Mark Cramer
C & X Report

C&X32
CONTENTS
Defies All Logic (a new C&X Feature)
Reading Conditions at Small Tracks
The C&X Café: Longshot Trainer Stats. Can Race Tracks Survive and Thrive Without Slots? Morty's put it all together!
The New Parity?
The Longshot Glossary: Horse Futures and the Handicapper's Stable
Should we start a sect?
The Emperor's New Clothes
Editorial: Pathological Gambling and Custer's Last Stand
End Notes: Website Tip. Scared Money.
DEFIES ALL LOGIC
[Editor's Note. Defies All Logic is a new feature of C&X. We all know that a certain number of race results seem to defy all logic. We go on to the next race and say, ok, that's how this game is. We are content to know that some sort of logic prevails 2/3 of the time, and we chalk up the other third to the chaos theory. But what if we studied these illogical conclusions in depth. Might we learn something? Could we come up with possible Pick 3 inclusions, or at least know when a race can and should be passed? Hopefully, this new feature will trigger some responses from you. Some of the readers will have studied the race we feature in this column, and may have other insights we can learn from. With this new feature we're trying to get one step beyond the blurry horizon and maybe learn something new.mc]
The race we have chosen is The Big Crosby Handicap, July 30, Del Mar, six furlongs. If ever a race set up for a one-way cold exacta, it was this one. Bordonaro, going off at what I thought might be a mild overlay at 4/5, was 8 for 10 lifetime, had broken or equaled sprint track records at four different tracks, and had DRF and Beyer speed figures that towered over the rest. There were no questions about the horse's form. Yes, the rest of the field was quite good, but this one seemed to tower above therest, and seemed like BC Sprint material.
The most-likely place finisher was Battle Won. Not only did he have the second fastest speed figs (ho hum...) but his record for the past two years was 10 races, one win and five place finishes. He had finished second in last year's edition of The Bing Crosby. The perfect place profile.
And yes, they finished that way: Bordonaro on top of Battle Won. But one horse finished on top of those two!
The winner, Pure As Gold, paid $48.20, quite a return for a six-horse field.
"Defies All Logic" requires us to look deeply into the past performances of Pure As Gold in an effort to discover some meaningful longshot factor. In fact, we should engage in this process every time a horse pays 9-1 or up and compile an annotated diary.
Note that Pure As Gold's highest Beyer was 98, compared to 104 for Battle Won and 115 for Bordonaro.
First Claim
Pure As Gold was a first-time claimed horse. His trainer Jack Carava showed 17% wins with claim-1, but that was only a tick above his 16% over all dirt sprint stat. Nevertheless, any horse that has been claimed for a new and reputable stable is likely to encounter something different in his training regimen. Horses can and do wake up when racing for the first time in a new stable, but there was no information here that would lead us to project a big wake-up. (Perhaps a reader will have found something that I have not.)
Form Cycle Masked
Pure As Gold was an improving horse. His three recent turf sprint wins on the Santa Anita downhill course probably masked the fact that he was an improving horse on any surface. His turf breeding was mediocre so the improvement on the grass might have covered up an even greater projected dirt improvement. The conditions of the Bing Crosby called for 3-year-olds and up. Pure As Gold was the youngest horse in the field, as a four year old. He had recently run the fastest dirt sprint of his career, a 108.4 at Hollywood (compared to the 108 flat Hol sprint of Bordonaro). These things suggest that Pure As Gold had the most right to improve of any horse in the field, but this does not constitute enough evidence to project such a huge improvement. That said, with 6 wins in 16 races lifetime, Pure As Gold certainly "liked" to win.
Weight
Ah, the much maligned weight factor. A blast from the past. Ever since Quirin's and Quinn's writings, no expert handicapper thinks that the weight factor is creditable. Official track handicappers assigning weights have even further diminished the importance of weight by reducing the threshhold of highweights.
Pure As Gold was assigned 113 pounds for the Bing Crosby, dropping from 123 in his last race. His previous highest weight was 118. The rest of the field was carrying an average of 120.
I used to write that a horse carrying an extra pound was equivalent to a human carrying an envelope in his back pocket. Would it make a difference if we were carrying no envelopes in our back pocket after carrying ten in our last race?
Does weight have a greater effect in route races, where it should wear you down, or sprint races, where you've got to accelerate more quickly and race at peak speed for a more intense period. When I ride a bicycle with extra weight in my backpack, I usually feel it when I start out and then forget about it. But when I carry no backpack at all, I definitely feel that I'm moving along more easily.
In the absence of other proof, the low weight on Pure As Gold may be a worthy suspect in our search for the elusive reason for his big improvement.
The Mystery of Bias
Using my imagination, which may be the only thing I have left for judging Pure As Gold, even if I had become a true believer in the weight factor, I would not have chosen Pure As Gold because I felt he was up against an entirely negative track bias. He was the rail horse.
This was the eleventh day of racing at Del Mar. In the first ten days, there were 47 dirt sprint races. The rail horse had only won one of them, and that was a horse that paid $3.40, so he towered above his field.
In the two race cards prior to the day of The Bing Crosby, no rail horse in a sprint even finished in the money. That's none in the money in five sprints. Granted I'm not considering the odds factor, which must be incorporated in bias analysis, but in those first ten racing days, not all of the 47 rail horses were hopeless longshots and more than a few were legit contenders.
