Mark Cramer
C & X Report

C&X 26

CONTENTS
Dick Mitchell
In Search of an Edge
A Sense of Place: two articles from readers
Exacta as place bet
Horse for course
Short fields
The Final Word

PRELIMS
In this issue of C&X we dish out a few surprises, one of them not at all pleasant. My friend and racing colleague Dick Mitchell has passed away. We are dedicating this issue to Mitchell, with a feature article. Dick was a natural teacher, so he would have approved my making this article a learning experience and not just a tribute to a truly unusual human being of great generosity.
If any one theme runs through most of the articles in this issue, it is the search for value. Dick was the first guy who taught me the concept of pari-mutuel value. In the second article, “In Search of an Edge”, the search becomes geographic. The next two pieces, from brilliant readers, open up a Pandora’s Box about place betting, and one thing is certain: the smart money stays out of the place pools, so why not explore them, without prematurely jumping to negative conclusions.
We’ll also have a new glimpse on the concept of horse-for-course, followed by an article on short fields, probably not what you are expecting, since yours truly is not about to join the Moan-and-Groan chorus on this subject, except for sounding a dissonant note. We conclude with a new feature, The Final Word, a space we open for guest columnists.
If you haven’t yet checked my own website, www.altiplanopublications.com, please pay it a visit at your leisure if you’re interested in sharing other subjects beyond the scope of C&X. And once more, I thank those loyal readers who have stood with C&X over the years. You may wonder how it’s possible to put out issues month after month, but in this issue you should discover that there’s no letdown in my intense love for this great game.

DICK MITCHELL
A few months ago, Dick Mitchell and I were sipping our drinks at a bar at Place Gambetta, planning our retirements. Now he is gone.
For a quarter of a century, Dick allowed me to pick his brain, both right and left sides. He’d often stress that he was a mathematician and not an artist. But at the betting windows, he would use both sides of his brain, in perfect harmony.
I first met Dick in the early ‘80s when he became a student of mine in a Los Angeles City College class called Probability Theory as Applied to Horse Race Handicapping. He worked for a computer company at the time. It was there that Dick met James Quinn and Barry Meadow, who were frequent guest speakers in my class. Those were beautiful days when you bet horses at a real race track, and handicapping was the hot intellectual topic. There were some brilliant students in those classes, and Dick was one of several who made me doubt whether I should really be the “teacher”. Dick’s wisdom brought a dynamic dimension to the class, and his warmth as a human being helped create a superb ambiance of intellectual curiosity, serious research and joyous horse betting.
Dick’s condominium on Los Feliz Boulevard became a den of conspiring horseplayers. Dick schooled us on computers and how to use them for racing research, and in those areas where he was not an expert, he was able to ask all the right questions. He was a natural teacher, as thousands of high school and university students discovered. There was a remarkable equilibrium in his questions and comments. He knew when to plant the seeds of doubt but also when to inspire confidence. Dick would require us to question our objective information, but once we presented an argument for a horse, he would encourage us to bet fearlessly.
Dick was an expert in the laws of probilility and developed software that respected such laws. His methods created odds lines for races. He used pace handicapping as a foundation. The works of Barry Meadow and Howard Sartin helped Dick to synchronize his odds line ideas.
At the same time, he and Barry encouraged me on the subject and I wrote a book called The Odds On Your Side, which Dick published at Cynthia Publications. (I have been told that book and one other are currently being pirated in a spiral edition by a shameless operator in Canada, sold over the E-bay.)
Dick’s interest in publishing my work, including a book of horse racing fiction, represented his commitment to our years of intellectual exchange and action in the betting trenches. I can testify that his generosity to his fellow human beings and his pedagogical talent for encouraging both thinking and acting on one’s thoughts created an atmosphere in which my own thinking reached new levels.
I recall a seminar he sponsored in which I was a guest. The second and last day was at Hollywood Park, and I was supposed to analyze the card. Unfortunately, I could come up with nothing of any significance.
Dick reminded me that I was not invited there to engage in conventional handicapping and that I should allow my imagination to run wild. I feared leading his clients on a wild goose chase but Dick had a way of looking fear in the face, smiling defiantly and with a few four-letter words spaced between picturesque adjectives, slaying the fear.
I went back to the pps, and recalled that Castanon had won a race the previous day, having broken an unbearably long losing streak that had lasted more than 70 races!!! I had been working on peak clusters in jockey performance and had noted that, when a proficient rider shakes off the monkey from his back, he usually comes back with a cluster of inspired performances.
I scanned the perplexing pps for Castanon and found him on two mounts in dubious claiming races. Both of those races were what I had labeled “lesser of evils”, which meant that anything could happen.
I told the seminar attendees that I was going to play only two races that afternoon: a win-place bet on the two Castanon mounts, explaining my rider cluster theory. And then, in Dick’s freewheeling atmosphere where language is loose and liberated, two words came from my mouth out of nowhere. With no premeditation, as if I were in the middle of a jazz riff, I declared that the Castonon bets were an example of kinky handicapping.
Both of Castonon’s mounts finished second at huge odds, and most of us collected place payoffs of $12 and $14, for a successful afternoon at the windows.
That was the seed of a book by the same name, published by Bill Olmsted. It could have only been born in an atmosphere where the precepts of probability are defied and language is liberated from its middle class, scholastic restraints.
In recent years, Dick defied another law of probability. He met a woman by the name of Terrian, and she had three things in common with Dick. She had also worked at race tracks, she shared the same last name, and she was free-wheeling with language, displaying a dark and yet optimistic sense of humor, fitting of a stand-up comedian.
The last good times I spent with Dick were in Paris. He and Terrian stayed in our neighborhood, and we’d get together at local cafés and at our apartment for brainstorming. We often talked about our retirement. Dick and Terrian accompanied us to get-togethers with other friends, and all of them were impressed with Dick’s unfettered optimism and ability to refer to unpleasant events with humor and cheer. The Mitchell team left their mark as grand entertainers specializing in spoken word.
Evidently Dick had already been diagnosed with cancer but he’d never told me. Knowing him, he did not want a little thing like cancer to get in the way of a good discussion on longshot betting strategies. Besides, both he and Terrian believed that Dick had licked the problem, and the chemotherapists seemed to have agreed.
Dick lived a good life in the Epicurean tradition. His generosity was legendary. But he died too early. Hundreds more young college kids stood to gain from Dick’s way of liberating the human mind.
Some of what I learned from Mitchell
From Dick I learned to treat betting as a business, keeping strict ledgers of my betting decisions. Many people have recommended the same, but Dick did it in a way that penetrated through the stubborn exterior of my consciousness. He would often quote that, “The guy who proudly tells you he has 20 years experience probably has one year experience repeated 20 times” because he has never kept records and therefore repeats the same mistakes year after year.
Dick also taught me to search for a balance between science and art, between objective data or knowledge and inspiration. In the beginning, when betting together, we were complementary. He was the scientist and I was the artist. Little by little we each learned to be two people in one.
Dick also “taught” self-confidence, something that few maestros are able to teach. He did this by example, with fearless betting in public. When he had a winning ticket he would rejoice. When he had a losing ticket, he would hold it up defiantly, reminding all of us that in order to win, we had to be willing to lose more often than we collected, and not let that loss twist our minds from the right path. By being theatrical in defeat as well as in victory, Dick showed us how to stare into the face of adversity and not let it dent our psyche.


