Mark Cramer
C & X Report

CONTENTS
Anatomy of a Losing Month
Resarch of the Month, from Professor John Sember
C&X Job Available
Caricature
The Performance Box: Legit Factor?
The Interview: Mike Arabas on the Trainer Factor
Words that make betting sense
Also-Eligible Vacations: Suffolk
The Final Word: Player Profile

ANATOMY OF A LOSING MONTH
In last month’s edition, I outlined the story of a winning year, with emphasis of what went right and why.
This month I analyze a losing month, also in search of lessons for all of us.
When one is mired in a losing streak, the prevailing wisdom is that the per-bet amount invested should be reduced and that bets per week should also diminish. In the worst cases, a total vacation is called for. The prevailing wisdom is that we should bet more when winning and bet less when losing.
However, before we take such measures, we should analyze the reasons behind a losing streak. There are numerous possibilities, ranging from dumb handicapping or sloppy handicapping to the luck factor.
Dumb handicapping may result from playing races where we have no special knowledge or from external constraints such as lack of time and static in our life. In the latter case, a vacation is a good idea. In the former, a rigid scaling down of playable races is the answer.
Sloppy decision making may result from laziness which comes from burnout, and should thus require a vacation. Tensions in life could also cause sloppy decision making, and the player would either have to find an eye in the storm or stop betting until the cause of the tension has been dealt with.
The luck factor does indeed exist, inspite of what experts allege. Luck is simply part of the normal range of probabilities. It is certainly possible to lose five straight photos within this normal range. Unfortunately, the luck factor tends to interfere with decision making, and the previous results, which should have no impact on today’s decisions, will impede proper decision making.
For my month of January, I went over the whys of each wager and decided that (1) my handicapping was as sharp as ever, that (2) my decision making had been sloppy; and that (3) the luck factor had been tilted on the bottom end of its cycle.
I can share the example of a single race, and then you will see how I arrived at my decision as to what I must do.
One race I look forward to each year is the Prix d’Amerique, France’s version of the Breeders’ Cup Classic of trotters. I usually win money on this race, and last year I won the equivalent amount of a signer.
This year I felt I had the race nailed down in all its logics. With a legit favorite, I concentrated my bet on the Multi, which is a type of superfecta/quinella, where you collect if you have the top four in any order. This bet has been a money maker for my style ever since it began four years ago, for it favors players like me who are good at picking out live longshots and who often see their longshots finish second, third or fourth. In a regular super, a 50-1 finishing fourth is less valuable than a 50-1 finishing first, but with the Multi, a fourth place finish is equally valuable as if the horse came in first.
For this particular Prix d’Amerique the last Sunday of January, I keyed the even money favorite, the 9-1 third favorite, and two other horses: a 65-1 and a 140-1 (final odds were 66-1 and 143-1 respectively).
Using combinations of 6 horses, I staggered four other secondary candidates throughout my tickets. If my four keys were to all come in, I would have it 15 times.
Once in midstretch, it became strikingly clear that the even money favorite would win and the 9-1 third favorite would finish second, so I looked back at the candidates for third and fourth. Third place was easily captured by my 66-1 key, so I had three keys in there and any one of five other horses could finish fourth and I would collect.
Three horses seemed to have the best chance. There was a 20-1 that I had on three tickets, the longest shot on the board at 200-1 and most exciting, my 140-1 horse, which would allow me to collect 15 times.
At that moment I remember repeating to myself that as a handicapper and decision maker, I had done all that was possible and been as near perfect as any horseplayer could expect.
I also remember thinking that I had lost several exotics during the month of January under similar circumstances, any one of which would have given me a positive return for the month. But all would be forgiven if either the 20-1 backup or the 140-1 key would make it up to fourth.
The imagery of the end of this race will forever stay in my mind. Near the rail was the 20-1. He was behind a tiring horse but the that picture of fatigue would not move over. Essentially, this backup horse of mine was entirely blocked. But even so, he was still in a position to take fourth place.
My 140-1 looked full of energy but he too was stuck behind a tiring old mare. His driver moved him about seven wide and he was eating up ground like a champion.
Between these two was the longest shot on the board, another old mare. It began to look like a matriarcal society out there, as everyone moved out of the way so that the 200-1 old mare could get through cleanly and crisply.
My rail-horse backup was now liberated and flying. So was the 140-1 key. The first three were in my pocket and now past the wire. A s the next cluster reached the finish line, it was a close call between my 20-1 backup and the old mare. Past the finish line, my 140-1 raced passed them as if he was anxious to sprint a few laps. But it was too late for him.
The photo was up but in viewing the repeat, I could see that the wrong nose was in front. I would go home with nothing for my perfect effort.
Next day I saw the charts. The mare that beat me for fourth had closed at 264-1. There was absolutely nothing redeeming enough in her pps to have warranted an inclusion. In a 17-horse field, any kind of a wheel was not acceptable, even with after-the-fact reasoning. My 20-1 had been a 20th of a second from capturing fourth, and my 140-1 had been a 10th of a second away.
I walked away from this experience with no regrets. I had done everything that was asked of me. In reviewing my losing streak for the month of January, I decided that only a third of the bad outcomes were due to sloppy thinking, mainly because I had been correcting final exams for my university students during that period.
Therefore, I would only lower my wagers by a third, simply in tribute to the normal cycle of luck, and also in recognition that I still had 60 final essays to read and correct. The above race is but one example among many that proved to me that neither my handicapping nor my decision making were at fault for the losing month. Not this time.
There were one or two mistakes of omission, mainly failing to see a horse that qualified for an automatic bet. That horse won at 10-1. But I checked out where I was and what I was doing during that error of omission and discovered that I had ample reason to excuse myself.
That means that I went into January with no dents in my horseplayer psyche and ready to make a reasonable investment when the opportunity arose.

