Mark Cramer
C & X Report

CONTENTS C&X #33
Editorial: the Purpose of C&X
Cramer gets egg on his face, I, II, III
C&X Café
Review: Value Betting at the Racetrack
Horseplayer Profile: Seth Abrams
The Last Word: The Generic Horseplayer
EDITORIAL:
THE PURPOSE OF C&X
I sure hope that this editorial, by speaking the truth, does not cause us to lose subscribers. I have wrestled with the question of how to improve the Stakes Weekend reports on our website. As originally stated, the function of the Stakes Weekend was informational and pedagogical. C&X is not a tout.
Most of you play the horses every day. This means that you have to search for reliable information or analysis and then make your own betting decisions based on the value of the information provided in relation to the toteboard. My job is to provide the tools so that you may become better handicappers and better horseplayers.
Admittedly, some of you are already better performers than I am. The list of C&X subscribers is quite distinguished. But by way of dialogue, I am in the position to help and be helped. The goal of this existential process is for each reader to achieve his or her maximum potential, knowing that most of us are underachieving, even the successful ones.
Touting has never improved the bottom line of any horseplayer. This I can assure you. Gaining new tools and methods, however, has improved horseplayer performance. Do I give you an occasional fish or do I provide you with the fishing equipment that will allow you to be on your own and thrive. Clearly, the second option is more valuable.
Let's consider some of the past postings on our Stakes Weekend website. (I'll exclude Claiming Crown and the Kentucky Derby, to avoid opening wounds.)
The Preakness
Here is a quote from my Preakness post:
This year, BERNARDINI is the exotic inclusion. He's fourth fave on the ML. He's bred to improve with distance, and his trainer is one to back with 31% wins in stakes. The pace could do him in but I suspect that the pace may not be so fast, as everyone's saying their horse does not need the lead.
These lines were written when Bernardini was only 8-1 in the Morning Line, and with DRF commentary considered, I expected no better than 8-1 on the board, and maybe less. So it was impossible with that information available to recommend a win bet.
Playing the horses means being in the trenches and betting on value, according to the toteboard odds, as I have written and rewritten all too often.
When Bernardini rose to 12-1 on the toteboard, while the other two horses I mentioned were way over bet, there was no question that I had to have win money on this overlay. Yet, there was no way in advance, without seeing the odds, for me to have recommended a win bet. I did provide the salient information, by picking my own primary factors and discarding other factors used by the public. My choice factors were: bred to improve with distance and 31% trainer in stakes races. I took pains to minimize the one possible negative that could have affected this horse: the pace factor.
The Wood Memorial
Jazil has the same daddy and the same dam-sire as Bob and John, and that means both he and B & J should be able to handle a possible wet track. Jazil's hot trainer is what most appeals. He switches to his winning rider, he's been here before and liked it, and his Dam was a graded stakes winner on this track. So that's my attempt to squeeze blood from a turnip.
Even after one of our readers questioned my thin analysis, I went back and did research on the race and re-posted:
JAZIL. I was tempted to toss this horse after having named him the exotic inclusion. He beat doggy-doo in his maiden win. But that was as a 2yo. His GP allowance win was not shabby. In the same way that Bill checked Weaver's comments on Greeley, I checked 'em on JAZIL. In the Fountain of Youth, Jazil bled through his lasix. That's why he lost by 7 to Corinthian after having been only 3/4 behind Corinthian in the previous alw. If you whiten out the Fountain of Youth, you come up with a horse that finished 3/4 behind the eventual winner of the Fountain of Youth.
Now, JAZIL has worked out with no lasix and did not bleed.
When I first posted JAZIL as the exotic inclusion, I mentioned the dominant trainer and rider. Well since then, this same combo has a 13.20 winner yesterday at the Big A. They are red hot.
I will keep JAZIL as a longshot exotic inclusion.
... and as for the eventual winner, I wrote:
BOB AND JOHN. Still can't get past him, but at the same time, no great enthusiasm based on the odds. Yes, I will make him the most likely winner for the connections of previous Wood winner Congaree.
Now I did mention a partial backwheel of Bob And John, but that was only as "one combo". Clearly, if I said that I "can't get past" Bob And John and that "I will keep Jazil as the exotic inclusion", there was no way to avoid catching that 35-1 exacta.
The problem here was that readers wanted info on every possible horse. I came back with a second post in which I gave more info. Some of you got confused by the additional info. But betting on races involves sifting through information and deciding which data should predominate, and this is the process that the Stakes Weekend attempts to use. Anyone reading only for a tip will miss the point.
Still, I recognize that the format of the Stakes Weekend, for both the Wood and the Preakness, was not ideal. Perhaps there is no ideal when posting long before we know the odds. For theWood, I even had to anticipate the weather.
BC Turf
BC TURF. As you recall from the Arc posts, I felt BAGO was live but that it looked much like a prep for the BC Turf. He was an impressive third in the Arc and has never been off the board in 14 starts. Bago was not his best self in his efforts prior to the Arc. Look for a peak.
If Bago was “prepping” in the Arc, then you’d have to say the same, and even more so, for SHIROCCO, now in the Fabre barn. The Arc was his second race following a 10 month layoff. Prior to the Arc, his handlers declared that they were hoping for a soft track. They got a track labeled “good” instead. It’s been raining in NY.
Between the top two, Shirocco’s stable has earned much more BC credits.
And a later post:
TURF. Shirocco and Bago. Those are the keys. Also two “informed minority” horses here by two handicappers who previously picked BC longshot winners as the informed minority. Kachulis is the only guy to pick ACE. Beyer is the only one to pick GUN SALUTE.
Shirocco was mentioned both as the better of the two keys in the first post (strongly suggesting a win bet). Of course, the odds would determine whether such a bet was worthy, and that would only be after observing the toteboard.
As it turned out, Shirocco, my most likely winner, was a hard 8-1. At that moment, seeing the odds, a win bet was easy to decide on. But not before, not at the time of posting, when it was too difficult to predict the tote odds. Given the above info, the Shirocco-Ace exacta was obtainable.
Other BC Races
The format of the BC posts, with different posts each day, referring to different horses, is an intrinsic fault of the C&X Stakes Weekend. If I try to mention each legit horse, then horses I mention in earlier posts may be lost in the shuffle. Such was the case for Intercontinental in the F&M, where I wrote:
WEIRD PATTERN MATCH
In the F&M, INTERCONTINENTAL has never won beyond 1 1/16 and is most distinguished as a miler. She stretches out to 1 ¼ for the first time in her career. The match is that she’s the full sister of Banks Hill, picked by yours truly in the 2001 F&M, and Banks Hill was also stretching out from a mile and dealing with this distance for the first time in her career.
