.
You, the reader, are probably different from me as a player, but my example will prove to you that your own betting records, if they include a play-by-play outline of your decision making, should be the best text on horse betting that you will ever read.
Declassification
As is often the case, the Classic was hit by the defections, one after another, of the best horses in America. The only star-studded horse remaining was the eventual winner. But I did not see it that way until after the fact. Since the horse I had liked eventually scratched, and with Shirocco’s win leaving me in a richly positive mode, I decided that just because a race is called “classic” does not mean that I should squander a signifcant piece of my winnings.
I was also influenced by the fact that Valixir had failed from an outside post that Starcraft, the horse that inherited my top position following the scratch of RHT, should not be a prime bet because of his outside post.
I played him to win, for sure, and I also used him in second place in exactas under a few horses that might surprise me.
You already know the results. The bottom line for me, what made this Breeders’ Cup profitable, was not only my wager on Shirocco and the other two longshot winners, but the fact that I had not squandered my bankroll on races I did not see clearly.
Let this be the main lesson from this BC account. Never piss away bankroll money on races for which you have no great insight.
I would love to hear from readers who profited from the C&X website posts. Surely some of you who play exotics exclusively could have had the exactas or tris in the F&M and Turf. Let me hear from you. This publication is only interesting to me because readers benefit from the lessons within it, including what is learned when I expose my own mistakes.

THE INNER STRUGGLE
The playing field is inside our minds. The two teams are evenly matched. On the one side is Conventional Reason. On the other is Counterintuition. These two are locked in a danse macabre, often crushing each other but sometimes locked in a necessary embrace, for they need each other.
Such a battle took place within my mind on October 15 leading up to the QE II Challenge Cup, a Grade I turf race for fillies at Keeneland.
(Careful readers will have observed a similar struggle play out when I do the Stakes Weekends. I get notes from you. “Cramer, what made you get so conventional. We want the “kinky handicapper” who cuts against the grain.” Or: “Cramer, how could you make such a wild selection when the obvious horse stood out?”
This is the constant battle when handicapping each race. The two sides take turns in prevailing and it’s the handicapper’s job to decide how the balance should be for each race. In some events, Conventional Reason holds firm. On other occasions, Counterintuition dominates. And often the result of a race is a combination of the two.
On paper, none of the horses could be entirely eliminated. The race looked interesting because the favorite with the high Beyer, LUA’S LINE, earned his Grade I credential in a Grade I race at Belmont as part of a very suspect 4-horse field. The horse was vulnerable but not false.
The second favorite, at 2-1, was my most likely winner: GORELLA, first time in USA from the barn of a good French trainer, now in the hands of the hot Biancone. GORELLA had twice finished third to Divine Proportions, the best filly in Europe until her career was cut short. Gorella was essentially a miler, so the extra eighth was a mild question mark. The work required to get a mile in Europe over thicker and heavier grass surfaces usually suggests that the horse can do an extra furlong in the USA.
However, there was another first-time Euro filly from the John Gosden barn, KAREN’S CAPER, and KC’s attribute was quite similar to that of Gorella. KC had faced some of the best fillies in Europe, once finishing second to Mona Lisa, and just ahead of Alexander Goldrun which, classwise, made her worthy of a top race like the Prix de l’Opera. The first-lasix on KAREN’S CAPER suggested that subsequent underperforming efforts on the old continent could be attributed to bleeding, and would thus explain why she bipassed the Prix de l’Opera.
The 7-horse race went deep, as you had the Grade I Del Mar Oaks winner SINGHALESE in there. She was vulnerable on account of the fact that she had a 6 percent trainer who was not known as a proficient shipper. I could conceive of leaving her out, but both she and LUA’S LINE would not surprise if they ended up in the tri. Another possible throwout, but also based on a single vulnerability was NAISSANCE ROYALE, who had just won off the boat at Saratoga against a lesser turf field and was subject to the famous Eurobounce (second race in USA after a win as a shipper).
In drawing up an odds line, I felt relatively comfortable giving GORELLA a 3-1 (25 percent chance to win) and KAREN’S KAPER, a 4-1 (20 percent chance to win), but there was one horse in there that was either an automatic elimination or the angle play of the race.