RESEARCH OF THE MONTH:
EARLY BLOOM LATER BOOM
by John Sember
[Editor’s Note. John Sember is a math professor, horseplayer and horse owner.]
Seeing my name again in a recent newsletter perked me up, and I decided to give you a Christmas present – an updtae of the “Early Bloomers” (EB) at HST over the 3 most recent seasons. The EB has become one of my favorite plays, especially in stakes races for young horses.
My rules are:
(i) Horse won first or second lifetime race at Hastings for Maiden Claiming $16,000/15,000 of higher;
(ii) Bet to win in each of the first 6 times it runs after the maiden win;
Here are the results for the 2003 through the 2005 seasons, based on nth start after maiden win.
First start after maiden win
137 races
20 wins (14.59%)
Invest: 274
Return: 273.60
Average mutuel: 13.68
Loss: - 0.40
Return on investment: 0.998
Second win after...
137 races
22 wins (16.05%)
Invest: 274
Return: 216.10
Average mutuel: 9.82
Loss: -57.90
ROI: 0.788
Third race after
114 races
31 wins (27.19%)
Invest: 228
Return: 369.80
Average mutuel: 11.92
Profit: 141.80
ROI: 1.621
Fourth race after
105 races
22 wins (20.95%)
Invest: 210
Return: 157.80
Average mutuel: 7.17
Loss: -52.20
ROI: 0.751
Fifth race after
99 races
21 wins (21.21%)
Invest: 198
Return: 210.30
Average mutuel: 10.01
Profit: 12.30
ROI: 1.062
Sixth race after
97 races
26 wins (26.8%)
Invest: 194
Return: 244.80
Average mutuel: 9.41
Profit: 50.80
ROI: 1.261
Overall
689 races
142 wins (20.60%)
Invest: 1,379
Return: 1,472.40
Average mutuel: 10.36
Profit: 94.40
Return on investment: 1.068
That’s nearly a 7% positive return on investment for a bet that is totally automatic.
I tried to improve the “overall” in three ways. [A fourth way is more complex and will be treated in a later issue of C&X.] What follows includes my research results as well as Mark’s input.
First of all, trainer win percentage has no bearing. This method seems to be engrained in the property of the horses themselves.
On the other hand, in the second category, even with a higher percentage of winners (29.53%), qualifying horses that appeared in the top three DRF consensus choices yielded a slightly losing ROI of 0.928, while qualifiers that received no mention in the consensus top three, even with only an 11.73 percent hit rate, yielded a ROI of 1.216, which was about 15 percent higher than the overall ROI with no filter.
[Cramer mentions that an 11 percent hit rate is too low to avoid psychologically damaging losing streaks, so that even if the “excluded-from-consensus” works wonders for the ROI, it is not wise to at this moment to claim victory in the search for the high-return automatic wager.]
This same dilemma occurs in the third category, which is the 7-1 odds parameter. Qualifiers going off at lower than 7-1 provided 28.77% winners, but with a slight loss in the ROI column (0.931). On the other hand, 7-1 or up yielded a 1.297 ROI, nearly 30%, even though it produced only 7.6% winners. [Again, Cramer insists that with such a low win percentage, this category should not be extracted from the overall.]
I decided to further investigate odds of below 7-1 and was very surprised by the following:
Below 5-2
42.35% wins
0.952 ROI
Between 5/2 and 4-1
29.86% wins
1.295 ROI
From 9/2 through 6-1
6.36% wins
0.423 ROI
The big loss occurs in a “dip” just before the 7-1 takes over (between 4-1 and 7-1), with a sample of 110 races. Perhaps the smaller sample led to this anomaly. However, a similar dip occurred in an earlier study of another profitable play, and at that time, I didn’t think much of it. An ROI graph of the Early Bloomer method ROI would show a positive return between 5/2 and 4-1 and also from 7-1 and up, with a huge canyon in between: a bit scary.
In both this study and a parallel study I did for the years 1999 through 2001, there was a drop in ROI for the first two races following the maiden win. [Indeed, after having read the 1999-2001 study, Cramer recommended that we skip the first two races following the maiden win, based on the lower ROI. His analysis would have proven prophetic for this new 2003-2005 study.] However, I find it too difficult psychologically not to play first and second following the maiden win.
The most impressive thing for me is the closeness of the win percentage in the two 3-year studies: 20.7% vs. 20.6%. I find this truly amazing. The year 2002 is missing, but everything was working well that year, and there’s no reason to suspect that it would have yielded a lower ROI than the other six years.
I have never come across a more consistent play than this Early Bloomer thing.
[Cramer comments:
C&X is privileged to have readers like John Sember among its subscribers. When I first developed my early-bloomer thesis, I labeled it as “horse futures”, based on the idea that you could take something that happened early in a horse’s career and make future bets based on that occurrence. My research had proved that horses winning their debut race, and to a slightly lesser degree, their second career race, did much better later in their careers than other horses that did not win early. By winning early (early bloomer) were showing us that they were natural athletes.
Consider BC horses. Any horse that makes it to a Breeders’ Cup race, with perhaps one or two bizarre exceptions, is a horse that has accomplished something beyond the ordinary. Approximately 41% of all Breeders’ Cup starters were debut winners, far above the general average of debut winners. A much higher percentage of BC starters won either their debut or second career race. That fact is cogent evidence that winning early is a factor that projects future(s) success.
In John Sember’s earlier Hastings study, races 1 and 2 after the Early Bloom maiden win returned only 0.79, but races 4 through 6 following the EB win returned 1.17. The fact that Sember’s research is from a small track does not dent my enthusiasm for this method, which is backed up by other research of lesser scope.
If I can get away from other commitments, I’d make it my priority to travel to Hastings, get me a room right across the street from the track at the Holiday Inn Express, and attend the races in person, with the hope of getting together to brainstorm with Professor Sember. That would be a fine “also-eligible vacation” in a beautiful part of the world.mc