IN SEARCH OF AN EDGE
We all know that the sharp poker player would much prefer to find a table with lesser competition. We can apply the same principle to horse betting. Today, with an increasing internationalization of betting opportunities, it makes lots of sense to find a rare niche where the competition is not at the same level as we are. Such a niche is worth searching for.
In the past two years I’ve written an annual article about playing dirt races in France, offered sporadically throughout the winter when turf courses at major tracks are being restored. An update is now required in light of a new discovery, but also because there’s an increasing flow of rumors that French race betting is becoming available off shore. Furthermore, the concept of searching for the right “table”can be applied throughout the country and the world, and I’m sure that parallel opportunities are available in un-hyped racing venues in the USA and Canada, where the pools are too small to attract the high rollers.
In my last article on French dirt racing, I remarked that I would make an automatic bet on any American bred horse on French dirt, except for obvious turf sires such as Trempolino. This year, I decided to rework the method. After having gone over last year’s records, I discovered that:
(1) my exclusion of sires took me off some good payoffs, and
(2) that American breds, even of the dirt variety, had not performed as well in marathon races.
Thus, I made two adjustments. First, I would back American breds with apparent turf sires, knowing that dirt pedigree would probably be passed on through the dam. Second, I would exclude classic and marathon distances, with a mile and an eighth as the maximum acceptable distance.
Whenever possible, I would exclude horses that were paying less than double figures, though this would not always be possible, since I cannot always be in front of an odds monitor for each race. I also decided to NOT filter out trainers or riders with poor win percentages, since their poor percentages in France are based primarily on stats derived from grass racing. What if a rider did poorly on the grass because he tended to make his move too soon. This same rider might be ideally suited to the dirt, where speed is a more significant factor. In any case, with a good system, I did not want to shave off the highest mutuels with questionable filters.
At this writing we just finished the first three-day meet of dirt racing at Deauville (November 29 through December 1).
On the first day, I struck out with three plays. However an American bred sired by Kingmambo, by the name Flamenba, finished second in a 16-horse field at 14-1, this in spite of the fact that Flamenba had a low percentage jockey-trainer combination. I felt positive vibes from this first card.
On the second day, the U.S. bred Merlerault led off with a win, paying 7.60. I did not play, but the result was encouraging. The sire, Royal Academy, had been a turf champ. This encouraged me to keep to the task of not filtering out turf sires.
My next shot was Casares, whose sire was Rahy. It was sixteen horse field and he was 43-1. At those odds and with a vulnerable favorite, I played him win-show (there’s no place betting in France). He finished third, paying 20.20, a price I would have gladly accepted to win. (See later articles in this issue on place betting.)
In the next race, there was a low-percentage rider and an unknown woman trainer sending the American-bred Becky Moss to post at 44-1. The sire was Red Ransom, known for his turf prodigies, and I was tempted to pass, but previous results convinced me that such eliminations could work against me treacherously.
Becky Moss won by an easy length and a half. I conjured up how I would have felt if I’d filtered out this qualifier.
In the next race there were three U.S. breds and they were the top three choices, so I passed, this time with no doubts. They finished third, fourth and last.
The following race gave me a 5/2 qualifier so I passed because of the low odds. I wondered if I would be greedier to chase the chalk or to pass in order to hold on to as much profit as I could. He finished off the board, but had he won, I’d have had no regrets.
In the final race, I got 11-1 on a John Hammond-trained American bred. This horse was off the board.
On the third day, there were 7 qualifiers. I did not get there on time for the first two events. Both won. The first paid at 2/5 and I would not have played. The second winner paid off at 4-1 (sire, Aljabr)
I made it to the OTB to bet the remaining five horses. In races with two qualifiers, I played both to win and bet the quinella. I only had one winner but in that same race, a U.S. bred finished second as well, at 10-1, so I had a quinella at 24-1, triggering a profitable day. The two sires were Spinning World and Lure, both turf champs.
Clearly, it made no difference whether it was a turf sire so long as the horse was bred in the good old USA. It was a beautiful way to express my patriotism.
Patriotism can only go so far, though. I bet Better Talk Now, just because he happened to be both the only American horse in the Japan Cup and a huge overlay in the French betting pool at 44-1. He finished off the board. But it was probably a reasonable bet at those odds on a former winner of the BC Turf.