As it turned out, Pure As Gold tracked from the rail and then moved up along the rail to win the race. There was a foul claim. Bordonaro's rider claimed that Court, aboard Pure As Gold, had whipped Bordonaro in the stretch. The DRF trackman comment said that Bordonaro appeared to be whipped by the jockey of Pure As Gold. Evidently, the stewards decided that this incident was too minimal to change the outcome of the race.
Was Pure As Gold the beneficiary of the low weight, was he a rapidly improving horse, or was it a combination of the two. Probably the latter. It will be interesting to see how these same horses perform at equal weights.
Track bias is not a factor that we can often use at the moment of predicting the outcome of a race. But when a horse has the bias in his favor and fails, it does not look good for his next race. And when a horse wins at high odds against the bias, as Pure As Gold has done, he's probably the real thing. If the public looks at Pure As Gold's win as a fluke, we might get an overlay price on him in his later efforts this year.
READING CONDITIONS AT SMALL TRACKS
For players who look for an advantage: why not go slumming where big smartass money is not in the pools? Why not bet at small-track America?
Players at smaller tracks are not dumb. Don't get me wrong. But at least at small tracks we are not dealing with professional high rollers, for even the local pros at these small tracks tend to play the simulcasts from larger circuits.
Folks from Belmont and SoCal look at these country track pps and wonder where to begin. The horses all look so bad, and either inexplicable longshots pop up or the horse that should be a 5/2 favorite figures pays $3.20.
The answer is in the conditions. For example, a race carded for horses that have never won four races favors a 3-for-8 horse over one that's 3 for 39 or another that's entered above his conditions and is 2 for 17.
Every condition has its built-in logic. A race for non-winners of 2 races lifetime will obviously favor the horse that's 1-for-4 over the one that's 1-for-19. Such conditions also encourage us to compare the maiden wins of these 1-for horses. You may have only two horses that are lightly raced, with one showing his maiden victory at 3,500 while the other's is at 6,500 or 8,000. They both qualify by the race conditions but one is better than the other.
Certainly the handicapper wants to see some small indicator of current form or improvement, and a low-percentage trainer would convince us to pass. However, the starting point for such analysis is the small print above the pps that states the conditions of the race.
As with all good methodologies, this one will not give you a play in every race. On the contrary, it's difficult to find a horse with a clear conditions advantage at a reasonable price. Forcing it in order to have some action is the wrong way. Waiting for a good spot is the right approach.
One of those right spots came up at Evangeline Downs on July 12 in Race 4.
The conditions: not won a race since January 12 (in other words no win for the past 6 months).
Such conditions favor the horses that have been lightly raced in the 2006. They will all have 0-for records during the period stated in the conditions.
Once the proven losers have been filtered out and the lightly-raced horses have been separated into a group of contenders, we would study their comparative win records for 2005 (the period prior to the race conditions). Those with a better record in the previous year have a class and competitiveness cushion.
An additional handicapping factor would be the horses' records at today's class level. The more losses they show at today's conditions or under (as opposed to losses versus better), the less we like them.
If after that we uncover more than one standout, we should check if there's a radical difference in the trainers' past performance record. In conclusion, we want, in descending order of importance:
a. the lightly raced horse for the conditions period;
b. the horse that has a higher win percentage prior to the race-condition period;
c. horses with the fewest losses at today's condition/class level or below;
d. a high-percentage trainer or one with a specialty that relates to today's race.
Let's look at this field.
1. Heidi's Cat. 0/5 in 2006; 1/6 in 2005
2. Bitsy's Double Z. 0/7 in 2006; 1/8 in 2005, with at least 10 consecutive losses in the pps.
3. LaBelle Frenchie. 0/3 in 2006; 1/10 in 2005, showing at least 10 consecutive losses.
4. s-c-r-a-t-c-h
5. My Girl Melissa. 0/4 in 2006; 3 for 7 in 2005, with only one loss at today's conditions.
6. Fancy Dealer. 0/5 in 2006. 1 /5 in 2005, with three losses at today's conditions.
7. Victory for DJ. No races in 2006. Trainer is 0% with layoffs of 6 months or more.
8. I Nita Rosa. 0/9 in 2006; 3/16 in 2005, no win in past 10 races, and 4% trainer.
9. Run Dancer Run. 0/6 in 2006; 0/5 in 2005.
The immediate toss-outs are the 2, the 3, the 7, the 8, and the 9. We've now tossed more than half the field.
The 5, My Girl Melissa, stands out as a win type horse. Her trainer Keith Bourgeois, shows a 26 percent win rate at the meet and has a flat-bet profit of $2.25 for each $2 in 596 sprint races (18% wins) and yet another flat-bet profit of $2.10 for each $2 with 611 races of horses that he's claimed.
As a secondary factor, consider that My Girl Melissa's rider had 18% wins, compared to 14% for the second best rider in the field on a horse that we've tossed, with the third best rider at 11%. Consider that My Girl Melissa's 20% trainer record for 2006 beats out the best three other trainers with 16, 14 and 14 percent respectively, and that all the other trainers have single-figure win percentages for 1006.
Given that trainer and rider stats validated the clear conditions advantage for My Girl Melissa, her 7/2 odds on the board seemed far too generous to believe. By any line making criteria, she should have been even money.
The conditions led me to My Girl Melissa, and the trainer stats added confidence to the analysis. She won the race at the generous 7/2 odds.
Most recent win
A secondary factor associated with conditions handicapping is "most recent win". My Girl Melissa
had the second most recent win of all horses in the field: 16Sep05 at 6-1.
The first most recent win was for Heidi Cat. One of the three horses that was not tossed. Her win came on 18Dec05, when she paid off at 19-1.