The negative on SWEET TALKER was the fact that she had earned her 6 race-4 win-1 place-1 show grass record against much lesser horses and had no graded stakes credentials. She was formerly from the Kenneth McPeek stable. McPeek had decided to change his racing career and left many of his horses to a young trainer named Helen Pitts. There was insufficient info on the trainer, but the McPeek source made the trainer factor tilt towards the positive.
The sneaky positive factor, aside from the fact that the filly loved to win, was the fact that she was the only horse to have raced at Keeneland, once having finished third in a grass mile, and the other time having won on the dirt.
(In a later article this issue, you will see why Sweet Talker’s lower Beyers should not be taken at face value, for her class potential was open ended and she was not all out to win her previous races.)
The mystery of horse for course
Animal behavior scholars have explained to me that horses are extremely sensitive to their environment and have an amazing memory for sense of place. One third place finish on the Keeneland grass was not enough for me to label this filly a horse for course. The big question was whether or not I could count the other race, the victory on the dirt. Is horse for course essentially the surface, or can it be linked to the overall ambience: the shadows from the grandstand, the distinct type of noise, the smell of lush Keeneland green as opposed to the desert feel of SoCal, for example, and the feel of the backside.
If she could talk, certainly this filly could have said: I have been here before and I like this place.
In my mind, the struggle between Conventional Reasoning and Counterintuition played itself out and I decided that the winner of the Martha Washington at Laurel could not be considered in the same class ranking as a fillies that had raced against Divine Proportions and Mona Lisa. It was a subjective decision, for sure.
Thus, the line called for a win bet on KAREN’S CAPER, my second choice, going off at 11-1.
In my mind, I figured that KC was not the Conventional Reasoning horse, which should have been either Lua’s Line or Gorella.
That took away from whatever insight I had on SWEET TALKER.
The Key
There is another inner struggle that needs to be explored here. It concern’s the question, do I key the most likely winner or the best overlay in the exotics? The mechanical answer is clear. If you are equally capable at identifying legitimate low-priced contenders and live longshots, you will collect more often if you key the most likely winner, but you will win more money in the long run if you key the best overlay.
In reviewing my records, I have noted that the choice of a key is often related to external circumstances. It should not be this way but at times when I am feeling more vulnerable, my choice is usually more conventional. Longtime C&X readers will recall such limitations when I analyzed the Breeder’s Cup from a hospital bed.
Let me repeat: it should not be this way but the mind is often independent from the will. During this period I have certain feelings of vulnerability, connected with moving, with a dispute with a landlord (which I eventually won), and with tragic illnesses around me in the households of some of my best friends.
If I had decided to key KAREN’S CAPER, I would have had to do it with the ALL. I chose not to, deciding to wait for a race where I could eliminate half the field. During a period when vulnerability would find itself at a minimum, I would have no problem using the ALL.
Over the years, I have gained the self-assurance to not fear sharing my weaknesses with readers. I figure that there are lessons to be learned and it’s my job as the editor of this publication to leave no stone unturned in helping you improve your bottom line, even if it means baring my soul. The types of mistakes I make have a certain universality about them that could help readers learn valuable lessons. I know this from my two novels, Please Hold All Tickets (out of print) and Scared Money, which have triggered a greater number of reader responses and calls than my straight-ahead handicapping books. And readers have told me that these books have helped them to understand their own player psychology.
Only the ultimate of self-assurance can allow a so-called expert to bare his weaknesses. I have this self-confidence, thanks to years of a positive bottom line. I have learned to accept certain realities and with them, the fact that there will always be a certain f—k-up percentage and that such a percentage can be reasonably contained but never totally eliminated.
Players who wish to practice keeping steady under difficult circulstances should handicap and decide bets at funerals, during family disruptions, and while watching floods arrive at their front doors.
This whole article would have been different
Had Karen’s Caper won the race instead of losing by a whisker, this article would have been different and C&X readers would have been deprived of an important insight into betting psychology. The horse that defeated KC was none other than SWEET TALKER. GORELLA was third, within a couple of noses of a win.