In any case, the American-bred system on French dirt is alive and well. On a higher plane, this one betting niche demonstrates that it is possible to find the edge, possible to find a “card” table where the pickings are easier.
I am also moved to ask, rhetorically, which makes more sense, to travel to New York because you find three percentage points less in the takeout, and then confront a sophisticated betting public made up of know-it-alls who do in fact know it all collectively, or travel to another venue where the obscene takeout is 20 percent or more but a horse like Becky Moss, that should be 4-1 is more than 40-1, just because the public has not assimilated one important piece of objective information?
Clearly, our major enemy is not the takeout but the rest of the players around us, even our good friends among them.
Lest you think I am picking on one country’s players, I assure you I would not confront the same French betting public on its own “turf”. In fact, the American dirt pedigree angle in France is the symmetrical equivalent of having bet the turf Tomlinson numbers for turf-pedigree horses trying the grass for the first or second time in America. It took the American public six or seven years to get wise to this factor, with the help of the DRF, and I imagine that it will take a similar amount of time for the French players to catch the American dirt pedigree factor for their dirt races.
In the meantime, I say not a word to any journalist working with the Paris-Turf publication about this factor.
A Most Bizarre Postscript
I think back to my fiction book, Scared Money, when the editor told me to delete the story about a Chinese fortune cookie that advised me: “You should change your system”, precisely at the moment when a system of mine was reaching the end of its worth. Not knowing that it was a true story, the editor told me that such concocted fiction would not be believable to the readers. I told him that the stroy was true. He said, “Never mind, scratch it, because it won’t sound true when people read it.”
A similar true story literally flew into my life just after Becky Moss scored at 45-1. Since this bet is part of ongoing research on finding an automatic bet, I keep all pari-mutuel tickets, as part of my records, which means that I have to make photocopies of winning tickets before cashing them. Increasingly, banks are questioning depositors who have a pattern of cash deposits, in the crackdown on money launderers. A client of mine is in charge of compliance at a major bank and he also advised me to keep records of all incoming cash related to my deposits.
So I went across the street from the OTB to the post office to make a photocopy of the winning ticket. Once the copy was made, I lifted the plastic cover to pick up my ticket from the glass plate. The upward movement of the plastic created a draft that sent my pari-mutuel ticket flying away from me.
Behind the glass plate was an invisible thin slot stretching from one end of the photocpy machine to the other.
In a blink of the eye, my ticket had disappeared. I looked behind the machine, and on both sides. No ticket. I knew that no pickpocket had come by to swipe my ticket because I am accustomed to clearing the area before I make any photocopy, a reflex action caused by the fact that I am often required to make a photocopy of my passport, a document with high value in the underground market.
The only other possibility was the slot behind the glass plate. In order for my ticket to get through that slot, it would have had to fly perfectly flat, not even 1 degree of inclination, and it would have had to lift and then land in such an accomplished way as to be the envy of the best glider pilots.
The odds for Becky Moss were 45-1 but I figured that the odds against my pari-mutuel ticket flying directly into the thin slot were about 45,000 to 1. Yet that must have been what happened.
I asked the Post Office station manager if she could open the machine. Not greatly schooled in the art of diplomacy, the first thing she said was, “There’s nothing I can do.”
You can imagine my reaction. As a red-blooded horseplayer, I would prefer to lose my baby infant in a crowded shopping mall than to lose a winning pari-mutuel ticket.
“The machine is owned by a private company,” she explained. “We’re not allowed to tamper. Leave us your name and phone number, and we’ll call a technician.”
With my name and phone number, I left her a photocopy of the winning ticket.
“How can I be sure that the technician will not pocket the ticket?” I asked.
“I can’t promise you,” she responded, “but you should have more confidence in your fellow human beings.”
I went back across the street to the OTB bar (called PMU here) to check the odds on the next race, resolved to forget about photocopying pari-mutuel tickets. My handwritten betting records would have to suffice.
While I was drinking a couple of beers, my wife was receiving a phone call from the post office. They had found my ticket and I should get there to pick it up before closing time.
Eventually I contacted my wife, and got to the P.O. The clerks were thrilled to see me. I represented a moment of excitement in their dull day. I left them a tip for a round of beers and went out into the busy street, enjoying the symphony of neon lights.
I must not use this story in my next work of fiction because the readers will think it is too far-fetched to be true.