In this July 12 Evangeline race, she finished second in the exacta. The 2-buck exacta paid $64.00.
The third most-recent winner in the field was the other mare we had not immediately tossed: Fancy Dealer. Her win was 2July05, at 30-1. In today's race, one year and 10 days later, she finished third, completing a $284 trifecta.
By coincidence or by design, the three best trainers, considering win percentage in conjunction with r.o.i. stats, were the three to occupy the trifecta.
Let's look at the trainers in order of stats.
Keith Bourgeois (My Girl Melissa) 26% meet; 20% in 2006, flat-bet profit in two categories with large samples.
Harold Delahoussaye (Heidi's Cat) 21% meet; 14% 2006, flat-bet profit in three categories but with much smaller samples than Bourgeois.
Gerald Averett (Fancy Dealer) 12% meet; 7% 2006, flat-bet profit in three categories with large samples.
Bitsy's Double Z's trainer was the only other guy with a reasonable win percentage, but his flat-bet roi stats showed more than a dollar loss for each two dollars bet. Victory DJ's trainer had a fair record but this was a long layoff horse, and in the layoff catergory, the trainer was 0%.
With many types of and variations in conditions relating to non-winners of ..., the most recent win factor can be considered, but only after the other above factors have been weighed.
In some ways the trainer factor is embedded in the conditions factor, since the best trainers are also the ones who know how to read the Condition Book. That said, it is rare to find a race with such perfect synchronicity between the conditions factor and the trainer factor.
In conclusion, good bets like this one are far and few between. What usually happens with a sensible handicapping lesson like this one is that the reader, impatient to find a race that conforms to the rule, forces the issue and does not wait for an all-systems-go scenario. Another way to make this method fail is to back horses whose odds are too low.
The best bets in horse race handicapping are the ones whose orbit rarely approaches us. The good news about betting the conditions at small tracks is that it takes less than a minute and 11 seconds to scan the conditions of the race, conclude that it's not going to be bettable, and move on to the next race.
THE C&X CAFE
Longshot Trainer Stats
mark....i need some quick advice if you don't mind.
i am trying to figure out a way to keep extensive and very detailed trainer notes at my local tracks such as calder. i am not sure if it is worth it to subscribe online at $600.00 a year for access to unlimited editions of the DRF and then manually make the notes. i wouldn't even begin or know how to do such an undertaking.
can you please give me some advice on what to do. would i just go through EVERY horse in every race with every trainer and note the direction he is moving a horse, and note the jockey, lasix etc, etc.
i know formulator does this in certain categories, but not all.
if there is a way to do this the smart way i would certainly pay you for your time and guidance.
or if you would like to share with me an example of how you do it, i will pay for that as well.
thanks...andy
Andy,
First of all, I don't charge readers for advice. I'm surprised I don't get more questions. Once you air a question and it gets into the C&X Café, others can chime in, so that the answer is from more than one person.
As for compiling stats, that's good to do viscerally, by hand, as the meet progresses, in order to identify any trends. Doing every stat on every factor leads to a dead end: either burnout or a hopeless swirling swamp of data and maybe hidden quisksand.What I do, especially when concentrating on a single meet, is to save time by ONLY tallying stats for horses that pay $12 and up. I call this my "Longshot Trainer Stats" and usually a trainer that produces one longshot will produce others. Things tend to happen in clusters, especially at the beginning of a meet, when certain trainers have their whole stable cranked up. With each double figure winner, you note what were the distinguishing traits of this winner: layoff?, claim?, dirt-to-turf?, turf-to-dirt?, first-time starter?, etc. I've found that trainers tend to win with such patterns in clusters.Hope that helps.
Can Race Tracks Survive and Thrive Without Slots?
I've been asking around for reports on race tracks that function successfully without slots. I asked Errol, my colleague in Virginia, to tell us about Colonial:
"About Colonial Downs", he writes, "it is probably a combination of luck, really and thinking small and understanding the strengths and limitations of racing in VA. There are, I think, 6 OTB’s scattered around the state and they have provided the income needed to support a 4-5 week season. The surprise is that most thought an OTB in urbanized Northern VA was a must for survival but every referendum failed up there. (The usual, almost laughable concern is that an OTB brings with it attending evils such as crime, drugs, etc.) This was the main worry when the first Richmond site opened and of course nothing happened and nothing has happened in the 8-9 years since it opened. I try to explain that these are some of the most pre-occupied people on earth and that one evil you should worry about is dying of second hand smoke in the smoking section. Man, it gets thick in there as you well know.
Errol
Morty's put it all together
THE MAKING OF "JERRY BAILEY'S INSIDE TRACK"Longtime C&X subscriber Morty Mittenthal acted on a revolutionary idea to help horseplayers, and the result is a probing and eye-opening 2-volume set of DVD"s called "Jerry Bailey"s Inside Track". Many racing journalists whose audience is the players have now wondered: "Why didn't I think of that?" So the mere fact that something like this got produced deserves our attention.I asked Morty how he got the job done.