C&X JOB AVAILABLE: Anbody want this job?
Here’s the job description, composed of three parts.
i. Applicant should be able to provide picks for our readers, approximately two horses per day.
ii. These picks must show a flat bet profit at the end of the season.
iii. Applicant must satisfy customers to the extent that 80 percent of old customers
will sign up for the following season.
In order to understand the requirements of this position, let’s examine Professor John Sember’s “Early Bloom” Method. Over a remarkable period of 6 years, this method has produced a flat-bet profit of above 29 percent when playing qualifiers at 7-1 or above. This percentage is higher than any 6-year record of Stock Mutual Fund, and even some of the best stock mutual funds are proud if they can make above 15%. This will more than adequately satisfy requirement (ii). Requirement (i) would also be easily satisfied, given the number of race tracks available each day.
That leaves us with category (iii). You would think this would be easy to satisfy, given that (i) and (ii) are easily fulfilled. However, by limiting plays to 7-1 and up, the win percentage would drop to just under 8%. This brings up the question as to what could be the longest losing streak. For a 95% confidence level (meaning that you’d be 95% sure that this would be your maximum losing streak), even with double the win percentage, 16% winners, you’d be likely to see an 18-race losing streak somewhere along the way. With less than 8% winners, it would not at all be strange to have to watch 25 or more consecutive qualifying horses fail to win!
Even if you got lucky and did not hit one of those maximum losing streaks, how many of our customers would you expect to keep for the next season? How many of them would drop out somewhere along the way during a losing streak. Most likely, at the end of a profitable season with 29 percent profit, you, the applicant, would keep no more than 10 percent of the customers.
Now look at it another way. What if you mixed low-priced horses into the mix, in order to avoid such losing streaks. First you must know that virtually every flat-bet-profit system breaks down beneath 5/2. Thus is the case with the EB method, which manages a whopping 42% winners when under 5/2 and yet emerges with a 4.8 percent negative bottom line.
That leads us to another possibility. Why not take the overall record of the EB Method and recommend bets on all qualifiers. In that case, you’d end up with nearly a 7% profit. If you advertised this system to losing players, surely they would benefit by having a winning season for the first time in their lives.
However, the percentage of winners, using all EB qualifiers, is 20%. With a 20% hit rate, you can expect as much as a 14-race losing streak. You could still lose clients along the way during such negative streaks. Furthermore, you would have to confront Murphey’s Law 1, which is remarkably valid in such a business. This law states that clients call for picks 95 percent of the time, but invariably the biggest payoffs will occur on those 5% of the days when the client was not able to call. Thus, you would lose a certain number of clients because of Murphey’s Law 1.
Then there is Murphey’s Law 2. When the best payoff occurs, many players will have decided to bet less or not play all because the horse will have looked more like a dog. Murphey’s Law 2 kicks in precisely because most clients are also handicappers and they will look at the past performances for reassurance. Since the EB Method does best between third and sixth races following the early-bloom maiden win, there will often be two or more consecutive losses leading up to the profitable win, and the client-handicapper will see those two-or-more losses and be discouraged enough to lower his or her wager or not bet at all, especially if this play is following several losing system bets.
Murphey’s Law 3 is also entirely logical. In the middle-odds range, the player will see more attractive exotic opportunities, and use the pick in exotics. The exotics will probably lose, and even if he has backup win money on the EB pick, the payoff will be diluted by the exotic loss and the player will derive none of the satisfaction that leads to his remaining as a client.
Given this objective information, is there anyone who would like to apply for this job?
Cramer responds:
Back in the late 1980s, I was employed as a telephone tout. In order to assure that this position was professional, I asked someone connected with Phillips Racing Newsletter to monitor my picks. At the end of the meet, I ended up with a 26 percent profit. However, I eventually got to know many of the clients and learned that some of them had not called on the day I had given out a $66 winner. Some had not called because I had had several consecutive losers. One actually failed to call because he had a dentist appointment.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not blaming the clients, but the whole circumstances surrounding the role of a tout. Following the platonic victory of a flat-bet profit, subconsciously the tout may decide to press in order to satisfy clients, thus allowing under 5/2 selections to be posted, especially following consecutive losers. When this happens, the bottom line will suffer. Murphey’s Law 4 usually kicks in under such circumstances. Players who earn their profits from middle-range odds or longshots will lose in the long run when backing low-odds horses. Statistics show that this Law is scientifically valid.
In conclusion, the Tout position is still open. Anyone wants it?