A SENSE OF PLACE

(Two articles from readers in defense of the much maligned place bet)

PLACE BETS AT HIGH ODDS
by Keith Johnson
On the subject of place bets at high odds.I have been reading the chapter in Dick Mitchell's Winning Thoroughbred Strategies about Common Blunders. He does a study on place bets on longshots. He mentions that you and he worked on a project on this odds group. Dick cites a formula for the place mutuel of 3/4 the price of win mutuel. And show 1/2 the win mutuel. In other words a longshot that pays 30.00 to win should pay 23.00 to place and 16.00 to show. This he based on the relative chances of favorites.He produces a chart of Santa Anita races where virtually none of the longshots met these criteria. All were underlays. He then has the rationality to question that formula. I have based much of my research, which mostly involves questioning old handicapping math, on the idea that the public is usually a better handicapper than all of us math wizards. Another worthy opponent is the professional bookmaker or oddsmaker.Dick, with his skepticism and insight, noted that his findings with the formula were out of whack. He then uses the bookmakers percentage of 40% of the win odds to place and 20% to show. With that formula he finds a total of 35 of 50 results as underlays to place or show. His comments about this total are that it's still a poor result! I noticed that on closer inspection, the breakdown is 7 of 25 overlays to place, and 8 of 25 overlays to show. Actually quite good results, considering you are just comparing pools.My study of place and show wagers showed results that were much more similar to the bookmakers percentage than the 3/4 and 1/2 formula. I believe the bookmakers formula is close to correct, yet it leaves out a very important factor, that the percentage is not actually constant. The place to win pay ratio will not be 40% throughout the odds spectrum. The pay ratio must decrease as the odds go up, due to a higher proportion of 2nds and 3rds expected for higher odds groups. Simple logic, supported by statistics, and yet totally ignored in the old handicapping saw, and not even used in the bookmakers formula.My study looked at the percentage of the pool betting, or the odds adjusted for the takeout. So I looked at horses that had 50% of the win pool money as even money propositions, although their odds were actually 3/5. I compared the pools for every odds group. I used the pools to calculate reasonable probablities to win, place 2nd, and 3rd for each group. Then I took the average mutuel for each odds group and was able to calculate the edge, and compare win, place, and show betting. This type of survey has been done with the win pools many times, so I had several sources with which to compare, Quirin, Quant in particular, but also Meadow and Ziemba/Haushch in the low odds brackets.My study showed virtually no advantage to betting to win over betting to place, or even show betting, on longshots (over 8 to 1).There is some advantage to win betting in the middle odds group of 3-1 to 7-1. This is actually the area where favorites punish the place pool for other contenders the worst.The old handicapping saw of longshots being decimated in the place pool does not pan out, when you look at the statistics. A place mutuel of below 1/2 the win mutuel is actually quite fair, in most cases. My study would have the 30.00 win horse at 13.00 to place and 7.60 to show. This is pretty close to the bookmaker formula. I believe the bookmaker formula is a good "quick calculation", but it would be better to have a chart of place and show cutoff pays.The reason that longshots perform well to place and show are thus. One, they finish 2nd more than 1st. Also, as the odds grow higher, they finish 2nd and 3rd at an increasing rate. For example, I found that the ratio of 2nds to wins at 8-1 is 1.5:1. At 15-1 the ratio is close to 2:1. This increase in 2nds is not taken into consideration even in the bookmakers formula, yet it is very significant in terms of advantage to win or place.This finding is good basis for a revision of the Mitchell study, using the bookmaker formula as a control.Another reason why place and show betting outperform is a return of capital. Place and show bets return far more of your $2 wagers than the win bets, which were very low percentage. Since you are losing less money, even a low mutuel winds up giving you an advantage over the low percentage return wagers.Other studies have shown that longshots win less than their fair share of races. One reason for that, as shown by Quant, is the risk-loving psychology of bettors attracts them to longshots which have little chance. Another reason, and I could be called a conspiracy theorist for this, is that there is tremendous pressure on trainers and jockeys to win only when money is bet on their horses, i.e. when the owner is present and betting. Longshots are simply not well meant. A