Mark. So Morty, how DID you think of that?Morty. A good friend of mine, Eddie Smith from SportsPodium.com, called me to say he had signed Jerry Bailey. When I woke up the next morning, the idea hit me: why not do a DVD? My partners and I flew to NY and met with Jerry and Eddie and later that Summer (2005), we shot the commercial spots at Saratoga. Jerry was originally going to retire after the Breeder's Cup, but then decided to wait until the Sunshine Millions Day at Gulfstream, so we waited to shoot the actual DVD (s) and release evrything in time for the Triple Crown, which we did.Mark. Referring to the chapter of body language, did Bailey's commentary on the body language of horses in the paddock and post parade change in any way your approach to betting?Morty. Actually, I've always tried to include observing the horses in the paddock and post parade as part of my comprehensive approach to handicapping and have read as much as I could about it. But Jerry, using paddock and post parade footage, taught me a lot more and even dispelled some notions I had and encouraged me to observe in a slightly different, albeit in a more "general" sense. Sometimes I've gotten off of horses I shouldn't have. In the past, for example, I was never crazy about horses who put their head over the pony in the post parade, but Jerry said it makes certain horses more comfortable, especially fillies, so now I don't worry about it. Mark. How about Bailey's critiques on individual trainers and jockeys? Any effect on how you read the pps?Morty. More so on the jockeys and their tendencies. Now, when I analyze a race, I take more into account how a jockey is most likely going to ride that particular horse - aggressive, patient, send, take back, etc. For example, Jerry comments that he could just about count on Jorge Chavez going wide and Jose Santos taking back so that type of information helps me figure out how a race is likely to unfold. And while Jerry does get into commenting on several trainers and I take that into account, I've always been someone who is willing to bet on almost any trainer, no matter his record, if I like the horse. But then I'm pretty much a long-shot bettor, for the most part, anyway.Mark. I've interviewed many jockeys and it seems as if only 20 percent of them really get beyond their own subjective impressionism in responding to a subject like "vulnerable favorites and breakthrough races", one of your 12 chapters. Is J.B. a real handicapper? Did his ability to read the pps help in his riding? Will it help us?Morty. Jerry's a great handicapper and an extremely intelligent guy who really knows how to read a race and he and I together, I believe, do a pretty good job of analyzing some races utilizing the PP's from the Racing Form and that's one of the better chapters and should help a lot of the folks at home get away from their "chalk addiction". And, yes, as Bobby Frankel, Christophe Clement and Bill Mott all told me, Jerry used his ability as a handicapper to his great advantage as a rider. And, actually, my first question to Jerry on Vol. 1 of the DVD is: "Do jockeys read the Racing Form?"Mark. Did Bailey shy away from controversial topics? Did you have to prod him to get answers? Tell us a little about how he handles controversy in these chapters.Morty. Not too much. He didn't seem to want to pull the trigger on jockeys' holding horses or trying to color their form, but we discussed it quite a bit and maybe it just doesn't happen as much on his circuit as it might on a smaller (albeit cheaper) circuit. But it was a lively discussion as you will see! And he did have an interesting and possibly controversial idea about veternarians and drugs. In the chapter, "Drugs in the Game", Jerry tells us that he'd like to see racing go back to "hay, oats and water" and although he knows that it's probably never going to happen, he did present an interesting and possibly controversial idea about veternarians. I hope it gets some press coverage.Mark. When I interview racing personalities, I usually end up learning something that I did not even expect to learn. Anything that you learned from these interviews that came unexpected?Morty. Quite a bit, actually, and too many things to mention here, some important, some just interesting. I was surprised by what took me by surprise. Each DVD is around 2 1/2 hours long, broken up into chapters so you can watch what you want in each sitting. But I've had several people tell me that they've watched them several times over and, finally, started taking notes! So there must be a lot there, even for the experienced handicapper, which, I know most, if not all, my fellow C&X readers are. By the way, I'm glad that C&X is still going strong and, if you don't mind me saying so, I feel really proud that I had something to do with that!Mark. Where and how can we order "Jerry Bailey's Inside Track".Morty. Thanks for asking, Mark. Fellow C&X'ers can order by calling: 1-800-509-4000 or by logging on to: www.winwithjerry.com . Either way, the cost is $29.95 for each volume and $49.95 when you order both volumes together, plus shipping and handling, of course. I hope you like them! I have to say that Jerry and I are very proud of what we've produced. Hope you agree.
THE NEW PARITY?
In doing my usual beginning-of-meet longshot trainer and rider standings for Saratoga, I witnessed a new phenomenon. Normally certain trainers or riders surface as the hot thing, the "force" that can overcome the odds.
This year, in the first six days of the meet, there were 25 winners at $12 and up, saddled by 23 different trainers, many of them who are not among the usual suspects.
The two trainers who managed a second longshot winner were Pletcher and Robert Klesaris. In the case of the high-volume Pletcher, two longshot wins would be the equivalent of less than one win for the normal size stable. In fact, most of the longshot winners came from smaller or medium-size stables. Pletcher's two big wins were on the lower end of the pari-mutuel spectrum, at 8-1 and 5-1.
Parity also seemed to be the name of the game within the jockey colony. Only Desormeaux and Jara had two big toteblasters. Prado and Castellano came home with two lesser longshots.
One rider rose above the rest, and it was one who could have been anticipated. If we are attentive, we can actually do our homework before the meet.
On ESPN, July 11, racing journalist Bill Finley wrote about the exploits of Julien Leparoux, "the hot bug boy", who broke Bejarano's record at Turfway and then tied Bejarano for the rider lead at Keeneland, the first time in Keeneland's 71-year history than any apprentice has led/tied for the lead in the jockey standings. Finley also pointed out that Leparoux won more than a dozen stakes races, a significant fact since in such races he did not receive the apprentice weight allowance.
Thus, if we had wanted to do some speculative jockey bets at the beginning of the Saratoga meet, before the pari-mutuel value of the rider would have been perceived by the betting public, Leparoux could have been our man.