CARICATURE
Recent news on cartoons has fueled an international debate on what is fair or not fair when doing caricatures. In the interest of nourishing this debate, I now publish a caricature from one of our readers, in which yours truly is the target.mc
CRAMER’S PICKS
i visited laurel with a friend yesterday.
after returning to my seat my friend asked, "did you get a big bet on the
number-four horse?"
"no, i didn't bet number four."
"you loved him."
"i know, but i ran into mark cramer and he told me number six can't lose."
the race went off and number four
won easily. number six had to be carried to the paddock.
a few minutes before the second race i
returned after placing a bet on the second race. i had a ticket on the three
horse and i explained, "i know i handicapped the one but i ran into mark
cramer again and he said the one horse
has to fall down to lose. "
the three won by 10 lengths and the one ran next to last.
the same thing happened the next two races and i was unable to cash a bet.
i told my friend, "i'm going to sit this race out. i'm going over and get some popcorn."
"good idea."
a few mintes later i returned with
peanuts.
my friend said, "i thought you wanted popcorn."
"i know, but i ran into cramer again."
see ya,
bob

THE INTERVIEW
[Editor’s Note: Found an interesting trainer website. I felt that the guy who does the site has something important to say to us, so here’s the interview of Mike Arabas.]

Tell us how you got interested in horse race betting?

When I was 16 or 17, I went to a basketball game at the Meadowlands with some friends. After the game, one of my friends suggested we go over to the Race Track, which is basically in the same parking area. I'd never been to a track before and it was great! The atmosphere was electric, and betting on the horses was tremendous fun. Better than the basketball game we'd just seen. On the way out I grabbed a racing form, and studying the past performances soon became a hobby of mine, and I was hooked for life.

At what point and for what reasons did you decide that the trainer factor should be vital in handicapping?

After going to the races the first time, some of my friends and I started picking horses from the paper each day for quarters. If you picked the winner, you'd get a quarter from everybody else, and whoever's winning horses paid the most that day got an extra quarter from everybody. You couldn't pick the same horses, one horse per person per race. Whoever was behind went first picking, whoever was up the most went last. The local paper would just list the horses, jockeys, last three finishing spots for each horse and the horses’ trainers. It didn't take long for us to learn that the trainers were THE most important part of picking winners each day. Some trainers just won a lot more races than the others.
For almost 20 years now, I've run 5 miles or more a day, for about 340 days each year. When I first started running, I'd have knee aches and back aches, and ankle and foot problems, which kept me from being able to run so much. As time went by I learned that by taking supplements each day, primarily Vitamin C Complex and Barley Grass mixed in with water twice a day, I could run as much as I wanted without any types of aches or pains. Providing my body with the proper nutrients in sufficient amounts keeps me going each day on the road without problems.
Transferring that knowledge to horse racing, it's the successful trainers who are trying to do the same thing each day for their horses. By providing their horses with proper supplements, some legal and some not legal, the better Trainers gain a big edge over their competitors who do not supplement or cannot afford to supplement. If you understand that, you cannot overemphasize the trainer angle.

In what way are your stats different from, say, the trainer stats we get in the Daily Racing Form?