trainer or jockey has the wrath of the owner to consider if he wins prematurely. This wrath outweighs the pressure of the stewards.A factor of place betting on longshots is psychological. Even if you get decent value on a 30.00 horse at 13.00 to place, it sort of defeats the whole idea of betting on a longshot. Why not just wait for a horse with odds of 5.5-1 to win? Aside from the ego damage lost by not actually getting the long odds on a longshot, there is only one real difference between the 13.00 mutuel to place and the same to win on another horse. Both may be overlays or not. The difference is, it's hard to estimate whether the longshot will actually pay 13.00 to place. You have to look at the pools, and factor in the likelihood of the favorite finishing in vs a contender. The methodology is that you have to estimate the place mutuel for the worst case. If it's 13.00 with the favorite, you have a fair bet. Anything bigger is an overlay, and obviously if the favorite runs out, you will get a bonus.At the other end of the odds spectrum is the low priced overlay to place. My study produced some interesting findings here as well. It's a subject for another letter.You may use this letter or an edited version or a good revision if you wish. It would be fairly easy to write an article, using Mitchell's study as a reference, and comparing to my findings. Let me know what you think.Cramer responds:
Place betting was one of the few subjects where Dick Mitchell and I disagreed. Before I give my rational argument as to why Dick was wrong in badmouthing place bets, let me testify that, at the windows, Dick had a rare talent for using longshots that finished place or show as leverage for exactas and trifectas. I’d say that few players are as inspired as he had been in getting the most out of that longshot that finishes second.
That said, I agree with Keith and my own research has come up with precisely the same ratios as that of Keith. Live horses at 15-1 are twice as likely to finish second as first. So if you bet win only, then you would be condemned to watch two out of every three of your best longshots finish second.
Of course, you must be a good longshot handicapper to take advantage of this info. If not, it makes no difference whether you bet ‘em to win or to place.
Here’s the logic. It says that if you make a horse to be 4-1 and he’s going off at 13-1, you’d be a fool not to back up your win bet with a place bet (unless you saw the favorite as totally legitimate and visualized your horses finishing second under the favorite, for what I’ve called “the exacta as place bet”). But so often you like a longshot for the same contextual reasons that you think the favorites are vulnerable.
If you thought the horse was worth 4-1 to win, then how could you not accept a 4-1 payoff in the place pool, where your risk is considerably less than it would be on the win bet. No one has ever been able to counter this argument, which, by the way, I learned from another of my students in the Los Angeles City College handicapping class.
I think back to the 2000 BC when I liked Kalinisi in the Turf and Giant’s Causeway in the Classic. With no notion about the exotics in those races, I simply bet both of these win-place.
I loved Kalinisi and thought he should have been a favorite at about 2-1. Therefore, I demanded at least 3-1 in the win, on my personal odds line.
He went off at 9-2 and paid 11.20 to win and 7.20 to place. His place price was above my 2-1 line that I had him at for win. Certainly this was a place overlay, considering the lesser risk.
Giant’s Causeway was in a similar situation, though I did not like him quite as strongly as Kalinisi, because he was a turf horse going on dirt. He finished second, paying 7.80 to place.
Using the basic $2 for statistical purposes, had the player bet both to win only, two units each, he’d have a return of 22.40 for 8.00 invested. By playing win-place, a unit for each, the same player would have gotten back 26.60.
Keith does not mention another dimension about Dick’s stats, and here, I have not been able to disprove Dick’s assertion. He wrote that it was better for a good longshot handicapper to wager on two horses to win, than on one horse to win-place. I’ve been scratching the few hairs on my head trying to figure out how to research this proposition. Perhaps one or our readers can provide us with a stat.

ONE PLAYER WHO HAS FOUND HIS NICHE IN THE PLACE HOLE:
YES, IT CAN BE CONTRARIAN TO BET PLACE
[Editor’s note. Knowing that we had a place-bet theme in this issue and knowing that Greg is a good player who specializes in the place hole, I asked him to give us an idea as to how he settled into this rare specialty. Since so few celebrity players are place bettors, I suspected that maybe this is an area that has become against the grain and therefore pari-mutuelly enticing. If the best players stay out of a pool, it should be a good place to settle into.]