Similarly, I posted two good mentions for the eventual longshot winner of the Sprint, Silver train. But anyone looking at commentary as deterministic, take-you-by-the-hand choices, you'd be left in the cold. Based on the info in my posts, I had win bets on both of the above winning longshots, but in the typical Cramer style, I made multiple win bets in those races, betting those contenders I mentioned with the highest odds. I could not give you one single horse, nor could I give myself one. I learned through Dr. Howard Sartin and Dick Mitchell that there is nothing wrong with making multiple win bets when the odds are generous for the horses involved.
What can I say? This was simply practicing what I had preached: bet the overlays. In both The Odds On Your Side and Value Handicapping, as well as in numerous C&X articles, I have explained that in contentious races, we rarely come up with a single contender, that it's our job to play the overlays.
I disagree entirely with exotics specialists who recommend going for the big score in 14 horse fields where 9 of the horses are legit contenders. That, my friends, is suicide. For every one of those you hit, no matter how gigantic the payoff, you will lose enough of them to piss away the profits.
But in a posting which involves a combination of hard data, angles and analysis, there is no way to anticipate the toteboard odds.
I can also assure you that as good as the Breeders' Cup was for me, the Claiming Crown was a disaster. It did not come together at all. That is what can easily happen with cards of contentious races.
The Arc de Triomphe
With the 2005 Arc post, all horses participating in the exotic outcome were mentioned, including the winner Hurricane Run and the longshot place horse, Westerner.
Hurricane Run: my most likely winner when all the stats are blended, and maybe an overlay with all the Brits in the grandstand backing their own trainers.
FINAL COMMENT
For those who are going deep in tris or exactas, Westerner is a legit inclusion. One handicapper picks him (of 36) so that's the informed minority. But beyond that, his one win in four at today's distance was a listed at Longchamp, same trip as today, back in 2003. He's playing for in the money and might pick up some pieces in the stretch if the rabbits do their job. His trainer is crafty and would not be here for the sport. His prep in Germany looks better than it seems, since he had little speed to run at and lacked room.
Still like the same other horses but this one looks like an inclusion at a square price.
Once more, let's refer to the intrinsic structural problem of the C&X Stakes Weekend. There is so much commentary on so many horses that the reader of these posts may become overwhelmed.
This year's Arlington Million
This was a good race for me, but when I consider what would have happened if I had included it as a Stakes Weekend, it might have led to disaster for some C&X readers.
My exotic inclusion horse was SOLDIER HOLLOW, owing to his exceptional record but especially because he was the German horse! In other contexts, I've mentioned that German racing has been steadily improving. One reason I tilted to Shirocco in the BC Turf was his German history.
However, the 2006 Arlington Million was a densely contentious race. Aside from Soldier Hollow, I saw five other possible winners: THE TIN MAN (I had backed this Mandella horse when he was a courageous second at Dubai), COSMONAUT (strictly on the overlay jockey factor-Leparoux and the race over the track), BETTER TALK NOW (on past class and current form), and the two favorites, CACIQUE and ENGLISH CHANNEL. Those guys were certainly not "vulnerable" favorites, and when you have two of them that can ruin it for you, it becomes risky to play longshots.
I was playing this race in the French betting pool, thinking that I could get an extra edge. I figured that the French would overbet Touch of Land (which they did) and some of the other Euro horses, while underbetting the Americans. The problem was that I would not be able to see the odds before I bet because my local OTBs all closed before the race (7 hour time difference).
My reasoning went this way. The two American horses with no French or Euro connection, The Tin Man and Better Talk Now, would give me a chance for a huge overlay in the separate pool, so I bet those two to win. I then used the German horse every which way with my other contenders, composing my personal trifecta by combining various types of French bets.
That meant that if SOLDIER HOLLOW were to finish first, second or third, I would collect. I did. However, I had underestimated the wisdom of the French betting public. What I had not bargained for was that the bad players were not even in the pool because the OTBs had already shut before the race was run. The smart players knew their international racing, and traveled to the few OTBs that remained open.
Surprisingly (for me), I got a lower win payoff on the American horse THE TIN MAN in France than I would have gotten in the USA (egg on my face #1). And then, the French liked Cacique more than English Channel and also liked Soldier Hollow more here than the Americans liked him back in the States.
My relative trifecta return was only half what I would have gotten in the States (egg on my face #2).
Lessons?
The easy one is that I have been right about the improving German racing industry, and we may still have a window of opportunity to collect on this ongoing trend.
The more difficult lesson is that, had I written up a C&X Stakes Weekend for this race, I probably would have rated Cacique and Better Talk Now slightly higher than The Tin Man, and that could have left my readers out in the cold, even though SOLDIER HOLLOW was my clear exotic inclusion.
There is little we can do about this for future Stakes Weekends, unless you learn the right lessons from this long-winded editorial. For sure, send us your comments for the C&X Café.
In summary, here's my philosophy behind the Stakes Weekends. First, you are reading this publication as a Declaration of Handicapping Independence. You want to be able to make your own choices, but like all good handicappers, you are involved in digging and hunting for information and angles, and C&X can be one important source of such handicapping tools and info.
Second, you are in agreement that horse betting is a game of value, and that in making betting decisions, the toteboard acts as a major tool. This means that you use good information and analysis in combination with the relative value of the odds.
This should be a much easier lesson than it seems. If you are considering purchasing three houses (not horses) and your first choice is overpriced, all of you would agree that it is wise to consider your second or third choices. I am sure that among our readers we have people who have made a successful home purchase by buying their fourth choice. You have weighed the information and chosen the most valuable contender.
Similarly, I know sports betters who will drive 80 miles to gain an extra half point in the spread. How is it that football bettors are intrinsically value oriented while horseplayers remain selection oriented? Someone answer that question for us.
In conclusion, if you prefer to be led by the hand rather than being your own decision maker, then I can refer you to some good touts who may also wish to sell you the Brooklyn Bridge. In fact, that's the best-case scenario. I could also refer you to the most honest of professional horseplayers who may have decided to descend into the world of toutdom. Back in California, I knew several good ones. I watched them profit regularly from their own betting but when they decided they were good enough to become touts, something happened to their decision making. It might have been the pressure they felt for their clients to collect NOW so that they would press and choose lower price horses with a quicker return potential. Or it might have been that they would be obligated to have their picks posted too far in advance before the intense decision-making process could kick in.
If I were looking for a tout, I would find the guru, and then follow him in the betting lines, without telling him I was his client. That way, my being an undeclared client would not impact his decision making.