Keen observers can attribute the victory of SWEET TALKER in such an evenly matched field to the perfect balance of patience and push in the 24 percent Peruvian rider Bejarano. Sweet Talker paid $39.40 to win. The exacta with ST and Karen’s Caper paid $343.40. The tri with Gorella in third paid a buck less than $2,000.
Hours after the race, I received a bunch of good news via e-mail. One piece of good news was that a family member’s cancer surgery had not only been successful but tests had shown that the disease had been contained. Another piece of uplifting news was that Scared Money was going to be reissued in paperback (too early for details here). Other good news items were more personal. My past records suggest that if I had been riding such a wave of good news, I’d have keyed KC with the ALL, and maybe seen that the Sweet Talker-Keeneland connection should have given that filly more weight in my decision making. I mention these things with no regrets. Of all the so-called mistakes we make, many were not true mistakes and only hindsight can make them grow into nasty warts.
The great drama of horse betting
Ironically, all of this good news had been available to me before the race, but I had not had time to check my e-mail. No question that the great drama of horse betting has all the human dimensions necessary to make it an odyssey of infinite episodes. I feel sorry for people who have never been exposed to this dramatic game, where Mr. Bejarano can display his majestic talents and a young woman named Helen Pitts can have her first career Grade I winner. Above all, where we can deal with a monumental struggle within our minds between two equally endowed contestants, Conventional Reasoning and Counterintuition, and those of us who can balance this struggle have a fighting chance to decipher a challenging mystery and get paid for our efforts.
PS. I could have chosen to elaborate on my right decisions but I feel that wrong choices in complex scenarios offer better lessons. Believe me, I may be a kinky handicapper but I’m no masochist.

RESEARCH OF THE MONTH: THE PRECOCITY FACTOR
In searching for ways to handicap “outside the box”, I’ve been delving into the concept of horse futures, with which the handicapper can follow horse careers and play horses automatically in their later ca reer based on their early development. No one else that I know of has even considered this path for a methodology, so at least I can say that I have a headstart.
Previous C&X research, validated by research from math professor John Sember, has shown that early winners (debut or second time start) outperform horses that have broken their maiden in their third, fourth or fifth career race. In fact, in races six through ten of a horse’s career, horses that were debut winners outperformed all others, with 24 percent wins, in a 484 race sample.
Just think about the possibilities. Playing all horses that were debut winners, blindly, in career races six through ten, we get 24 percent winners! The results for all horses that were winners in their second start is about the same: 23 percent winners in career races 6 through 10. Surely something can be done with this stat.
After debut-1 and debut-2 winners, the success rate tapers off. Horses who broke their maiden in their third career race only won 17 percent of the time in career races six through ten.
In previous research of 380 Breeders’ Cup starters, a healthy 41.8 percent of them had won their debut race. They accounted for 48.4 percent of BC wins, for a 1.16 positive impact value. But more important than that, this research showed that just to make it to a Breeders’ Cup race, a debut win ends up as being a primary factor. The debut win stat was just as true for races for older horses as it was for the baby races. And horses that broke their maiden in their second career start also show up well in the BC winners’ circle, as Kona Gold proved twice.
The concept
I like to see that behind a statistic there is a conceptual foundation. Some statistics are simply random anomalies. In a given meet, post position 6 can show a flat bet profit for no reason whatsoever. Only artificial intelligence would consider the phony stat as valid.
But when one finds intrinsic logic behind the stat, it is less likely to be an anomaly. The logic that early-in-their-career winners will have a more glorious career ahead of them than non-debut winners resides in a simple principle. Natural athletes usually show their talent immediately. I’ve seen in sports where a walk-on who has never played a particular game can catch on immediately and quickly surpass other guys who have been working at it for a long time. Natural talent flowers naturally. A horse with a great career ahead of him will get on the track and know what to do. This does not say that it’s not possible for a late bloomer to succeed, but the odds do not favor late blooming.
Retest
Factors often trend up or down. I decided to re-track the trend of early winners reaching great careers later on. The advance edition of the 2005 Breeders’ Cup gives us the entire career record of 120 horses. These are among the best horses in the world. Any horse that makes it to the Breeders’ Cup (with only a rare exception) must have shown success in its career.