During the first six racing days at the spa, he was the only rider to win three races at above 5-1, with returns of 27.80, 27.20, and 70.00, with yet another win that came close to the 5-1, at 11.40. As we've always written, if a rider or trainer wins for a big payoff, it means that the horse did not look good in the past performances and the rider or trainer must have had something to do with it.
Was Leparoux's performance trainer-related? Probably not. Those four wins came for four different trainers, none of them more than day-in-day-out hard-knockers. In particular I had reason to add an educated hunch to this rider speculation since I knew that Mr. Leparoux comes from Chantilly, north of Paris. Anyone who has lived in Chantilly knows horses. Chantilly is to horses what Orlando is to theme parks.
Thus, in a context where a remarkable parity seems to be surfacing among trainers and riders, Julien Leparoux rises to the top. He'll lose his weight allowance by the end of September. Does that mean we'll lose the extra edge? Probably not. Hot bug boys often go into a tailspin after they lose the weight advantage not because they are less than other jockeys but because trainers have less incentive to give them mounts.
I would suggest that if we see Mr. Leparoux on what looks like a live in the pps, we can give the horse some extra points in our evaluation of his chances.
THE LONGSHOT GLOSSARY: HORSE FUTURES AND THE HANDICAPPER'S STABLE
The Longshot Glossary introduces longshot handicapping factors and at the same time attempts to project future winners at toteblasting prices. We look for horses that have not been well-placed and are waiting for the right spot. We're also trying to project situations in which a horse's peak winning effort will no longer appear in the past performances. It's a tricky process because timing is an important factor.
Consider that we are "claiming" (on paper only) from stables who have not been entering these particular horses in their right spot, because of their poor judgment or the wrong available racing spots. In essence we are creating our own stable. You can do this on your own just by learning how it is done here.
Early Bloomer. The Early Bloomer (EB) method involves picking out horses that have won their debut race and following them between their fourth and tenth career races, or longer. The idea of the EB is that horses that win first time out are natural athletes. This is an indicator of good things to follow, and is backed by considerable research. Doolledo is not the precise prototype of this horse since his debut win at 8-1 was as a 5-year-old at Golden Gate in the mud. However he did show some talent at the 20,000 maiden claiming level. Since then they've tried to race him protected. Sooner or later he'll have to drop, and the timing seems to coincide with either Bay Meadows or Golden Gate. The futures play is to take this horse on the class drop but it should be a wet track.
Look for Lisa Lewis's Smart Crowd to confirm the EB method. She won her debut race as a 4yo at the Aqueduct inner dirt course at 32-1. This early bloomer has an underrated flat-bet-profit trainer. Hopefully the horse will throw in a clunker or two in order to boost his odds by the time you receive this report.
Horse for Course. The horse-for-course factor must be grounded in the odds. If a horse is 3-for-3 at a track but his wins have been at 3/5, even money, and 6/5, he's not a horse for course. He was simply the best horse in those races. But if he's 2 for 4 at a particular track, and 1 for 18 at all other tracks, and if he's paid off in double figures in those two races, then he's a legitimate horse for course. Halfkarat is a potential horse for course. He won his maiden when switching to Hawthorne's turf course. He's lost at other turf courses and hasn't won on the dirt. His next Hawthorne turf race would be an opportunity for the player who speculates in projecting the horse for course. This is a low-win-percentage but high-return-on-investment wager.
Sometimes the horse-for-course factor is quite specific as to both distance and surface. Meet My Buddy has had two firm-mile-Belmont turf races on the main turf course in the 12 races I inspected. He won both, paying $17.80 and $14.80. He lost all the other races that did not conform to this horse-for-course-for-distance. He had one other race at the Belmost turf mile, but it was labeled a yielding surface, and the slow final times of all the horses indicate that even Tiger Wood would have had trouble getting his ball out of this swampy surface.
Layoff. Some horses like to win when running fresh. Siberian Amur won as a first-time starter in a dirt route at the Fairgrounds in 2004, paying 23-1. His comeback race in 2005, a Keeneland turf race, was won at 14-1. That race was a Alw nw1. This horse has lost repeatedly, even after freshenings at Alw nw2 but the stable keeps trying at this level. They have not wanted to lose this horse because he showed some promise in Stakes. The ideal win moment would be (a) following a freshening, and (b) with a drop into claimers.
Overachievers. Overachievers are horses that win at big odds. In other words, they win when they do not look good in their past performances. The epitome of the overachiever is So Obvious. This five year old gelding has won Charles Town route races (3-turners) at nearly 40-1, 8-1 and 21-1. To illustrate the magnitude of these wins, consider that his trainer's record at the time I took these stats was 3 wins in 46 races. Without So Obvious, this trainer would have been 0 for 43. If we can ever talk about a horse winning on his own, this is it. So Obvious also threw in a place finish at 40-1 and a show finish at 20-1. That third-place finish showed new-found early speed, and yet the public allowed him to go off at 21-1 in an eventual victory. So Obvious is the type of horse in need of a publicity agent. He continues to be rejected by the public. At this writing at CT he's 15 4-1-1. Too bad the Eclipse Award people have a class-based prejudice or this horse could win one: the bettor's Eclipse Award: $30 invested at CT with a return on investment of more than 400%!
Rider-Distance Switch. Here's a true overachiever. He shows thirds at 11-1, 23-1, and 14-1. Go back to Belmont, 10ct05, and Karakorum Patriot stretched out from 6f to 7f and paid $39.00. That was for the Jeff Odintz barn. He's now handled by Scott Lake. By the time they move to Belmont, the victory of Karakorum Patriot will be buried, and you will not see it in the pps. Let's hope that Lake is patient with this one, or that Odintz reclaims him. We want 7 furlongs at Belomont and we'd love to see a switch to Fragoso if possible, for this rider is 1 for 1 on this horse.
