Mark Cramer
C & X Report

C&X 35

CONTENTS
Fantasy Racing: for Real!
Informed Minority: Postscript
C&X Café: the Early Bloomers, Matlow Again, The Mighty Quinn, Value Line
Late Bloomers
Book Review: Trainer Angles
Player Profile: Dean Keppler
The E. Clips Award: the Overachiever Factor
The Last Word

FANTASY RACING: FOR REAL!
Have you ever considered applying the strategies of fantasy football and similar games in other sports like baseball … to race betting?
I must confess that I have not done this lately, simply because I’ve been following so many tracks at one time. In the days when I concentrated on a single track, such as Hollywood Park or Laurel, knowing everything that was happening on the grounds, I was able to use the “fantasy” method, which is essentially creating your own stable.
You can “buy” and “sell” horses, the way you buy and sell baseball players. They will be in your stable. You will know all the horses on the grounds because you’ll only be playing one track. By specializing in one racing circuit, you can anticipate, project, and plan, just as a trainer would.
Here’s how it works. I’ve added factors today, based on solid statistics, things I would not have been able to use back when I followed this procedure.
Since you’re talking about a single track where you follow them every day, you will know which horses have been laid off, which ones are over-raced, and which ones should be rounding into form. You “buy” the ones that are or will be rounding into form. It costs nothing. The only commitment is to follow the horse as if you owned it, knowing when it is well-placed and when it is not. By knowing these horses as if they were your own, you will know when the pace is right, when they are merely filling a field or prepping, when they have passed their peak (you can sell them), and when they are not yet ready (you can wait patiently like a good trainer, only you don’t have to feed the horse nor pay the groom).
How to choose the right horses
(1) Choose lightly-raced horses
Ed Bain’s stats show that lightly raced horses and freshened horses outperform stale ones. That’s why he concentrates only on the first four races following the layoff. Most race conditions already favor lightly-raced horses, as we’ve often written and explained.
(2) Choose horses trained in stables with at least a 17% win rate
From C&X research we know that higher win-percentage trainers get more than their fair share of longshot winners, while low percentage trainers get far less than their fair share. In fact, in the higher echelons of win percentage, trainers actually earn a flat-bet profit on their longshots, though, as you can imagine, the win percentage for toteblasting horses is not high. We lower the bar to 17% for the minimum, since trainers with between 17 and 19 percent winners have a better chance to “lay low” and out of the limelight. If your horse gets claimed away by a low-percentage stable, dump him.
(3) Choose horses that have proven to like the race track
You do not need a horse-for-course, but at least the horse should have a fair record at the track/surface.
(4) Choose overachievers
These horses may have won before at high odds or equally significant, they’ve proven to finish in the money at high odds. The only thing we want to know is that the horse can overachieve: race well when not looking good in the past performances.
(You should not choose all the horses in your fantasy stable at one time. Go for quality rather than quantity. Eventually you want at least a 10-horse stable, but with no more than 25 horses.)
(5) Be aware of winning patterns
For example, pick out a two-year-old maiden that has lost no more than two races and wait for him to come back after a layoff. The horse may have been bet heavily and disappointed the backers, or he may have simply not been ready when prepped by a winning stable. You are the trainer and you want this horse to be laid off. If they do not race him but then bring him back at the md sp wt level, then they have a positive intention and it will be the right time for a bet. This particular pattern works all year but will be especially potent in the early months of 2007, peaking in March, April and May!
Once you’ve chosen your horses, you should wait for the right situation to bet them. If you have a horse that is returning after a layoff, you can filter him in or out of your action depending on whether (a) the horse has won before following a layoff, or (b) the trainer has a decent win percentage/return on investment in the lay-1 category under the pps of the day of the race.
A word of caution: do NOT talk to the “real” owners. I’ve made that mistake several times recently. Most owners are just as subjective, if not more so, than players. I made the mistake with a Ken Ramsey-owned horse. Ramsey was so high on the horse that I began to feel the horse was invincible. He tailed off just when Ramsey’s hopes were on the rise. Remember that in this method, you, and not the owner, are the “owner”. What you own is knowledge, a valuable commodity. And it costs less than horseflesh.
Knowing when to “buy” a horse is easier than knowing when to “sell”. The more the horse has been racing, the more he becomes a candidate to be sold. Do not chase. It’s better to turn over. If you see that your horse has been losing its early speed, sell. If you see that he’s being over-bet, sell. If you see that the trainer has become cold or the horse is losing the rider who won on him, for no apparent reason, sell.
Fantasy race betting is not only fun but it forces the player to handicap more intensely, by limiting the number of playable horses. The danger, if there is one, is to become attached to the horse the way real owners are. The whole idea of a fantasy stable is to know your few horses so well that you can differentiate when they are well spotted and when they are not. You’ll find yourself watching horses and then saying that this one should go up and class and this other one should be dropped. This one should go in a route and that one in a sprint. This one needs turf, that one needs a sloppy track. If the trainer follows your advice, then that means two experts were thinking on the same channel.