Of the 120 BC entries, a whopping 54 of them had won their debut race. That’s 45 percent. Of course we know that nowhere near 45 percent of all horses win their debut race. In fact, even the very best of debut trainers win about 20 percent, and the top debut sires also find it difficult to produce 20 percent debut winners.
From the 120 BC entries, 34 of them broke their maiden in their second career race. Combining the two stats, we learn that 73 percent of all horses that made it to the 2005 BC advance entries were either first or second time starters.
Excluding the baby races, I decided to check how many of the BC entries began their careers as two-year-olds and how many as threes. There were 88 horses in this subset. Of them, 54 began as twos and 31 began as threes. These stats are nothing earth shaking and may come close to the percentage for all horses. Only two entered horses began their careers as four year olds. Though this stat has little meaning, since it does not greatly diverge from the stat for ALL horses, it does add some context to the debut stat, further illustrating that an early beginning is a positive omen for success in a later career.
Most great scientific discoveries have not been solo affairs. One scientist gains energy from another’s findings, and takes it from there. Among C&X readers we can find great expertise combined with creative thought. This is the advantage of having a sophisticated subscribership. So let’s hope that some readers can follow up on this research. I’ll be working on it for sure.
PS. We have the results of the 2005 BC, and six of eight winners had been winners in their first or second career start. The 2005 BC validates earlier research that this stat makes no difference between baby races and those races for older horses. On the contrary, the stat works better for older horses. The reasoning may be that a horse that opens its career as a “natural” is more likely to prolong this career in more mature age.
Maturity helps an early bloomer just as much or even more than it helps a late bloomer. In the 2005 BC, the winners of the two baby races had broken their maiden in their second and third career starts, respectively. “Older” winners, Intercontinental (5 year old) and Artie Shiller (4 year old) had been victorious in their first career start.

RESEARCH II: VALIDATION: MORE ON THE “INFORMED MINORITY”
A quick tabulation of the “informed minority” method shows that it was valid once more for BC 2005. There was only one winner among 14 starters, but that one, Intercontinental (picked by Privman), paid 32.20, leading to a flat bet profit. A significant chunk of the “informed minority” selections came from Kristin Sadler, so I tended to discount those picks, not because I doubt her skill but because no single handicapper should be a lone ranger in every race. The informed minority is not only a person who differs from the crowd but one who diverges from himself in moments of intuitive inspiration.
The best informed minorities are those who come up only once or twice. Kachulis, who has clicked before as the informed minority, had only one, Ace, who triggered a huge exotic payoff when placing in the BC Turf. The payoffs for Ace and Intercontinental led to a break-even (actually a 40 cent gain) in the place hole, while the method flopped in the show hole.
Since the DRF published so many selectors, the only criterion was: “only one handicapper among the many has picked a horse on top”. In grids with fewer public pickers, we want a horse picked on top that no one else even picks in the money.
While this method sustains longterm success, it provides a low percentage of winners, and cannot become an automatic bet unless we have reasonable filters to apply. One valid filter appears to be excluding the sole selections of any handicapper who flails away with longshot picks in every race. We want discriminating handicappers. In this case I had a gut reaction against Sadler’s selections, since she had at least four on the card.
This was a judgmental move and for this reason, we cannot include it as a mechanical filter in tallying the results.
There were also various odds filters in the previous research, but all the informed-minority picks in this BC 2005 were of high odds so none could be filtered out.