Sprint to Route. On 15Sep05, What's That went into a route race at The Meadowlands, at an apparently higher class level, after numerous failing sprint efforts. He won the race at 16-1. The pattern was repeated on 23June06 at Monmouth: sprint to route and a slight rise in perceived class. He won again, paying off at 13-1. It would increase our confidence if his next sprint-to-route move was accompanied by a rider switch to either Barahona or Pimentel, his previous winning pilots, though rider switch is not absolutely necessary.
Surface Change. On 21May05, Race 2, Penn National, Dorsy Champ was moving from dirt to turf in a 9,000 claimer. His record on dirt was 1 for 39. His record on turf was 1 for 7. That previous win was on the Penn turf course. He went to post at 44-1. He won the race. His Beyer fig went from a 31 dirt to a 71 turf. This year, Dorsy Champ is still eligible to pull off another, but it would depend on his form being masked with several dirt races leading up to the switch to turf. Risky low-percentage but high-return wager.
On 22Nov05, Risque Centerfold moved from a fast track at the Meadowlands to the slop at Philly and won at 8-1. His Beyer zoomed up from 54-fast track to 73 in the slop. His next race was on a muddy track at Philadelphia and he proceeded to win again at 5-1, earning an 84 Beyer. He's been racing in the 60s of late. We're hoping that by the time he gets back to Philly, his wet-track wins will no longer appear in the pps, and he'll get rain. The mud at one track is not usually the same as the mud at another, and sometimes radically different. RC likes the Philly mud.
Postscript. The above horses can all read the toteboard. If they see that the odds are too low, they will not win.
SHOULD WE START A SECT?
When you talk about something again and again, and hardly anyone listens. Soon, maybe a few other people join you, and still no one listens, and you begin to think, 'maybe I sound like a sect member, like someone going door to door to peddle a new religion'.
The religion of trainer handicapping
Trainer handicappers may be condemned to secthood, because the mainstream will never join the bandwagon.
For example, consider Race 5, Hollywood Park, July 14.
There were nine horses in the field. The trainers for every horse but two had negative stats across the bottem trainer lines of the DRF pps.
The two positive stats were David La Croix, with two positive return-on-investment stats involving samples of 80 and 67 races. The win percentage for these two stats were 12% (dirt) and 15% (sprint). Those were general stats that did not involve a trainer specialty and must have relied on a few longshots, given the low win percentage.
The other trainer had more specific stats. Michael Lenzini was the trainer of the 6-horse, Opening Act. He'd just claimed Opening Act for 6,250 and was moving the horse into an $8,000 claimer, and shortening the horse from 1 1/16 to 7 ½ furlongs. In the year 2006, Lenzini was only a 10 percent trainer at the time. But his first claim stat read:
13 races 46 percent wins $3.66 return on investment for each $2
That qualifies as an Ed Bain stat, which requires at least a 30 percent hit rate with a minimum of 4 wins.
It also qualifies as a Susan Sweeney stat because Lenzini claimed the horse for himself. That's one of Susan's favorite angles!
Lenzini has a second positive stat in the race. Shortening up in distance, he was:
42 races 21 percent wins $3.35 return on investment
With the exception of a Mike Mitchell horse, the stats for the rest of the trainers showed ROIs that were a greater loss than what one would lose with random betting.
Even though this was a bottom-of-the-barrel race for Hollywood Park, Opening Act had a lifetime record of 11 wins in 42 races. Not bad! A real win type!
I suppose that if you had handicapped other factors, Opening Act would not have been a standout. But a trainer handicapper making a line based on the trainer stats alone would have had to make this horse even money.
He won and paid $10.80.
As you know, I can furnish hundreds of other elegant examples of high-yield trainer specialties, and we'll refer to more of them in subsequent issues of C&X.
So what do you think? Should we create a sect of trainer handicappers? There have been other sects in racing. The Sheets people are much like a sect. The Sartin followers were a sect. Maybe trainer handicappers are already a sect and I'm an unwitting member? I did write about trainer determinism in Thoroughbred Cycles. Maybe that qualifies me.
THE EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES
Ever since Doc Sartin advised that the DRF speed rating-track variants were just as effective as the Beyer figs, I've had my Beyer ups and downs. Andrew Beyer is probably the greatest figure in modern day handicapping, and his figures were a revolution in horse race handicapping. The mechanics of the Beyer figs are both scientific and artistic.
However, from time to time I have my "Beyer moment", when I come across a race in which the Beyer figs make no sense. One of these moments occurred on July 14, Hollywood Park, Race 4, a turf sprint at 5 1/2 furlongs. Now it never rains in spring and summer at Hollywood Park, so how much of a variant could there be on the turf, especially for a short sprint.
The horse that figured to me was the 2-1 Leonetti. He looked good as the lightly-raced horse at Alw nw1, and there was a beautiful layoff-1 pattern match since his last win came off a similar layoff as today's, on the same distance/turf course.
Let's look at the final times and Beyer figs, same course, for the contenders.
Leonetti: 1:01.1 91 Beyer
Rush Country 101.2 97 Beyer
Margaritalosflores 101.3 93 Beyer
I refuse to believe that the variant on an always firm turf course in the same season could be so different that the slower Rush Country could have a 6 point edge in Beyer fig over the faster Leonetti (the eventual winner). And how is it that Margaritalos flores (the eventual show horse) could be two ticks slower on raw speed and yet have a two-point advantage Beyerwise?