INFORMED MINORITY: POSTSCRIPT
Regular readers will remember that the Informed Minority has shown a win profit in most recent Breeders’ Cups and in the two Claiming Crowns where it was measured. We seem to be zooming in on a viable “system”, with a potentially serious flaw being the low win percentage, as exemplified by two wins in 22 tries for this past Breeders’ Cup ($44 invested and 83.80 returned). Can you have a workable system if you have to go for long series of races without a winner?
One possible strategic saver is to use the system across the board, especially in events like the Breeders’ Cup and Claiming Crown where you find large and contentious fields with vulnerable favorites. In one particular BC year where the Informed Minority struck out in its win bets, having suffered a number of near misses, it ended up as profitable in both the place and show holes. When all the smartass wisdom tells us to play the pick threes and exotics, maybe this large field scenario is ripe for a smart bettor to back up into the place and show pools. Surely, in all forms of intelligent investment, isn’t it better to take a different path and not follow the crowd?
In BC 2006, had you played the same 22 qualifying horses for place, you’d have collected on four horses (including the two winners) returning a total of 53.00 from 44.00 invested. Not sensational, but better than the dismal fate of my own handicapping. Aside from Miesque’s Approval and Thor’s Echo, already mentioned in the previous C&X, there was Happy Ticket, in the Distaff , chosen only by Mary Rampellini, returning 14.20 to place, and Film Maker, chosen only by Mike Welsh, who placed in the F&M, paying 5.80.
In the show hole there were 7 successes out of 22 bets, including the above four. The other three horses were Balleto (chosen by Scott Ehlers), Honey Rider (picked by Bill Tallon) and Premium Tap (tabbed by Kenny Peck and returning only 8.80 to show simply because the two faves finished ahead of him).
The resulting show payoffs totaled 53.00 from 44.00 invested, identical to the place results.
With winning methods we know that place returns end up less than win returns and show ends up less than place returns, but the backup holes could be a way of minimizing the stress during long droughts in the win hole, and any pool that provides a positive return is worth considering. Your thoughts, please.

C&X CAFÉ
(Early Bloomers)
From Don:
i read your on line report where you spoke about the stakes week-end thing. I didn't get to play it this year because churchill downs wouldn't let southern indiana bet it at our OTB. However, I got the advanced copy of the BC anyway. (next year CD won't be the host track). I also read in the racing form where someone wrote about losing money on playing all the first time starter winners and how bad you would have fared. You spoke often about not only FTS winners but also 2TS winners. And, aside from the juvenile races there were 76 horses that went to post in the other 6 races and 55 (72%) of them were of the FTS/2TS variety. They won 5 of the 6 races (83%). The bottom line is that a bet on all these horses would have cost $110. There was a return of $133.80 (1.21 roi). This comes from you--. It's consistently good handicapping advice. So, that's quite remarkable.. don a.