Hi Mark, Glad to hear from you. So--to the question at hand. Just before I do Ill have a little fun and tell you how things are going so far this month.
I’ve made 25 bets-all place of course and if you look at my notebook, to the average Joe it looks just awful--till you look a bit closer--do the math and see that Ive only cashed in on 6 but the ROI is 52%. Up till about a little more than a year ago there wasn't a favorite I didn't like--now I don't even bother with anything less than the odds I demand at post time. Oh -I must tell you that I lost 13 in a row this month and that was very unsettling. I do not think that most players can take the downs that I go through and that's what is the worst about it. I bet 20 to 40 times a month at most. I'm careful and sometimes it involves a bit more than stats--good old detective work sometimes. Mostly I fall on my face but it’s ever so sweet when I win, especially at nice prices. Got to thank my man Mike for his guidance.
How did I become a Place bettor?
When I was a losing player--most of my life--I always somehow would wind up on the favorite. I placed most times but the payoff was too low to consider a bet. I somehow had a knack to place but left it alone. After years of not betting due to the fact that even though I knew there were those special people out there that indeed make money from the horses I gave up and let sleeping dogs lie. I still loved to watch them run on my OTB channel without betting and every year I would go up to Saratoga with my wife and disgruntled kids ( they hate horse racing and now I just go with my wife as they’re of age to stay home). I did not read your book on Kinky Handicapping yet but I met with Tom Amello and right after that started on the Bains and later on was told to read your book and was on my way. I do things a bit differently than ED but use his trainer stats as a guide. I played on paper for many months 8 or 9 I think , before I made a bet. Once again I was placing so much more than winning that it really was unbelievable.
I always talked to two guys that were my mentors and they told me that it will all pan out and that the WIN bet was the way to go. Now remember, I’M the student here and I am not about to tell these guys that I think that they might be wrong--that would not make any sense. Trouble is that as the months passed by I was doing ok but if I was betting to place I would have been doing a big OK. So I finally told them that I was going to go with that method and long story short--Not only am I doing fine but Mike has tempered his ways and also bets to Place when his plays are good odds. I'm proud of that little thing.
So its a really tough game for me but I know that I love it and its a part of me and I know that I can win. It can get to you sometimes but I just continue and so far so good.
Since September of 2004 till today my ROI is positive 58%--That includes my paper as well as real bets--however since I started in May with my own special way of betting which consists of ONLY CERTAIN MAIDEN RACES my ROI is Positive 82% and that is with a downside of 5% in the month of September--and that was a horror to go through. I remember Nick Kling telling me back in 2004 -two things-
one---that there was a learning curve and two--that more than 90% of people lose-so I should go into it remembering that. Could you believe that I had the nerve to tell him that I would be one of those people who win? He must have felt sorry for me as he wished me luck. So in closing I will tell you that I learned much and will do so as I go. I do not think you can do this successfully unless you really know what you are doing which takes time and as or more important, have this stuff in your gut--24-7 !! Nice venting!!!
HAPPY HOLIDAYS !!!!
Greg

Cramer comments :
Greg’s story is atypical in the way he bets, but typical in the profiles of players who have been able to turn it around. I’vez developed a model or pattern for such players. The prototype of positive player transformation goes like this:
First step ... too much chalk, too conventional handicapping;
Second step ... smart enough to get away from the game, take a long break, thus gaining some critical distance and reflecting on what it’s all about;
Third step ... research and self-search leading to a much more DISCIPLINED approach, discarding methods of the conventional experts;
Fourth step ... the discovery of a betting niche. In Greg’s case it’s the place hole with certain types of maiden races, but at this stage, there are nearly as many niches as there are players.
We must ask ourselves where are our strengths, can we face a standing army head on, or should we be attacking from the hills, guerrilla handicapping, only when we have an advantage.
This is the pattern for Ed Bain, Steve Klein, and so many other players profiled in C&X.
And what a joy it is when we realize that we too can acquire the self-control and discipline to only play when our specialty or niche(s) are on the card.