Since the results of my handicapping on the Breeders' Cup were less than stellar, top handicapper Tim Osterman has written an excellent analysis of the big day. Excuses? Yeah, but they are valid ones:

THE OSTERMAN FILES
A BOGUS BREEDERS' CUP
If the Breeders' Cup is meant to be a definitive exercise in determining the "best of the best" in racing for a particular year, the
2006 edition failed miserably. If the Breeders' Cup is meant to be a true test of handicapping skills, it also failed miserably.
Held once again at Churchill Downs, the biggest problem surrounding the event was the race track itself. Apparently, scraped
down to the basics along the rail, here are the running positions, winning margins and trip comments for the seven main track races on
the card (including the first two non-Cup events):
1ST RACE (6F) 1 1 1 1 (1 1/4)--Rail speed, steadily
2ND RACE(1M) 3 1 1 1 (NK)--Inside speed, got lead into lane, held
3RD RACE(1 1/16) 1 1 1 1 (1 1/2)--Set pace inside, steadily
4TH RACE(1 1/16) 12 9 1 1 (10)--Bold rail move far turn, widened
6TH RACE(6F) 3 1 1 1 (4)--Rail speed, came out into lane, easily
8TH RACE(1 1/8) 6 4 1 1 (4 1/4)--Held rail, hugged fence, widened
10TH RACE(1 1/4) 7 5 2 1 (1)--Rallied widest into lane, took charge
In all races but the Classic, the eventual winner benefited from the inside trip while horses running outside were virtually
eliminated from contention. The strength of the rail bias was also apparent among the also ran's In the Juvenile, for instance,
Stormello dueled on the fence, was in reverse at the quarter pole but, somehow, still managed to finish fifth, beating nine rivals. In the
Classic, Brother Derek had the same kind of rail-hugging pace trip, was beaten into the lane, yet still beat eight foes under the wire.
Make no mistake, this was a powerful bias situation.
The upset victories by Street Sense (15/1) in the Juvenile and Round Pound (13/1) in the Distaff echo this thinking. 'Sense
went from ninth to first along the fence in less than two furlongs and then drew off to tally by an amazing 10 lengths. Hey, maybe he's
Secretariat but he sure didn't look that way in any of his first four career races.
The only Eclipse Award that was determined with 100% certainty on Saturday was that for the two-year-old fillies when
unbeaten Dreaming of Anna dominated setting a pretty easy pace along the rail. She won all four 2006 starts by daylight, succeeded
on turf and dirt and scored at distances as short as 4-1/2 furlongs and as far as 1 1/16 miles.
Other than that, though, things are up in the air. Street Sense is likely to win his vote handily due to his dominating Cup win
but it was his only stakes win of the year. Thor's Echo can hardly win the sprint title based on a single victory in 2006. Round Pond
had just the one Grade I victory this year while Fleet Indian went six-for-six before being pulled up on the backside in the Distaff.
Europeans (Red Rocks and Ouija Board) won the Turf and the Filly/Mare Turf) and the mile went to outsider Miesque's Approval (24/1)
who had just the single Grade I win while going five-for-seven in 2006.
Neither Invasor or Bernardini was helped by the bias and the former probably took the worst of it from a trip standpoint yet still
managed to beat the favorite on the square. After going a perfect four-for-four in this country, he's the strong chalk to be Horse of the
Year but there will be some voters that will point to the absent Discreet Cat who crushed Invasor in the UAE Derby in Dubai back in
March. If, or should that be "when", the Cat blows away a field in the Cigar Mile, a case could be made that he should be Horse of the
Year. The voters are likely to split the difference and give Invasor the main award and Discreet Cat the Eclipse as top sprinter while
figuring he's a lock for top honors in 2007.
As far as Bernardini goes, he ran a winning race but when looked in the eye down the lane, he simply acquiesced without
much of a fight. Like Lost in the Fog last year, breezing wins over inferior company rarely translate into a Breeders' Cup victory. You
can put Lava Man and Henny Hughes on that list as well.
From a human standpoint, there were no standout performances. Eight different riders won the eight events. Eight different
trainers won the eight events. Todd Pletcher was stopped cold, going 0/17 and his rider, John Velazquez, blanked in his eight mounts.
California picked up just one winner on the program when Thor's Echo upset for Doug O'Neill. Corey Nakatani was on board and he
was the only West Coast rider to pose for a Cup picture.
Churchill Downs managed to take a lot of fun out of the betting by not offering a 10-cent Superfecta wager. Why? Who
knows? Guess the bet is just too chintzy for the blue-bloods of Kentucky. Obviously, management chose not to read my column last
week when I spelled out a perfectly-good strategy to play the Cup on the cheap in the Super. Oh well, none of them won anyway.
Nothing new there.
EARLY 'CUSHION TRACK' RETURNS -- Hollywood Park unveiled their Cushion Track surface last week and early results
failed to produce any meaningful trends. True, rally-wide closers dominated on opening days but as the track got tighter and picked up
speed, things evened out quickly. In the end, they ran 33 races over the surface, 13 went to late runners, nine to mid-packers and 11