PLAYING IN MY PAJAMAS I just read your editorial concerning home betting vs. betting at the OTB or at the track. I have to tell you that my experience is almost precisely the opposite of yours. At the track and even more so at the OTB, I feel trapped.At the track, I feel committed to play the entire card. I suppose that is because it is so rare that I get the chance to go there. As entertainment, I love it. I also love what I take back from the experience - it makes my at home betting more enjoyable because I can recall the trackside moments vividly. But the day at the track is filled with distractions that take away from making good decisions. I spend much of the time thinking about how beautiful my wife looks in her "track outfit". I like to do my "handicapping" in the morning rather than the night before, so I am rushed to complete the process so that I can get to the track. (Handicapping isn't exactly what I do. I look at trainer statistics, and for a number of oddities to satisfy a primarily abstract/random brain. Statistics are not just for the concrete/sequential thinkers of the world.)At the OTB, it is hard to avoid gluttony. In just one room there are TVs lined up along the tops of every wall, plus little TVs at each booth and a bank of large screen TVs at eye level. One race runs, post time for the next race at another track is just 3 minutes away while the post parade is in progress at another. A bunch of old guys are arguing over the merits ofthe "3" horse at Belmont, not knowing the name of the horse nor who is riding. But he sure looks good, a deserving favorite - "let's box him with the 2nd favorite and a longshot". One leans over and tells me, I had that "7" horse at Thistle on my ticket in the last race - but the damn favorite came in second. Young guys in T-shirts yell at the screens and curse thejockeys who lose on the favorite they had bet and claim that it was another fix, then slop down another beer. Not a great place for any concentration.At home, I can plan my bets, watch only the track that I want to watch, keep the toteboard set up just as I like on just the track that I am working on. I can relax as I do a web search on a horse, trainer, owner. Web searches often yield information that you can't find in the past performances. I can find an article about a race that a horse ran in three years ago thathappens to compare well with today's situation. I can spread out my information on the table next to the computer, and make notes without distraction. If I feel like I am getting too involved in a race that I don't really like - I can get up and leave it until the race that I amreally waiting for comes up, or if I think it is the best thing I can quit for the day at any time. Or, I can email a friend who knows more about something at the track that I am playing and get an answer within a few minutes most times.There are those of us who have become accustomed not only to home betting on the computer, but to sharing information with other home bettors. That shared information is seldom the OTB buddy's sharing - "I like the '5'", but real information - "Nance is 5 for 8 this meet with horses from XYZ Stable, and 0 for 10 for all other owners. All of the wins were in conditioned claiming races."The bottom line for me is that virtually all of my best plays, best days, best months and best years have been when I have been playing in my pajamas for at least a portion of the day. It is true that I cannot enjoy the races in the same way as I can at the track, just as a movie at the theater is more enjoyable than on TV. But at home, I can freeze frame a movie to lookat a detail that was missed at the theater. I can pause the movie and ask my son about how a particular scene was shot. At home, I may not be able to experience live Opera - but I do get to listen to Tosca whenever I want to on my CD player. So, betting at home isn't a completely lesser experience - it is just different, and in my case the sensible way to invest in racing.Still, I cannot wait until I am at Keeneland next! I'm going to play the whole card with my girl at my side!Jon Wright

MORE ON TRAINER STATS
Mark,
I really enjoyed reading your Scared Money. The reason I`m writing is that I recently read an article that you wrote on 2nc time starters who were running off the layoff. It made me sit up and pay attention as that`s one of my favorite plays. I should tell you that I`m a professional player who uses the Bain statistics. If you take all those lay-1 horses making their 2nc start and insist the trainer have a positive ROI when being laid off, you dramatically increase your profit.
It also helps if they are shipping to a new track, like you mentioned. It really helps if the purse they are running for is less, in other words---A drop in class. Its an amazing play. It also works quite well with horses making their 3rd or even 4th start. It also works quite well in 5th to 10th starts if they dropping to an alltime low. I`ve been doing this 4 years now and it`s amazing the prices that you can get. Also, as you do this for a while, you pick up little gems that give you clues on whether the trainer is trying today. Many of these huge longshots are by the "little trainers"--by that I mean those who start less than 100 a year. Quite a few of these do MUCH better if they own the horse as well. I believe you have corresponded with a fellow by the name of Jon Wright. I am a big fan of his as he`s really helped me become a more successful handicapper. He came up with this owner-trainer idea and its really helped me. Some of these Bain trainers who do well off layoffs don`t win if they are training other people`s horses, but are deadly when running their own off a layoff.I have a buddy named Greg who has also written you who`s developed his own place system around these ideas and he is doing quite well. Today, for example, in the 5th race, November 1st at Great Lakes Downs.