If this had been my first Beyer moment, I'd have remained silent. But incongruencies like this one pop up quite frequently.
In my discussions with aviation researchers, I've learned that the cause of most airplane accidents is human error. In the case of Beyer accidents, I would suspect that human error and not Beyer himself is the cause of the contradiction.
EDITORIAL: PATHOLOGICAL GAMBLING AND CUSTER'S LAST STAND
Before I state my opinion, let's look at one professional's view on pathological gambling.
The Custer Three Phase Model
Robert L. Custer, M.D., identified the progression of gambling addiction as including three phases:
• the winning phase
• the losing phase
• and the desperation phase.
During the winning phase, gamblers experience a big win - or a series of wins - that leaves them with unreasonable optimism that their winning will continue. This leads them to feel great excitement when gambling, and they begin increasing the amounts of their bets.
During the losing phase, the gamblers often begin bragging about wins they have had, start gambling alone, think more about gambling and borrow money- legally or illegally. They start lying to family and friends and become more irritable, restless and withdrawn. Their home life becomes more unhappy, and they are unable to pay off debts. The gamblers begin to "chase" their losses, believing they must return as soon as possible to win back their losses.
During the desperation phase, there is a marked increase in the time spent gambling. This is accompanied by remorse, blaming others and alienating family and friends. Eventually, the gamblers may engage in illegal acts to finance their gambling. They may experience hopelessness, suicidal thoughts and attempts, arrests, divorce, alcohol and/or other drug abuse, or an emotional breakdown.
Now my comments: In reviewing an immense amount of literature about pathological gambling, I am disturbed by certain criticism that treats horseplayers and keno bettors as if they were one in the same, but I recognize that those of us who write about anything related to wagering should not ignore the potential human tragedies connected with such activity. I was prompted to take up this subject after hearing a BBC Radio broadcast about new research in the UK that linked pathological gambling to schizophrenia.
Schizophrenia is one of the world's most tragic illnesses, ruining the life of the sick person, often a life that seemed destined to great achievements, and also having devastating consequences for family members and caretakers. The National Institutes of Health shows statistics that this is a biological disease with a significant statistical hereditary component. Tragic as it is, pathological gambling, even at its worst level, cannot compare with schizophrenia, and pathological gambling is much more of an environmental disease than a biological one.
As I've noted, it is disturbing that in many articles on this subject, horse race gambling is thrown into the same bag as slots, keno or lottery betting. Anyone who knows racing knows that slots players often subsidize horse bettors. The more pathologically inclined have made a choice: self-destructively they prefer to bet games that have a fixed negative expectation and require no study or artistic thinking. Horse racing has lost a large percentage of its dumb money to the slots. This means that the general horse betting public is even more keenly aware of the difference between their game and casino gambling. Most horseplayers are aware that their game is not based on fixed percentages and that the pari-mutuel system rewards players who have done their homework and /or those who have developed the ability to catch nuances that are not perceived by the public.
Experts on pathological gambling, if they wish to include racing on their menu, would also have to include the stock market, a very similar type of gambling scenario. The stock market seems exempt from any critique on gambling.
That brings us back to Dr. Custer's phases. All of us, no matter how sane we may be, are capable of going over the edge. Some of us are more prone than others. But once we are aware of these phases, we can sit in the driver's seat and control them. There are several ways.
Dr. Howard Sartin advised us on developing a win psychology, where we would reject any handicapping method that could not be validated and that caused us to lose. He recommended research into winning methods, and then embracing only those methods.
In theory, this is fine. However, if one is handicapping, each new race may represent a new puzzle and there may not be an objective measure for our ultimate analysis. Even professionals like Ed Bain, who bet only when they have a known statistical advantage, have a built-in way to discard those stats that are no longer valid. Just as in the stock market, knowing when to get on to an investment is much easier than knowing when to get off. Bain bails out when a particular stat has failed to work throughout a race meet. He does his "housecleaning" after each meet, adding new positive stats and discarding those whose cycle has ended.
But most of us are engaged in decision making that is more judgmental. Therefore, we are more susceptible to the ups and downs of betting psychology.
It is here where I suggest a mental approach to Dr. Custer's phases, knowing, as he may not know, that we experience mini-phases all the time. It's the nature of the game. The question is, how to deal with them.
Kipling may have the answer. He wrote: "If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster, and treat those two imposters just the same..."
I'm all for savoring the joy of an exciting victory. However, we do not have to be bi-polar about such things. If we are to maintain our level of objective thinking then we need to discard feelings of invincibility following a win, in the same way we should discard feelings of worthlessness in the wake of several losses.
In my book of racing fiction called Scared Money (rights purchased by the DRF, second edition to appear this fall), there's a character who misses a betting score because of a bad decision at the same time that his two kids leave town without telling him, having decided they don't want to live with him. He regrets the fact that his children have left but what really bothers him is his bad betting decision. The bad betting decision has implanted itself in his psychology as a disaster when it should have been seen as an imposter.
I'm all for a natural rise in dopamines, but when it comes to betting the races, we need to be in control of our own biology ... that is, if long-term winning is really important to us.