Mark responds:
Longtime C&X readers please bear with me as I review past research for our newer subscribers. Constant validation of past research is a requirement. It’s like quality control.
When we view validations such as Don’s example, we need to look back at what we are validating.
The original research on Early Bloomers (a term coined by our reader and honrary C&X researcher-in-residence, Professor John Sember), was published in C&X July 2002. Doc Sember’s study was based on debut winners and their eventual Breeders’ Cup performance. BC starters who were debut winners won more than their fair share of races for what we call a positive impact value (I.V.). For those interested, IV was first used by researcher Frederick Davis and followed up by William Quirin and others.
Right after that July 2002 issue, I received a flurry of letters and e-mails from readers with one opinion in common. If debut winners do better in their later career than non-debut winners, then second-time-starter winners should also produce a positive stat. These readers referred to my original hypothesis:
Horses (and humans) who do something well early on in the learning process probably have a natural talent that may be lacking in those horses and humans who take longer to learn something and do it well. A second-out maiden winner may have been prepped in its first race. Some schooling trainers never try first time out.
I developed this theory while living in Bolivia, where I taught the kids in the neighborhood how to play baseball so that my son would not lose the baseball culture that was so important in my childhood. I noticed that certain kids caught on immediately while it took long to teach some of the others. The ones who learned early could be termed as naturals.
I also studied this principle when watching the French baseball championships in Paris and interviewing players. There is very little in France that will encourage the development of baseball skills. Most of the players who had reached the French championships had had little or no schooling in the sport as children, and had merely picked up the skill when trying the game for the first time. Naturally, work and training are important after the initial contact, but the early success seemed to have been a vital factor in later training.
I would not waste time on a parenthesis if it were not important for understanding the fundamental rationale of why the Early Bloomer method should work.
Thanks to the quick reaction of C&X readers, I immediately followed up my research, including both debut and second-debut winners. The results were published in August 2002. I measured horses’ performance in career races 6 through 10. I compared those that were debut and second-debut winners with those that had broke their maiden in their third, fourth or fifth career race.
Debut and second-debut winners achieved comparable stats: 24% wins for horses that had won their debut race and 23% wins for horses that had broken their maiden in their second-debut.
After that, the statistic dropped off the cliff. Third-debut winners won only 17% of career races 6 through 10. Fourth-debut came in with 16% wins, and fifth-debut maiden-breakers chimed in with a 15% hit rate.
Please understand that we are researching the impact of an early win on performance later in a horse’s career.
It was then that John Sember sent me his own research, covering four years of Hastings Park meetings. The results of his research validate the fundamental rationale of the hypothesis, but do not give us an automatic bet throughout a horse’s career.
Sember took horses that had won either their debut or the second-debut, and discovered that in the third, fourth, fifth and sixth races following their debut win, with 573 total races, these Early Bloomers won 22.86% of the time (quite close to my own stats), with a return on investment of $1.17 for every dollar wagered (17% profit). Subsequent research by Professor Sember has corroborated his original findings.
I am confident that a method can be developed from this theory, and that the theory is valid. Don’s note offers further validation.
However, given the vast number of debut and second-debut winners, we could be talking about an enormous number of plays, depending on which career races we choose to isolate for wagering. The question is open as to which career races. I feel that the theory is valid at least through a horse’s five-year-old season.
Past experience has told me that the best bets in racing are those that are graced with scarcity. Scarcity adds value. So we would need to apply some sort of filter, in order to reduce the number of plays. My initial reaction is to exclude all horses whose trainer wins less than 10 percent. That seems fair enough, especially considering another great C&X research discovery: that high-win-percentage trainers produce more than their fair share of longshot winners while low-win-percentage trainers produce less than their fair share of longshot winners.
So trainer hit rate seems like the universal filter. But we need to know more. I would be willing to invest in real-money research. C&X readers helped this research move forward from its initial stage. Perhaps a reader or two can come up with the next step.

(Matlow AGAIN!)
Dr. Billy M has sent in thanks for the Matlow first-time-starter winner, Kona Wind, 17Dec, second race, Hollywood Park, 2yo, maiden claiming $50,000. I am happy to have mentioned the Matlow FTS system recently in C&X so that no one could have forgotten.
Kona Wind paid $25.80 to win. That’s nearly 12-1. You’d think that since I’ve written about this again and again, it should have made an impact on the toteboard. Here’s proof that we can write about angles and methods and it won’t impact the odds. I know this is true because Kona Wind was 8-1 in the morning line. Instead of being bet down because we’ve publicized the angle, the odds went up!