SHEZA CODY BUG was making her 3rd start and coming off a layoff of over 60 days. Trainer Randall Russell had a 1.59 ROI with maiden claimers coming off a layoff as well as a positive ROI on all horses coming off a layoff. He was dropping from straight maidens to 15000 maiden claimers. He was 5-1 morning line. He won and paid a staggering $51.20
One of the things you`ve written about in the past has been the search for automatic bets. That`s what these are for me. I don`t even watch the races. I just require a 4-1 morning line. I make my bets at noon online and have the rest of the day to do other things. It makes it much easier to stay married and actually get things done if you don`t have to go to the track and spend all day there---then come home and handicap. It saves being burned out. I have been able to do this 48 months in a row without needing a rest. That`s important to me.My ROI on these maidens is hard to believe. Its much higher than 100%. I win about 1 in 6 and some of the prices are huge.The key is the Bain statistics. Both Ed are Susan seem to be wonderful people. They always answer any e-mails and are VERY supportive. The best thing I ever did was subscribe to their stats.
Mike D
Cramer responds:
My website, www.altiplanopublications.com has a link to Ed Bain and Susan Sweeney’s website. Some people like to put many links on their site. Until now, I’ve been extremely selective. Ed and Susan prove that what I’ve written about the synthesis of opposite logics. Ed’s a straight win bettor and Susan goes deep into the exotics. Yet, they are both winning players.
PROJECTING SPEED:
WHY THEY DON’T RUN ‘EM ALL ALIKE
We already know a number of reasons why horses do not run equal speed ratings from race to race. Changes in trip, pace, class, moment of form cycle, and race condition make up some of these reasons.
Common wisdom tells us that bad trip contributes to a lower speed rating, and this is often the case. But please remember that physical or objective reality is composed of the dynamic blending of opposites. Light may be a wave or a particle. Masculine means nothing without the existence of feminine, and the opposite is equally true.
If a bad trip can cause a lower speed rating it can also cause a higher speed rating. Consider Horse X who had a perfect trip on November 1 and exhausting trip on Novermeber 15.
On November 1, X was not pushed on the pace and was able to conserve energy. He was racing against need-to-lead horses who became followers and lost their will to compete. X won easily, without being asked. He earned a 88 Beyer.
On November 15, he jumped a level in class and came across a quicker pace. With accomplished gate horses getting out fast, X had to track them and needed to go wide on the turn. We know X to be a classy horse that thrives on competition, so his spirit of challenge kicked in, and he rose to the occasion. Maybe he won or maybe he didn’t, but with a tougher trip he earned a higher Beyer: 95.
This has happened to me as I commute to my gigs by bicycle. I do consulting once a week at a particular company where the average bicycle trip is 52 minutes. Normally, I leave home with time to spare, in order to enjoy the surroundings as I ride. When there is little traffic, I become complacent, and I end up arriving in 55 minutes.
Recently, however, there was a day that found me “leaving the gate” a few minutes late, and then encountering unusually heavy traffic along the way. The class factor kicked in. I didn’t like the fact that a bunch of polluting cars could get in the way of my environmentally friendly commute. My adrenalin flowed like Colorado rapids.
It was a troubled trip to say the least, weaving in and out of traffic, accelerating at regular intervals to get good riding position, taking hillier streets to avoid logjams. My machismo even kicked in. I could not allow myself to be passed by beautiful 25-year-old women cyclists.
When I arrived at my gig, I checked my watch. I was clocked in 45 minutes.
I don’t think I’m much different than a horse. Horses have competitive instincts. Some of them, if they find rough going, become tougher and call upon themselves to gallop more quickly than when things are too easy.
This is why, on some occasions, a tough trip results in a better Beyer fig than an easy and complacent one.
Add this factor to your basket of reasons for horses to not run’em all alike. That’s what makes this game great.
AFTERWORDS
Sorry for having been late with this issue. The BC and Arc postings took a lot out of me, as did the moving. Purchasers of my harness booklet should check my website, www.altiplanopublications.com for free updates, which appear with no certain schedule. For fans of contrarian travel, my book Insider’s Paris is now available at Amazon. This may be the first book on Paris that excludes the Eiffel Tower. Only a horseplayer who throws out favorites could have written the book in this way. I also included Longchamp race course as a major monument of Paris, and this may be the first book on the subject to include such an overlay. In order to include this race track, I had to leave out Champs Elysées.mc