THE EXACTA AS PLACE BET:
THE TROPICAL TURF HANDICAP
We know that if you have a live longshot above 15-1, he’s gonna finish place more than twice as much as he wins. So you’d better have a plan for making money on that live longshot that you’ve discovered.
In the recent Tropical Turf Handicap at Calder, if you believed in the class on the grass factor then you had to like Silver Tree, a horse that had finished fifth in the 2004 BC mile, ahead of some classy sorts like Artie Shiller and Special Ring, ahead of nine legit Grade I horses.
The rest of the Calder field looked like the bottom end of Grade III.
At first glance, the Mott horse looked like a possible place backwheel, until you considered that his 2 places in 2 races on the Calder turf course gave him the highest Crc-turf earnings per race of any horse in the field: $25,000.
The next best was Keep Cool, with 4 wins in 10 Crc turf events for 20,000 average earnings per start. Keep Cool was going off at 22-1.
Another longshot seemed live enough in this full field: Demeteor, with six Crc races, including two wins, a place and two shows, for 15,000 averages earnings per start. There was a seductive pattern match that flattered Demeteor. Exactly a year ago, in the same Tropical Turf Handicap, Demeteor had finished third, only a half length behind none other than Silver Tree! And in that previous edition of the Tropical Turf Handicap, Demeteor had gone to post at 48-1.
Another matching pattern was the switch to Chavez, riding hot right now. In fact, Demeteor was now shipping down from Canada for a trainer who showed an 0 for12 record. Trainer aside, you were now getting 44-1 on this striking pattern match. The horse had overahcieved in last year’s edition of this race, so why not this year, at virtually the same unbelievable odds.
For the place bettor there were a few dilemmas. First, there were not one but two legit longshots, and betting two horses to place, especially with a legit fave in the field might not be the right strategy.
At those odds, and given the fact that the 7/5 SilverTree could depress the place payoffs, the win bettor would have had to do two exactas as place bets: Silver Tree on top of Demeteor and Silver Tree on top of Keep Cool. The tri player had other alternatives aside from boxing the three, but those alternatives were too complicated for many of us.
Demeteor nearly won the race, getting his nose in the photo, just behind SilverTree.
You got 10-1 on Demeteor for place.
You got nearly 60-1 on Demeteor as an exacta as place bet under the favorite. The exacta paid $121.20.
In the above article on Dick Mitchell I mentioned how the concept of “kinky handicapping” had come from intellectual interaction with Mr. Mitchell. So did the exacta as place bet, which developed in my mind following numerous discussions between Dick and me concerning the worthiness of place betting.
It’s the Hegelian example of Thesis – Antithesis –Synthesis. Dick and I disagreed about the value of place betting but he and I came to a meeting of the minds on the exacta as place bet, and he liked my idea so much that he encouraged me to use it as a part of a booklet on exacta strategies that is now out of print.
Back to Demeteor, the question arises as to whether a real factor exists combining seasonal peaks and having overachieved in the exact same race the year before. Had Demeteor finished second in the same race at 5/2, the handicapper could not have given much value to the “return-to-the-scene” factor. However, the fact that Demeteor had accomplished his feat at 48-1 suggests that he had looked rather bad in the pps leading up to that race.
If nothing else, the handicapper should have at least concluded prior to this years edition of the same race that poor recent races should not be taken against Demeteor when analyzing his chances.
He was a true horse for course and could be expected to suddenly improve. From then on, I cannot say that the horse read the racing form and “knew” that this was the Tropical Turf Handicap.

HORSE FOR COURSE
Haven’t touched this topic for quite some time, and folks are still getting the idea confused. If a horse is 3 for 5 at Del Mar and 3 for 6 at Santa Anita, he’s not a horse for course at either of those places.
A horse for course usually rises to the occasion with consistency only a one particular track. And even then, he’s not a horse for course if he wins at 3/5 and 6/5, for those odds show that he was beating up on easy fields.
A horse for course likes one particular track above the rest, and overachieves at that track, winning or finishing in the money at high odds, suggesting that his pps were not convincing to the betting public.
Demeteor is a classic example. We’ve already seen how he finished third at 48-1 in a high-level race. His overall turf record going into the Crc event was 13 2-1-2. His Calder turf record was 6 2-1-2.
When you see those two stats, something should jump off the page. Subtract the Crc record from the overall record and you discover that Demeteor was 7 0-0-0 at all other turf tracks. Zilch. The contrast is what makes him a horse for course.
I’ve found over the years that this secondary factor can become a primary factor, and often an only factor, when the contrast is as great as it was in Demeteor’s case.
Love to be single factor horses without having to beat around the bush with speed, class, pace and form.