My stats are much more specific than anything the Daily Racing Form currently publishes. If a horse showed speed and won at 5 1/2 furlongs, what percentage of such horses will come back and win at 6 furlongs in their next start? Can such horses be profitable bets? The Form does not currently publish anything like that.
The trainer stats in the Form are fine, but they are not especially specific. If a trainer shows a profit for 1st time starting maidens, we do not know if that trainer had a once in a lifetime $100.00 winner, added to lots of $5.00 winners that skewers his stats. I have broken down my stats to show specifically if speedy 5 1/2 furlong winners are profitable at 6 furlongs next time out at 2 -2.90 odds, 3-3.90 odds, at 4 to 8.90 odds and at anything over 9.00 to 1 odds.
Certain trainers’ horses will continually show up in my stats, because those trainers are getting their horses to do what they need to do to win. On my site, Horse Stats, I present horses that meet specific criteria which have been profitable for 4 years running. Do you believe it is possible for a player to make money by betting exclusively on trainer stats and dumping all other factors, or do you believe that trainer stats should simply be integrated in the overall handicapping process?

Absolutely, I do believe you could just bet on trainer stats and make money, but, and it's a big but, the stats have to be very specific, far more specific than the Form currently publishes. For example: the Form might show a trainer as having a negative 1st turf angle, but the trainer might have positive stats for his 1st turf runners that are making their turf debut in their 3rd career race, with both the first two races having been dirt MSW sprints. If you do your homework and discover things like that, you can make money betting just trainers stats.
For the vast majority of horseplayers, who do not have such specific trainer stats, integrating what you do have into your overall handicapping process is the way you have to go. Ideally, you can gather more specific stats as time goes by, stats the general public does not have, and make profitable bets from them. Something which, I believe, Mark, you are fond of doing and writing about. Basically, that's also what I am doing on Horse Stats.

If you have an opinion on this, why do you think that so many good handicappers get bad results?

That's a great question, Mark. First, betting horses is not easy. Second, many good handicappers bet too many races. While they may be excellent at certain types of bets, say Maiden races, they'll make bets on Allowance races, and Claiming races and Stakes races. Third, most good handicappers compromise. If they know that a certain angle is profitable as long as the horse goes off at 4 to1 odds, they'll end up betting horses that meet the angle but are going off at 2 to 1, even though they know they shouldn't.
If there is one thing I've learned compiling all the stats I have, it's that the most important aspect of profitable betting is the Odds. You must put the Odds in your favor to win consistently! If you believe that a 50 to 1 shot has significantly better than 2% chance of winning a race, you must bet that horse. If you're right, you are going to make money. By integrating specific statistics into your betting, you can have a much better idea of when a 50 to 1 shot does have a much better than 2% chance of winning a race!
The point I'm trying to make here can best be shown using a little math. A 50 to 1 shot winner will pay $102. If you bet $2 on one hundred 50 to1 shots and win 2% of your bets, you'll end up with a 2% profit (2 wins x 102 = 204, for your $200 in bets). If you win 3% of such bets, you're looking at better than 50% profit (3 wins x 102 = 306, for your $200 in bets). 4% of such bets and your more than doubling your money (4 wins x 102 = 408, for your $200 in bets).
But you’d better know that these 50-1 shots very much deserve to be going off at lower odds.

Give our readers another longshot concept from your research.

I saw that you liked maidens making their second starts as a good longshot angle. In a study I did of 264 maidens that won and paid over 15 to 1 odds, 44% of them were making either their 1st or second career start when they won. 76% by career start number 5. 92% by their 10th career start, which means that the first two outings are the best time to play. The most startling discovery I made doing that study, was how often 1st time starting maidens win in MSW sprint races as longshots. If a longshot, 15 to 1 or higher odds, wins in a MSW sprint, over 50% of the time it's a 1st time starter, provided that there was at least one 1st time starter in the race. Tough to summarize with a few words research that has taken me years to develop.
__________________________________________________________________________
Mike Arabas publishes Horse Stats, a site where he presents four years worth of statistical data on horses that have recorded big wins. Ten seperate categories are listed, all of which have been profitable for the past four years. “Each day I mention horses that are running that match the specified criteria,” he adds.
Visit: http://horsestats.blogspot.com