to early speeders. Favorites only won 24% (8/33) but just three winners returned $20 or more. However, the larger fields that had
been promised did not materialize with 12 events having seven or less, 15 featuring either eight or nine and just six having ten or more
entrants.
It should be stated that management no longer labels their main track "fast", they list it as "cushion". Isn't that taking it all a bit
too far??
EGG ON MY FACE III
Just in case you're curious, lets look at some of the odds differentials between the American and French pools on Arlington Million day.
In France, The Tin Man paid the equivalent of 10.60 compared to the 13.00 in the USA. Soldier Hollow was about the same in the two win pools but he paid 6.80 to show in the USA compared to 10.00 to show in France. In the following race, the 7-furlong Forward Pass, Off Duty paid 6.40 in the USA but returned 9.40 in France, even though France has a higher takeout. Interestingly, the dumb money from the early betting had Off Duty at 16-1, according to my result chart in Paris-Turf. With exclusively American horses in the field, the French bettors made the French rider Leparoux the favorite on Irene's Mon.
In order to measure the comparative value of the two betting pools, and since France offers quinellas but not exactas, I converted the $2 exacta return in the USA to a mythical $1 quinella, by halving the $2 exacta price to make it a Q, and then halving again to make it a buck payoff instead of the 2-dollar payoff. The resulting Q payoff in the Forward Pass would have been $32.60. The Q payoff in the French pool was 43.20.
We can conclude that the best bet in thoroughbred racing comes from arbitrage. The player would need to know the odds in two or even three pools. Like a hedge-fund methodology. You could use the American, the French and some third pool, British, Australian, Hong Kong or whatever. You would need two skills, both possessed by several players I know but neither one in my own possession. You would need to have quick technological reception and at the same time be a quick thinker in order to choose the best pool for each bet. Even if I had the right technology, I'm not a quick thinker. This quick thinker could practice arbitrage and conceivably bet several horses or combinations in one race, but in different pools.
Such operations could be computerized, and in fact computer bettors use such means and enter the American betting pools with late action. By using betting in the pool with the higher odds, you would not only erase the takeout but be operating in an advantageous situation that would be theoretically a negative pool for the track. For example, for Arlington Park to have paid out 9.40 instead of 6.40, they would have lost tons of money on the race. They would have to operate as a charity operation in which, for each $100 bet, they would return $130 in payouts.
So you can see that the power of choosing between different betting pools creates a continuous positive expectation scenario, like withdrawing money from a casino. For a few technologically advanced among us, this could translate into ongoing racing profits. For the rest of us, the example shows how vitally important is the value factor, and teaches us that we should never bet unless the betting public is way off and we know something special about a horse.
In the case of the Arlington Million, I knew something that, in retrospect, American players knew less about than French players: the rapid rise in class of German horses.
For those of you who are betting too many races, imagine if you practiced the philosophy of only betting when you know something that few others know about. This simple philosophy would put you exclusively into positive expecation betting situations. You'd have less action but a much better return on investment.

C&X CAFE
The Maiden Return Angle
mark... i am sure as you are very familiar being around horseplayers, they (we) have their own language.
my buddy and fellow horseplayer scott uses terms to desrcibe horses and handicappng angles based on the origin ( most of the time )
for example, we will be sitting down at the track and perusing the races ahead and all of a sudden one of us will say " there's a great dick in race 8"
that can only mean one thing: an even paced horse stretching out and going two turns for the first time.
this of course was named after our mutual pal mr. mitchell, who about 15 years ago,who taught me that angle as one of many he schooled me in. we don't even
have to describe the running line, we know it what it is.
well the point of the this email is to tell you that
we have two terms for your angles.
the first one we just call "A CRAMER". which is a second-time starter, with a jockey switch.
the 2nd term is a "DOUBLE CRAMER" which is the first angle plus making his 3 year old debut.
about 2 months ago when i was at belmont, bobby frankel had this horse called COTTON KING making his 3 year old debut, with just a horrible first time start(not a merry go round though). i was with 3 guys who thought i was insane for playing this horse.
regardless, he wins at 8-1.
so now, one of those 3 guys ( scott davis)has adopted those terms and leaves me a message on my machine the other day that went something like this:" there's a
double cramer at ellis who i love, and a cramer at arlington in the 5th" nothing about form, speed, condition! just " the cramer"
thought you might find this mildly amusing
cheers...andy