Consider a wager where you expect to collect 20 percent of the time and which yields a long-term 15 percent return on investment. Perhaps it's a trainer specialty that hits 20 percent of the time. Or perhaps it's your own basic handicapping that you've recorded over a lengthy period. After a win, you feel elated, and you are possessed by feelings of invincibility. "From now on, it's going to be much better," you say. You feel as if you made a great decision in such a wager. But you fail to consider that this result was not inevitable and that it should lose 4 of 5 times, which means that statistically it can go for longer losing periods. Your elation is not well-founded. If you had been an automobile salesman and you just sold a car, it would not mean that you'll sell to the next 10 customers. So your elation is treating triumph as if it were not an impostor. The result of this ill-found invincibility is a greater likelihood of pissing away the profits.
The exact same method that led to your "triumph" should lose four of five times and could conceivably go for a dry spell that lasts more than ten races. The same bi-polar player who has experienced the great elation will then experience a sense of tragedy, without understanding that this tragedy is as much an impostor as the triumph was. The danger here is that the player will either get off a good thing, only to see it win without his money on it, or will lose betting confidence and spiral into a mode of horrendous decision making.
The large majority of C&X readers have nothing to worry about Dr. Custer's phases. We are a community of serious players. However, all of us can be hit by a bipolar phase, and that can affect our betting decisions. Whether winning or losing, we need to retain an even-headed approach, and that means neither overestimating the significance of our wins nor our losses.
Custer's phases are more extreme than the Kipling example. If you think that you do fit the description of Custer's phases, then do not attempt to make Custer's last stand. Do not pull a Nick Leeson and try to get it all back by thinking that you know the stock market. Leeson chased his losses and caused the bank he worked for to tap out. One man tapped out a whole bank!
I have a son who I consider a winner at the races. He learned to read the pps, and even picked a few good winners. But after the day was done, he concluded:
"This game is not for me. It's really interesting, but I see that to be successful, you are required to do an enormous amount of homework. I'd have to drop out of school to have the time to do it right. I'd rather not do it at all then do it wrong."
He will never have a gambling problem, even if one day he comes back to the ponies. If anyone has a gambling problem, if the amounts lost have gone beyond the recreational, they should consider one of two possibilities. Either quit and replace it with another intellectually thrilling challenge, like bridge or chess, or stop betting entirely until you have discovered a winning method, as Dr. Sartin would recommend. I've found that quitting is not sustainable unless the player finds some substitute activity, for as Sartin once said, "Absence makes the heart grow fonder". As for win therapy, the first part of the process also involves temporarily quitting. The player does not allow himself to wager unless he has found a measurable method.
And, if you happen to be in phase one, by all means enjoy the good feeling of winning, but do not let it get to your head or you risk pissing it away. If you accept the fact that your big score(s) are not due to invincibility or determinism, then your subsequent betting will not cause you to descend from phase one to phase two.
Any C&X reader who thinks he may have a gambling problem is welcomed to write to me. I promise that I will not respond with the usual Calvinist platitudes, nor will I resort to banal pop psychology.mc
WEBSITE TIP
Quite a valuable website, for both convenience of info access and racing insights is www.simonsayshandicapping.com operated by a sharp handicapper named Derek Simon. Simon got his start at Longacres and is an eclectic sort who keeps in tune to racing around the world, handicapping methodologies and racing news in general.
On premature selections
Simon also does an internet radio program with a large following. When he interviewed me, I was surprised by a question about which Euro shippers we should be following for the Breeders' Cup. I'm not sure if my response was entirely pedagogical but I chose not to mention horses like Ouija Board. These horses (mare in this case) will be obvious to pp readers even at the last moment. But more important, we should not get married to a horse to early, or we will become fans instead of objective analysts, and when a new and better horse arrives on the scene after Arc day on the first Sunday in October, we will be too hooked on our premature horse. Come the BC pps, divorce will be too complicated and our premature choice will lead us into trouble.
On Derek's interview, I mentioned the example of Domedriver in the BC mile. I did not have him because he was a latecomer. I should have, because he was trained by the high-percentage Pascal Bary, who never enters a horse unless he has a chance to win. If I got it right with the Fabre horse in the BC Turf last year, it was because I was ready to embrace a late-developer and had not fallen prey to those post-peak horses that had triumphed at Ascot or Longchamp.
When you get your DRF a week early and it has the earlier BC results (I save this issue every year), as soon as you see a Euro trainer with an interesting horse, you can scan back to previous BC Turf, Mile and F&M to see how this trainer has done. For me, the trainer factor takes slight priority over the horse factor for Euro shippers, at any time and not only for the BC. This is why some of the great Euro trainers, such as Madame Head (one of many examples), are not necessarily winners in the USA. And that goes for Euro shippers during all seasons.
One factor to zoom in on is early speed. Euro shippers who have shown some semblance of early pace are more likely to adapt to American racing than those deep closers who often have a Euro bias in their favor.
SCARED MONEY. As I noted, Scared Money goes into a second edition after the first edition sold out, with the DRF having bought the rights from City Miner Books. Of all the books I've written, I feel closest to this one. Yes, it's fiction, but all the characters are based on real people and their horse-betting and life experiences are authentic. Most racing fiction concentrates on either backstretch crime (William Murray or Dick Francis novels) or degenerate gamblers (Damon Runyon, the film Let It Ride, etc.) These great works deal with interesting extremes, for sure. Scared Money may be the only work of fiction that actually confronts the adventures of serious bettors (though degenerates are also found in the stories). I felt that there was enough exciting drama in the daily trenches of horse betting and the lives of horseplayers at or beyond the race track to make for good stories with lots of learning potential for readers who want to strengthen their betting psychology. Have any of you seen other works of fiction that actually involve handicapping? If not, perhaps Scared Money can begin a new genre.

Posted by: Mark / 12:04 PM