THE PERFORMANCE BOX: LEGIT FACTOR?
In several recent issues, we’ve referred to Susan Sweeney’s exotics method, as featured in her book (see www.altiplanopublications.com) and how she uses the performance box, and in particular a horse’s record in win, place and show. In the case of this particular factor, Susan pays close attention to whether a horses “likes” to finish first, second or third. A performance box with a 9 -5-1-0 would be a win type. A 16-1-8-3 would be a place type. A 12 1-2-7 would be a show type. A 13 1-5-4 could be used in either backup hole.
In the San Carlos Handicap, SA 18Feb, I handicapped the race carefully and came up with the same horses as the crowd, so I passed the race. My easiest elimination was a horse named OCEANUS. This was a stakes race and Oceanus was a proven loser in claimers, in the midst of a 16-race losing streak. His trainer, Avila, was 0 for 31. His rider, Berrio, was 1 for 26, with a 7% record the previous year.
Oceanus went of at 37-1, the second longest shot on the board. The results of the race saw the favorite on top and the second favorite in the place. Those were legit horses. There were two other contenders that could have been used, but the public had it right.
However, the horse that got up for third in the tri was none other than Oceanus. It was baffling. I am well aware that good horses can get caught up in the brawl and end up with an underachieving result, thus allowing an inferior horse to finish third. However, there were three or four other horses that seemed to have a better chance to pick up the pieces.
The only redeeming trait in the Oceanus past performances was the fact that he had finished third in four of his last five races!
An extra piece of performance bix evidence was his overall dirt-fast record: 16 1-2-4, though the four shows in five races is more about current condition and style and exceeds the longterm stat in importance.
Looking more deeply into those recent third place finishes, we see that Oceanus accomplished the feat at odds of 14-1, 11-1, 7-1 and 9/2, so at least three of the four shows were overachieving performances.
In retrospect, I see two equally valid explanations for this propensity to finish third. First, the stable may have known from the get-go that this horse had no chance to win, and thus instructed the rider to not get caught up in the early competition, save some horse, and hope that some of the good ones would fold up the tent.
Secondly, the horse itself seems very much to have the type of come from behind running style that fits for third-place finishes, especially at tracks that favor early speed for the win and place (and Santa Anita is one of them)..
Both of these reasons, but especially the second one, may explain why Susan’s methodology works, regardless of the class ranking of the horse.
There is a third reason why Susan’s eye on finish-position trends of a horse will work wonders in the return-on-investment department. Since few other handicappers use this factor, it does not have to be all that effective to pay off resoundingly. In other words, even if it did not function so regularly, when it did kick in, the return would pay for all the losers and more.
This seems to be what happened in the case of Oceanus. In a field of only eight horses, with a $5.40 horse winning (Jet West) and a 2-1 finishing second (Major Success), the dollar trifecta came back at $139.20.


WORDS THAT MAKE BETTING SENSE (from Don)
at Travers time last year I made a list of my last 20 bets on turf and dirt. If you wish--i'll send them. I have worked hard on 2 fronts. First: Dick Mietchell's "if it doesn't make economic sense--it doesn't make betting sense". I've been on that phase even before I was introduced to C&X. Through record keeping I have learned that there are 2 different types of economic standards-those for claimed horses AND those for "all others". A claimed horse differs because of 2 economic principles. One: the owner wants to re-coup his money because he knows he didn't buy a "classic" horse. The 2nd trainer win %. Those with a high win % increase their chances of getting better clients-thus better horses and they know that it is easier to win 10 races with 10 different horses than it is to win 10 races with one horse. Thus, what may be construed as a negative class drop in the "all others" category could be a positive drop for a claimed horse. 2nd factor: Proven Losers. For 15% and up trainers it's 2 losses at todays class/surf and distance. (sprint or 2 turn routes) without considering a 2nd place finish as a loss. 12% down-one loss out of the money OR 2 losses at the class level. An economically unsound horse is described as a horse going in the wrong direction. Reading PP's from the bottom up it very often is apparent if the horse is neg. or pos. Thus, my "short form" method: eliminate economically unsound horses and proven losers. I have also proved to myself, unequivocally, that high % trainers win more then their fair share with high priced horses. So, with Mitchell-economic sense and Cramer-high % trainers/high prices theory it's no wonder I had my best year to date. I use a $10 mutuel as a guideline as to when to place a bet. Your welcome to my list of bets--if you wish. thanks, don a.