Mark responds:
Andy, thanks for the good words. Another reader requested that I begin to review flat-bet profit methods previously developed by C&X, as a reminder to veteran subscribers and as an introduction to newer subscribers. The one you cite is one of my favorites.
Here are the rules:
(1) Maiden Special Weight horse, layoff of at least 45 days, only one or two career races (no more than that). All previous races must have been Maiden Special Weight – no switch from statebred to open company.
(2) No shippers from minor league to major league tracks, but shippers to parallel tracks okay.
(3) Trainer must have a 12 percent or better win rate, overall. (Use last year's stats if this year's season is just beginning. If this year's season has not gone at least 3 months, combine this year's and last year's stat.)
This is the beautiful simplicity I've spent years looking for. Briefly, the history of this method involved my own research and then subsequent validations. I paid a rigorous research outfit in Las Vegas, Sports Stat, which is merciless with would-be system sellers, to do a separate sample. They came up with the following.
Their expected win percentage for a similar situation without my specific rules was 14%. The real win percentage using my rules was 18.5%, which they considered a big 4.5 point statistical advantage.
Their final return on investment, very similar to my earlier pencil-and-paper samples was plus 8 percent. A mechanical method that earns plus 8 percent is doing at least 26 percentage points better than random betting!
This method has made an impact among the handicapping intelligentsia. Brad Free, for example, once won a handicapping contest and sent me congratulations because his final winner, the one that put him over the top, was a maiden-return horse that qualified by my rules.
In further research I have isolated two situations in which this method thrives.
First, if there is a rider switch there's a slight improvement in win percentage. Second, and more important, if the horse is coming back as a three year old (his previous one or two races were as a two year old) then this method is especially potent. The reason is the growth-maturity factor between a horse's second and third year. Beyer figs for a 2-year-old are nearly always lower than the horse's three-year-old performance. This is a biological certitude. This means that the public will be looking at what it perceives as lower Beyer ratings on the maiden-return horse, because they're looking at a 2yo's figs, compared to other horses whose pps include 3-year-old Beyer figs.
The maiden return method profits from two other intrinsic or built-in handicapping factors, the lightly raced factor and the patient trainer factor. At most class levels and age categories, lightly-raced horses outperform the stale ones. Patience is a primary asset of a trainer, and that means laying off a horse that needs to grow and mature or one that is not 100 percent sound.
If the player can find further sensible filters to apply to this method, he will avoid the losing streaks that can be expected with any winning method that has a relatively low hit rate. For example, statistically speaking, this maiden-return method is capable of encountering a 16-race losing streak, occasionally.
Let us knowif you've found other good filters. As the saying goes about knowledge: "If you can't share it, you don't have it."

Break from Wagering
Mark,
How are you and your family doing, as I hope all is well. I am going to take a break from racing and I wanted to ask you how long have you ever gone without betting. It would be great to know your thoughts on this matter. Please help!
Ron

Hi Ron,
Thanks for your question. I would rephrase the question:
How long could you go without playing the horses, if you had to?
My response. If I had to live my whole life without betting the horses, that is, if I saw that I had no hope of winning, if I saw from my own past performances that I could not make a profit and that I was losing money, I would get a divorce from racing and marry some other hobby.
The world is an ugly place, and lots of this ugliness is caused by human destructiveness and self-destructiveness. But the world is also a beautiful place, and much of the beauty is man-made.
If given the choice between man-made joy and man-made destructiveness, I would choose the first. You have that choice. If you have a job, if you can put food on the table, if you have some semblance of a family, if you have a roof over your head, if you are relatively healthy, if you have one or two good friends, then you have EVERYTHING and you do not NEED racing. If you can add racing to the formula without killing any of the other things, then by all means play the ponies. But if racing has a destructive effect on those good things, then dump it.
If this had been the first time you had asked for help, I would not have been so extreme in my answer.
Mark