SHORT FIELDS:
EVERYONE’S COMPLAINING AND NO ONE’S DOING ANYTHING
On December 3, I saw only five horses in the Grade III Vernon O. Underwood at Hollywood Park and decided to pass. It’s a knee-jerk reaction we have and we may be jerks for having it. With a scratch the field was then trimmed to a neat four.
Now first, let me ask you a few questions.
If you happened to find a false favorite in a short-horse field, would you sit up and take notice?
If you knew that most of the smart money stays out of these short-field pools, would that entice you to stay in?
Have you ever noticed that in short fields, the longest shot on the board often overachieves, and sometimes wins with a payoff that we would have accepted in a 10-horse field, so why not a 4-horse field? And how about if the longest shot on the board is trained by Richard Mandella?
Had I not been a smartass, I would not have been so much a snob about short fields. I can even envision one day finding a niche in this type of race.
In the Underwood, there were two horses (half the field) that showed the declining form factor as spoken of in a C&X interview a couple of years ago by Brad Free: decreasing early speed in recent races.
We had the 3-1 Lifestyle, a horse I had expected to awaken in the BC Sprint. Instead, he was a back-of-pack beginner for the first time on BC day, a bad sign according to Free. Granted he had trouble in the BC Sprint, but in part that trouble was self-inflicted.
Then there was the 4/5 favorite, the 6-year-old Captain Squire, a usual lead grabber who had failed to get the lead in a slower-paced 7-furlong sprint at Belmont in his most recent outing.
Did that make Captain Squire a false favorite? Maybe. There were other pieces of evidence against Captain Squire. At six years old, he was going nowhere in particular, but the two other horses in the field happened to be lightly-raced 4-year-olds, and thus had a greater margin for improvement than the Squire. The Squire had checked in at 1:08.4 in a Santa Anita sprint while the 2-1 Bordonaro had done the same trip in 1:08 flat. The comparative Beyer ratings backed the flat time advantage for Bordonaro, and it wasn’t even close.
Furthermore, Bordonaro had 5 wins in 7 career races, far superior to the Squire’s 8 for 26.
Now here’s another question. Would you take 2-1 on a horse that’s 5 for 7, has a running style that gets right out there, and has the best final time in a 10 horse field? If you say yes, that you can take him in a 10-horse field, then why can’t you take him in a 4-horse field.
The other lightly-raced horse in the field was Mandella’s Turnbolt. He too had a better win percentage than the fave, with 3 wins in 7 outings, two of them at Hollywood Park. Yes, his final time in his last race was slower, but that race was run over a wet track and he won the race ridden out, with no urging. C&X has always made the point that we can accept slower times for lightly-raced horses, for they are the ones that project to improve.
I suspect that if the smart money had not dodged this betting pool, the odds dynamic would have been reversed and Captain Squire would have been 2-1 and Bordonaro 4/5.
The notes you are now reading come from the “mistakes” column of my Book of Why, what the guest columnist in THE FINAL WORD calls his Diary.
I’ve been arguing for some time that the best pools to play are the ones where the smart money is out for lunch. If that means a 4-horse field then so be it. If that means a Pick 6 when there’s no carry-over, then why not. (By the way, I finally heard some expert mention the contrarian idea that he plays the pick 6 when there’s no carryover because the competition in such pools is easier to manhandle. The value of the carryover could very well be eaten away by the presence of the smartest pick sixers.)
So let’s not have a knee-jerk reaction about any kind of betting pool. Let’s study short fields and maybe come up with a structured methodology. In the meantime, Bordonaro won this race by 3 lengths, paying 6.40 to win. Had you keyed the 7-1 Turnbolt in exactas, you’d have gotten back $19.30 for a single dollar. Given the above handicapping data, I would say that the exacta was an overlay, with the two lightly-raced horses coming in, including the one with the best Beyer.
Let’s hear from some of you on the possibility of structuring a methodology for short fields.mc

THE FINAL WORD
[Editor’s note. C&X begins a new feature, giving the “final word” to a horseplayer known for his or her wisdom. This final word goes to a guy from Australia known as “The Optimist”, whose commentary can be read in a publication called Practical Punting.]
No Diary? You’re Asking for Trouble
I believe that any horseplayer approaching a new season without a diary is asking for disaster to strike. I have never been able to understand the situation when a player writes to us with a problem and cannot quote chapter and verse of the bets he has made.
It seems to me that until you get over the most elemental truth in professional racing investment, you have not got a hope in hell of winning.
Well, maybe you will win short-term, and you might even win a lot, but the chances are that long-term you will give it all back, with interest.
The whole idea of a diary is to keep track of what you are doing: what you are doing wrong and what you are doing right. If you are not betting logically, your diary is going to show you this. If you are making crazy bets without realizing it, then your diary can pick this up as an identifiable trend in your betting, after things have gone a certain distance.
In short, your diary gives you something to analyze, something to sit down with and think through.
Anyone who has read my work over time is probably already keeping a diary. Either that or they would find my harping on the subject quite irritating ... or embarrassing, and they would probably have stopped reading my my work.
I simply cannot imagine my racing life without my diary. Taking my past diaries into account, I have decided some time ago that I would prefer to focus my money on the type of races or handicapping situations where I had a proven winning record. That usually restricts me to to only one or two races per card, and excludes me from most complex serial wagers.
Over a period of time I have found it better to back my top two choices to win, when the odds are right, rather than play the top choice win-place.
As for exotics, I’ve learned to bypass the newer and most complex exotics and found my comfort zone in those exotics you might consider old as the hills: the exacta, the daily double and the trifecta.
As for the trifecta, I discovered from my dia ry that one particular formula has outperformed all the others and thus I concentrate on this one, which is my top two choices (AB) in the top slot, AB in second, and the ALL in third.
Without getting into handicapping specifics, which are somewhat different in Australia from the USA, my other diary conclusion is that I should balance my bankroll into 50 percent for comprehensive handicapping and 50 percent to automatic bets.
There you have it! A structure for my own betting, discovered from my diary. Some of what I’ve discovered may be universal to all players (I suspect much of it) but I recognize that each player has distinct skills and leanings and for this reason, your personal diary can get you a good deal farther than mine.