ALSO-ELIGIBLE VACATIONS:
SUFFOLK DOWNS
Friends from abroad who visit the USA are often especially impressed by the beauty and character of Boston, Massachusetts. Beginning May 6 and extending into the Summer, the horseplayer can enjoy a fine vacation by winning in the day at Suffolk and wining and dining at night in Boston’s and Cambridge’s wide variety of great hangouts.
On days off, what better pleasure than to stake out a plot of land for picnicking with the next day’s past performances, somewhere along the Emerald Necklace, a system of connected parks winding through Boston’s neighborhoods, whose anchor is the historical Boston Commons, one of the oldest parks in the USA. In 1646, milk cows and sheep grazed the Commons. In 1660, four Quakers were executed there. In 1769, the hanging tree was replaced by a gallows. Cows were banned from the Commons in 1830.
Morning walks through distinct areas of the city in the context of well-preserved architecture and picturesque neighborhood commerce will keep the horseplayer in shape for the afternoon’s decision making. A Red Sox game in the authentic American baseball stadium, Fenway Park, can only add to the vacation joys, and you can read the pps between innings.
To maximize the enjoyment of the vacation and maybe pay expenses, here are a few simple but useful tips on Suffolk racing on a mile oval with a 7f turf course.
Riders
In my jockey power ratings, I look for riders whose wins clearly outnumber their places or shows. Two riders rise to the surface.
In 530 races last year, Dyn Panell urged his mounts to 133 victories. But even better than winning a fourth of all his mounts is the fact that he placed 82 times and showed only 68, so when the going got tough, he got his horses going. Watch him on Zito shippers.
Taylor Hole inherited some of his competitiveness from his British father and it shows through in his excellence at dirt bike motorcycling. When the horses drive into the stretch, Hole know how to get to the wire in the most expedient way. He had 97 wins in 479 tries, with 70 places and 66 shows, a pattern that highlights his competitiveness.
The Super Trainers
C&X readers know that we favor the trainer factor over the rider factor so we shall list more trainers here than riders. As with the riders, we seek trainers who crank up their horses for a full tour of duty. Consider not only the high win percentage but again, the fact that these trainers win more than placing and place more than they finish third.
John Rigattieri
332 93-59-46
Ronald Dandy
254 53-38-34
Charles Assimakopoulos
144 36-16-9
Robert Klesaris
92 21-15-16
Pamela Angevine
93 20-16-11
Arthur Duffy Jr.
81 17-13-12
Karl Grusmark
This small stable trainer did not have enough horses to make the standings but at Suffolk in particular he was able to win a greater than a 25% clip, with much fewer places and shows than wins.
For the maximum power, match these trainers with their specialties, looking for both high win percentage and an return on investment that beats the track take.
Horse-for-Course
The following horses can be expected to gain vigor from the ocean breeze and romp over the surface.
Prado Power
Ask Queenie
Aly’s Leader
Rushbuckler
Deputy’s Reward (wire to wire in dirt sprints)
Diablo Reigns (adores the Suffolk turf at the claiming level)
Handicapping tips
Class handicapping is alive and well at Suffolk. For example, on June 28th in the second race, My Tribe, trained by Karl Grusmark, was dropping from Maiden Special Weight and also shortening up from route to sprint. He’d finished tenth and last in his previous race, 77 lengths behind the winner. (Didn’t know there was a camera wide enough to measure 77 lengths!) But in that disastrous race, he had made a move until the 6f mark. Four races back, in his only good race, at the same 6f distance as today’s race, he’d broken slowly and rushed up to third, then dropped back in traffic only to make a second move and come back from fifth to finish third at 7-1 against maiden special weight horses. The handicapping tip here when dealing with the maiden class dropper is to find one single indication that the horse can run somewhere in earlier performances. Against maiden claimers, My Tribe won by nearly five lengths, paying $12.60.
Unlike larger tracks and some smaller ones, Suffolk’s race conditions are integrated with claiming prices, allowing the handicapper to use the conditions of the race as an added handicap ingredient. Such a handicapping configuration sometimes produces a double dimension drop: the horse is not only dropping in claiming price but also in conditions. The payoff may not be so great, but such double dimension droppers should not be excluded from serial exotics. Such was the case on 25May05, fourth race, with Pine Breeze, who was not only dropping from claiming 12,500 to 5,000, but from non-winners of 3 lifetime (n3L) to n2L. Under such circumstances, Pine Breeze’s 7.60 payoff was more than fair.
Horses remaining at the same claiming price but dropping in conditions may offer wager value. On 25June05, Jule’s Jewel entered a 4,000 claiming sprint, the same designation as his previous race when he had finished third at 3-1. But the previous race was for non-winners of 2 races for the year (n2y) and this one was for n1y. Jule’s Jule went off at 8-1, finished a close second, and made exacta and trifecta players happy.
Toteboard watching is especially effective for discovering horses that can win without the class drop. Rather than watching the progression of odds changes during one race, simply compare today’s odds on a horse with his odds in his previous race. When a horse is getting bet at odds that are considerably lower than its odds in its previous race, and when that previous race looks dull, the toteboard is certainly telling us something of significance. Such was the case for Mr. Royal Twist (6June05, first race) who had checked in three straight times more than 10 lengths behind the winner, and was not even dropping in class. Yet, his odds plummeted from 22-1 in his previous race to only 8-1 today. He won, paying $19.60.
Suffolk Downs is located on Route 1A, East Boston, not far from the airport (convenient), at 11 Waldemar Avenue. Parking is free if you drive there. Better than driving, you can get there on the MBTA metro train, Blue Line, Suffolk Downs stop, thus allowing you to study the past performances while you commute. The track also has bicycle parking facilities, as does the Metro station. An early morning bike ride to the track, with breakfast in the backside kitchen means that you’ll ride off the calories before you put ‘em back on.
The Terrace Dining Room has tiered tables so the view of the track is good. But each table also has a convenient TV monitor.
Track takeout is obscenely high, at 19% for straight bets and 26% for exotics. However, big and smart simulcast money stays out of the Suffolk pools, since Suffolk is off the beaten path, and that makes a positive difference for the player. Besides, the value handicapper looks at the board and demands his better-than-fair price. If he doesn’t get it, he doesn’t bet it.
If you’re a real fan and want to add to the atmosphere of this urban race course, check out the book Suffolk Downs, by Christian Teja, published by Acadia in 2005. It’s a pictorial history of the track.
The winning vacation superfecta: Suffolk Downs, Fenway Park, the Boston Commons and a visually authentic American city. Summer in the city is not so bad when it’s Boston.