BOOK REVIEW: VALUE BETTING AT THE RACETRACK
by David E. Johnson, Ph.D.
The author, trained in economic research and statistics, has given us a curious work in which he seems to provide us with statistically valid information but shows us few of his stats. In fact, it seems as if he used his ample free time as a college prof to actually experiment on angles with real money. In spite of what I initially considered a lack of statistical proof, there is a ring of authenticity in what he has to say.
There are two parts to the book. The first part, entitled Stop Losing Money, exposes twenty betting angles that lose money. The second part, called Start Making Money, argues for the betting line approach, and introduces the performance and validation of his "Value Line" computer product.
When the author first sent me a review manuscript, I withheld my endorsement, even though I liked what he had to say, because I felt that part II was plugging his product without giving us enough awareness of how it was put together. I felt that if a book were being sold, that the fundamental methodology of his product should be explained to the reader, so that the book could stand on its own and not be a sales pitch for a methodology whose formula is left unexplained in the book.
Dr. Johnson obliged by adding a Chapter 8, which tells us in broad terms the intellectual foundation of his line-generating computer method. Essentially, what is unique about the formula is that his mathematics vary according to the dynamics of a race. For example, his methodology will weight the pace factor more in races where the pace factor surfaces as a primary indicator and less where pace is not so important. In other words his numerous factors change in their relative weighting according to the race scenario of each event being analyzed.
The result of the Value Line is an odds line, and on page 154, the author provides us with the validation of his odds line based on over 300,000 actual race results. In each odds category, from 1/1 through 7/1, the Value Line has "picked" a percentage of winners that corresponds with its odds assessment.
That means, for example, that horses listed as 3-1 on his computer have won 24.21 percent of the time (remarkably close to the 25% for a perfect line) and horses listed as 4-1 have won to the tune of 20.88%, only slightly above the 20% perfect line result.
In theory, this should mean that if his value line calls a horse 4-1, for example, and you are getting 6-1, you have an overlay. But if his value line calls the horse 4-1 and you are getting only 4-1 or less (no overlay) then you would not back the horse.
I grilled Dr. Johnson on whether or not this book was functioning as a medium to sell his Value Line. From our exchanges, I came away convinced that the man is more interested in expressing his pride over a lifelong accomplishment than in making money from the product. You live a life and accomplish something, you reflect on it, and you want to leave a legacy.
In the Twenty Angles that Lose section, I came away with the impression that I was receiving a lifetime of experiential wisdom. Granted that there are no statistics in this section, but as I said, the man researched with real money, something I do myself in order to prevent subconscious fudging.
"Scientific analysis," he explains, "requires observation, organized and categorized, which leads to repeatable results. I applied this methodology to each betting angle."
In the process, he is knocking down a number of icons, including speed, pace, bias, class, pedigree, body language, etc. He's not saying that these factors are null and void but that they cannot function as only factors because they fail to be applicable in too many circumstances. He's telling us that you cannot use these things as single factors (angles) because they are part of a complex dynamics that changes from race to race.
Among these twenty angles, let's refer to the one where I might disagree with the good Doctor: trainer specialty. "Some trainers do seem to have their niches," he writes. "Much of this information is now available in the Daily Racing Form, or in various commerial publications. Unfortunately, the sample sizes are usually small, making the statistics inviting, but potentially misleading."
Very true, I admit. And he is objective in saying "potentially' misleading, for some trainer specialty stats seem to withstand the test of time, and these are usually the lesser known trainers with the smaller samples: for example, Richard Matlow first-time starters, or André Fabre in the Breeders Cup. When dealing with short-term stats, we need to know when to get off, if necessary. The decline of a trainer specialty may be evident (a) if the average mutuel descends as the public becomes awareof the angle, or (b) the trainer branches out into other specialties (like Dickinson going from a turf master to a highly qualified dirt trainer.
To be fair, the Doc's chapter is arguing primarily against trainer-jockey patterns, something that we trainer handicappers have not advocated because we know that a trainer-jockey relationship is more volatile than the trainer specialty itself.
I could also argue against Dr. Johnson's breeding-factor conclusions, for I believe there have been and will be windows of opportunity when certain pedigree factors are playable with automatic bets. Mike Helm and I once won the award for the highest profit of the day at a Las Vegas tournament thanks to two longshot winners, both based on automatic pedigree plays, one on turf pedigree for a first-time turf horse and another on pedigree for debut winners. At the time, we were very much aware that these factors could dissipate in the future in case the sires in question were used in different crosses or simply that the public might learn about the pedigree factor, causing the odds to descend below fair value. The identifiable period when we could use these pedigree factors lasted nearly a decade.
Just as Dr. Johnson had primarily argued against trainer-jockey patterns and not trainer patterns alone, in his breeding chapter he argues against the dosage factor, and here he has history on his side. Dosage index was never a truly objective model.
In the part of his book which is called a Guide to Using the Value Line, the author comes dangerously near a point that is purely advertising his product. However, he is also arguing for an approach, one that I have espoused, of only betting on horses whose track odds are higher than our appraised odds.
In the end, I endorsed the book because it is one serious professor's testimony that you can only win by betting overlays, that you need to have some tool to evaluate the fair odds of a horse, and that that this tool must be validated over the long run by proving that your odds lines are equivalent to the win percentages they predict.
You may be interested either in his book, or in the service it espouses. For either, you can contact Dr. Johnson at customerservice@thevalueline.com
I'd be interested in seeing an independent test comprised of a player using the Value Line product and showing the flat-bet return when only playing contenders that go to post at odds that are higher than the fair odds shown by the Value Line. I cannot endorse the product without testing it, but I can endorse the premise and theory behind the product.

THE LONGEVITY OF TRAINER STATS
When does a flat-bet-profit trainer gain enough public attention so as to attract too much betting action and therefore lose his profitability? Too bad we do not have a mechanical answer to these questions. However, one thing for sure, the flat-bet profit of many trainers is sustainable over long periods of time.
To validate this assertion, lets look at four trainers who were named by C&X, in previous issues, as flat-bet profit trainers.
Long-time subscribers may remember. Way back in December of 2001, I named a number of trainers who have been capable of sustaining long-term profits for their faithful bettors. Back then, SoCal trainer Carla Gaines produced 22% wins in dirt races for a 9 cent return on the dollar. Today, with entirely new DRF stats, Madame Gaines shows 22% wins with a return of $2.11 for each $2 wagered, over 128 races! (Gaines has even better profits if you restrict your wagers to maiden claimers.)
Illinois trainer trainer Chris Block was shown in 2001 to have 25% wins on the grass with a 27 cent profit for each dollar wagered. Today, with an entirely new set of races, Block has 21% wins on the turf for a return of $2.32 for each $2 wagers, and the sample is 208 races.
I also wrote of New York Linda Rice on the turf back in 2001, with 22% wins for a profit of 6 cents on the dollar. Today's DRF stat, from a up-to-date sample, shows Rice with 19% wins on the turf, for a return on investment of $2.55 for each $2 wagered, from a sample of 124 races.
Finally, a trainer I've mentioned in several editions of C&X as profitable is Wayne Catalano from Illinois, on first time claim. Today, his first-time claimed horses win 40 percent of the time, for a return on investment of $2.19 for each $2 wagered, from a sample of 92 races.
Since it is true that other trainers have not been able to sustain their long-term flat-bet profit for their backers, it seems that we should study the profitable trainers to find out what they have in common. In the case of the above four, none are Breeders' Cup commodities, none are "designer trainers", none have entered the realm of the celebrity industry. You may have never even seen what these trainers look like, even though you can recognize the faces of the Bafferts and Lukases.
More than any other flat-bet category, trainer stats are more likely to hold their longevity. A player who had a "stable" of 20 trainers to bet automatically within their specialty would not need each and every trainer to sustain his or her profitability. If 20% of the trainers we choose cannot keep it up, that means that 80% can.
That would be enough to sustain a profit. Let's hear from you on ideas as to how to maximize this information.mc

HORSEPLAYER PROFILE: SETH ABRAMS
C&X has discovered a creative voice in the realm of handicapping thought. His name is Seth Abrams, and an article by Seth will follow this interview. Once you see his website you'll realize why we decided to feature this guy in C&X.mc
mc. Seth, please tell us how you got into horse betting? Usually this is passed down from one generation to another. How about your case.
Seth. I'd always liked the sport of horse racing, but, up until a few years ago, I never followed it outside the triple crown. I didn't have much experience going to the track, having only gone once to Calder in high school and once to Arlington while living in Chicago. But, one day in Denver (where I had moved after leaving legal practice), I was looking for something to do, and decided, for some crazy reason, I go down to the OTB and watch a few horse races. I bought a program, began to look at the past performances, and placed some bets. I loved the way that analyzing the races made me feel -- it was the intellectual challenge that I had been looking for in my career for quite some time. I bought some books to learn the game and have been feeling the passion ever since.
As for my family, while neither of my parents are horseplayers or gamblers, my maternal grandfather loved to go to the track. I never met him -- he died before I was born -- but I think I must have his horseplaying genes in my blood. My aunt recently found one of his old notebooks, which contains notes of races from Rockingham Park in the '30s. It strangely looks like something that I could have written. It's really cool to have that connection with the past.
mc. Before we talk about your website, let's get some context. What's life like in Burlington, Vermont? I've written about the good quality of life there in the past. Are things changing? Do they have good OTB's? How far are you from Saratoga?
Seth. Burlington is an interesting place to say the least, but it's only been a temporary stop on a longer journey. We wanted to try living in a small town, but, after staying here a little while, my wife and I miss the opportunities of a larger city, so we're moving back to Washington D.C. in the fall. It was nice being relatively close to Saratoga (about a 3 hour drive), but, on the bright side, after moving, I won't be too far from Pimlico or Laurel, either.
mc. What provoked you to put up a website for horseplayers?
Seth. When you spend nearly every day for the past several years playing the horses, you're bound to have some thoughts about the game, especially about what it takes to be a winning player. With these thoughts running through my mind, I had a couple of goals in mind when starting the website. I wanted to help other horseplayers by possibly shedding some light on some issues that plague their handicapping that haven't been discussed within the mainstream of the handicapping press. I also wanted to help the horseplayer enjoy the game more by exploring some of the inherent drama lying beneath the surface in horse races. And, finally, I also sought to help my own game by clarifying my thoughts through writing and also by exposing these thoughts to feedback from other handicappers.
mc. In "The Generic Handicapper" you mention conformism and non-conformism. Most C&X readers will agree that you have to be a non-conformist in analyzing the pps in order to make a profit. But I have a further question. Can a person who is a conformist in daily life become a non-conformist in horse betting? Or is it something so intrinsic within us that if we are conformists in the way we life, it would be quite difficult to go against the grain of the betting public?
Seth. That's an intriguing question. I can't imagine that a conformist in life could "throw a switch," sit down, and be contrarian when playing the races -- it's just too ingrained in the subconscious thought processes to follow the leanings of others. But, I can imagine that a person who conforms in other areas could use the races as a way to encourage non-conformist thinking, as a laboratory of sorts to discover the joys of trusting his or her own thought processes. And, as a result, I think a sort of self-actualization could occur both at the windows and in the other parts of life.
mc. Regarding "change vs. continuity", I know that you've had a couple of career changes in your life. Did racing cause you to change your career or did your career cause you to seek out racing?
Seth. I think I found within racing what I had always been looking for in my career -- a mixture of analytical thinking, research, and strategic decision making that captivated me in a manner to not feel like work. It was strange and unexpected –I had always thought that I would end up eventually in academia doing social theory. And, while I always enjoyed the research and writing parts of my legal career, I was perpetually bored and never really liked going to work all that much. It was a terrible week if I had to work late or weekends -- which, of course, is interesting, because, between writing and playing the horses, I routinely put in extremely long days and now "work" almost every day.
mc. We're approaching Breeders' Cup time. What's your view of the BC as part of horse betting. Is it (a) a big day with special opportunities, (b) just another racing card, or (c) something we should beware of. Explain your view, please.
Seth. I love the Breeders' Cup as a fan. Every race has absolutely unbelievable drama and history. But, I'm still mixed on it as a horseplayer. I find my game suffers immensely when I try to make a big score, and I think the routinely astronomical payouts encourage this sort of behavior. I also do my best when I see a race clearly from top to bottom and can conceive of all reasonable possibilities -- something that happens more in smaller fields than larger fields and almost never happens during these races. If you happen to have particular insight, then it's worthwhile to take a shot, but I'd be wary of playing with the hopes of hitting a jackpot.
mc. So tell our readers the details of your website.
Seth. The website is "The Handicapping Life," and it's located at www.thehandicappinglife.blogspot.com. It's in a traditional blog format and contains articles about handicapping and horse racing -- a new article typically appears weekly, although sometimes they are more frequent. There are typically two type of articles. The first are articles that explore the art of playing the races --usually dealing with the intellectual and emotional sides of being a horseplayer. I've intentionally tried to stay away from discussion of traditional approaches, such as the value of early speed, class drops, and FPS calculations. The second type tend to be analyses of the incredible drama of the sport. I've always been more of a qualitative handicapper, and I find that understanding the story lines of divisions and races tends to help not only enjoyment, but also to help handicapping as well. I also sometimes write about things related to horse racing that don't fall under either of these topics, but, usually, in the final analysis, it all comes under the the theme of living the handicapping life. In addition, the website will hopefully be adding podcasts in the near future.