THE FINAL WORD:
CAN YOU BET FOR A LIVING: PLAYER PROFILE
by Jon Hudson
with thanks to Practical Punting
The late Phil Bull, perhaps the greatest horseplayer in Britain in the 1940s and 50s, always believed that anyone who wanted to make a living from racing needed the right temperament.
Never one to act modestly, he was the first to say that he did, in fact, possess the temperament needed to bet for a living and win.
Bull was a coalminer’s son from a little town in Yorkshire who might have spent a lifetime as a schoolteacher had it not been for his passion for horse racing and betting.
He founded the huge Timeform empire in the UK, and his success as a player brought him the full trappings of wealth, including the option of doing whatever he pleased in life.
“The racecourse was a perfect battleground for me,” he said. “It was an exhilarating place where you could pit your abilities and your nerve against those of everyone else, because that is what it amounts to, every player against every other player and only the best-equipped would survive.
“I wanted an arena and here was one readymade for me, with all the elements of testing myself already created and a marvelously varied and fascinating cast of characters to go with it.”
The example of Phil Bull is used to pose the question of whether it is possible to bet for a living and win.
Of course, the answer is yes, but with stringent qualifications. Only a few people are capable of achieving that so-called glorious state of being called “professional player”.
Some pros last for years and years. Others come and go. But it’s players like Phil Bull who can advise us about what is really needed to make a go of things.
No surprise that his empire was built on obtaining VALUE (which may have been far easier 50 years ago when so much good information was still not published).
He didn’t bet unless the odds were “good value” and that, he said, is always a matter of individual judgment. Some have it, most don’t.
“If I’m offered only even money on a horse I judge to be 3/2, I do not bet,” Bull explained. “But if I get 2-1, I bet and 3-1 on the same horse is a Bet with a capital B.”
Naturally, he always advised those who aske him for advice that they should never bet beyond their means.
Now one of the keys to his success was his temperament. He could remain cool in the most trying of betting circumstances and he could take losing on the chin.
Reg Griffin, who worked with him at the Timeform, said: “Phil was never one to shout about his selections. One day at Ayr, he had a huge bet on a 2yo and it crossed the wire locked together with another youngster and I was getting in a desperate state until the result was announced in Phil’s favor, but he had not turned a hair.
“At the end of an afternoon, I might ask him how he’d done and he just says, ‘5,000 up’ or ‘2,000’ down’ as if he were saying it was 65 or 68 degrees outside. He took the day’s results with equanimity; it was the season as a whole that counted.”
All the races came alike to him. He regarded a race as something which required examination. If having studied it, there was no bet, so be it.
Anyone who fancies himself as a professional will need all the facets of Phil Bull’s betting character. He was able to be fearless and sensible at the same time. Either one of those two traits is attainable but combining the two is impossible for most human beings. He was always ready to plunge on a horse when others reckoned it had no chance, he always firmly believed in his own opinion above those of others, he knew when to bet and WHEN NOT TO BET.
Editor’s Note. Phil Bull’s handicapping specialty involved getting to know a smart wager-value trainer’s stable as if it were his own, anticipating the right spots for each horse, and playing accordingly.

POSTSCRIPT
C&X readers with an eclectic bent should check Mark’s website for news on his other work. The site is at www.altiplanopublications.com
Mark is also interested in letters from readers who have managed to overcome handicapping or decision-making obstacles. Especially helpful would be anecdotes on how readers have learned to overcome the urge to play too many races. Ideally, C&X subscribers would get together to brainstorm, but with enormous geographical constraints, the next best thing is the C&X Café.

Postscript 2
World's Greatest...NOTT!!! I have no doubt that somewhere out there, I have no idea where, the 'world's greatest handicapper' exists. But one thing I know with great certainty is that I am not him/her. I am a very competent handicapper who has received more than his share of rave reviews for my writing prowess on matters ranging from handicapping to world travel and truly feel blessed to be able to share my knowledge, angles, insights, etc., with my fans. The reason I bring this up is that due to part overexhuberance and part graphic-artist using an old template, Dave billed me as the 'world's greatest handicapper' in a recent mailing. I would never use that term to describe myself, and asked him to refrain doing so in the future. I do know that the insights you will gain from the C&X Report will make a positive difference in your handicapping life and that my Stakes analyses are very well thought out and we often cash in nicely. So despite the fact I am not the 'world's greatest', I feel that every dollar you invest in your subscription price is well rewarded. By the way, for all new subscribers, if you have not already signed up for the website please email Dave at info@handicappingedge.com and he will get you on board right away.