THE LAST WORD: THE GENERIC HORSEPLAYER
by Seth Abrams
Conformity is a curious thing. In many walks of life, it is a pathway to comfort; a means to attain a predetermined level of security. If you play along, do what you’re told, obey the rules, then you’ll be taken care of – an above-average, yet cookie cutter life will exist for you. There’s almost no risk in taking the safe path; while the non-conventional person may attain or acquire more or less, conformity brings safety, although perhaps not deep satisfaction. I don’t disdain or disrespect anyone for making such a choice for their life – it’s a dilemma that I struggle with often. However, if you lean towards conformity and its resulting safety, then I’m fairly positive that you shouldn’t be expecting to profit from the horses, whether recreationally or professionally. Because in playing the horses, it’s exactly the opposite of many other aspects of life. Thinking like everyone else will not create even an average level of success. As in any speculative activity, profit can only result from an opinion that is different from the norm, so long as the difference of opinion is based on something tangible, and not merely different for difference sake.

As a devoted horseplayer, I’ve had my own experiences with the pressures of conforming. When I began handicapping, I was wildly successful, despite only using incomplete bits of knowledge based on repeated observation to reach my selections. My first big winner (35-1) was selected on a drop in class combined with a last race decent close -- an analysis derived solely from watching several races mixed in with a good dose of common sense. Believing that I was probably just lucky and wishing to perpetually sustain this luck, I embarked on a journey to learn as much as I could about the game. In the following months, I read the classics of Ainsle, Beyer, Brohamer, and Quinn – and a host of other authors who all added something to the equation. In fact, as of this writing, I own and have read 47 books related to handicapping – all catalogued neatly in a veritable library of truth in my office.

After reading all these books, I was armed with an almost complete body of handicapping knowledge. However, after incorporating this information into my handicapping, I noticed a not-so-positive change in my thought processes and in my ultimate selections. I now routinely settled on favorites or other top horses, and I no longer found the less than obvious horse. I routinely supported the horses that met the proven, well-trodden angles learned from the books, such as best last race finish, top speed, top trainer and jockey, best class, and improving form cycle. At the same time, I was chanting to myself the mantras of value at every turn. Although I was acutely aware of the importance of the overlay, I would incorrectly support false overlays repeatedly. And then, one day, I realized what had happened. I had become nothing but an organization man – an unthinking disciple of a dominant ideology. Stripped down of my early individuality, I had become a generic horseplayer.

Aware of my now commonplace handicapping, I began to suspect that the success at the beginning was more than just beginner’s luck and that it contained seeds of an individualized method that I had abandoned to subscribe to the views of the orthodoxy. Determined to recapture some of the methods that had worked so well at the beginning, I began to disregard conclusions based solely on the surface of the form. In an effort not to be swayed, I would make my selections ignorant of the odds, and only bet when the public did not mirror my assessment. I tried to predict how the public would value the horses – using the knowledge that I gained in my exhaustive study of the literature – and tried to find less than obvious reasons why the public might be in error. But, mostly, I tried to unlearn what the books led me to believe – that the past performances completely reflect the possibilities of the race and that an individual race can predicted with accuracy. Indeed, I discovered that, in a speculative endeavor, the illusion of certainty can be fatal. By returning to a view that anything can happen, which I held at the beginning of my horse playing days, I recaptured the looseness of thought necessary to distinguish my thought process from the crowd.

These duel perils of extensive handicapping study – conformity and the illusion of certainty – present traps for the novice and experienced player alike. For the novice player, I would caution against too much early infusion of the technical handicapping techniques of others. Seek only to understand what a past performance means and only approach the technical works when you have the base of knowledge to critically assess them. However, anything dealing with the game that does not involve the technical part of picking winners, i.e. bet structuring, money management, or emotional control, is incredibly useful to the novice (and veteran) horseplayer. And, for the seasoned horseplayer who has read the classics and is familiar with all the established techniques, a consistent check to see if you have entered the realm of the generic is always useful. This game’s ups and downs can push all but the most emotionally disciplined handicapper into moments of doubt and towards more accepted approaches and a vain quest for certainty.