(The Mighty Quinn)
Hi Mark,
Most of my connections to the racing world have evolved from reading C&X. I first heard about James Quinn when you mentioned him favorably in some of your
writings, and I believe that he, like me, had the pleasure of visiting you in Paris. So I figured he was in elite company!
I am on the e-mail list of Today's Racing Digest (TDR), and I noticed one day that James Quinn was offering a series of e-seminars which could be downloaded for
only 9.95 per month, and included daily picks from the California tracks by the TDR staff. The individual handicappers available on TDR charge $10 a DAY for
picks, so this seemed like a bargain. At first, I thought the seminars seemed a bit simplified, but this is part of their value. I would recommend any beginning horseplayer start with these as they are presented in a logical, easy to learn format. And for
guys like me who have learned things incorrectly, or who just need a reminder of what is important, they are just as valuable. There is a ton of information as well as some interesting tips which could have already been helpful to me. For example, one of
Quinn's favorite play is to find a horse with an improving race, followed by an improving workout.
This revealed a Dale Bennett horse at Tampa which paid 18-1, but, of course, I didn't realize until the race was over and I wondered how I could have missed that!
The titles of the seminars are simple: Types of Races, How Will My Horse Run Today, Trainers, Jockeys, etc., but they have some hidden pearls in there among the
routine stuff we older horseplayers already know. I made notes while watching each one, and came out with more information than I could absorb at one time and apply appropriately. I hope that by using these guidelines repeatedly, I will develop good habits.
Just getting back to the basics that Speed, Class, Pace and Form are the backbones of handicapping is important to remember. Tips on how to use Pars has been particularly useful in helping me pass races which should not be played, or, more importantly,
horses that should not be played.
In summary, I think the e-seminars are suited for all horseplayers who are not satisfied with their current approach. Time to re-focus and KISS-keep it simple, stupid!
Bill

Cramer responds:
Regarding the fundamentals, yes it’s definitely important to know them. How can you break rules cleverly if you don’t know what those rules are? Quinn has told me recently that he feels it’s increasingly tougher to find an overlay in the win pools. The public is more sophisticated, slots players have been filtered out of the betting pools, and reliable information is more available. In fact, with so much information available, there are times when a fundamentally good pick gets lost in the shuffle, like the Tampa Bay horse that Bill mentioned.
Regarding the par times, there are two schools of thought. School 1, advocated by Dick Mitchell and others, said that if a horse cannot “run to par” (achieve the fractions and final time that are expected for his class level), then he should not be bet, and you can expect a chaos result in a race in which none of the horses can run to par. The other school of thought, advocated by Howard Sartin, said that the dynamics of a race depend on the comparative fractions/speeds of the horses in a race, regardless of some magic number that exists, and that Par Times exist outside the context of the race.
Furthermore, par times are based on last season’s average times for each class/sex/age level. A new meet begins, and the track often comes up different. Track maintenance crews love to make improvements. So if you do use par times, you might as well calculate your own at the beginning of a meet. That can be done simply by recording the fractions and final times for each race in boxes according to the class/sex/age of the race.
In a few days, you can quickly discover if last year’s pars need to be altered.
As for the Mighty Quinn, of all handicapping books, his The Handicappers’ Condition Book seems to stand up on its own after a quarter of a century, even without revisions.

(Value Line)
from Rick P
Mark,
I must have had one too many Christmas cookies - I made a dumb decimal point error in the message I sent to you a few hours ago. Consequently, I have made some edits and corrections as follows:
I read your review of David Johnson's book, Value Betting, and have serious doubts about the validation method that he used - at least as far as it applies to the profit and loss bottom line of an overlay bettor.
Dr. Johnson states that the Value Line's assessed win probabilities nearly match actual win percentages (horses that are given a 25% probability win approximately 25% of the time). The problem is that we don't know what the actual odds were for each horse, or what the betting results were for those horses that were overlaid. My expectation is that a much higher percentage of the horses that won went off at odds under 3 to 1, than went off at odds greater than 3 to 1.
The importance of the comparative percentages is that in a group of 100 horses that were given 25% probabilities to win 25 would win and 75 would lose, using Dr. Johnson's validation results. If, as I believe would be very likely, at least 15 of the winners went off at less than 3 to1, they would not be overlays and would not be bet. The other 10 winners would have to have an accumulative average payoff of 7.5 to offset the 75 lost bets.
In my 20 plus years of experimenting with far too many handicapping systems and approaches, I have not found one yet that could show even a small sustained profit, let alone one that could deliver profits above a break even threshold of 7.5 to 1.
Dr. Johnson's enthusiasm and sincerity to assist us as handicappers come though very clearly in his book. He can prove up the "value" of his research and methodology by doing a public test of the Value Line where the betting choices are limited only to overlays, that is horses that have actual odds greater than the odds projected by Dr. Johnson's methods. I for one, hope that he can prove me wrong!
Rick P

Hello Rick,
Thanks for your note on Johnson's book. You may recall that at first I did not endorse the book, until Johnson added some "hows" and "whys" that I thought the readers had the right to know.
In evaluating handicapping literature there are two rough measures. The first is to read between the lines and assess the reliability of the information. The second, which should support the first, is to again read between the lines and assess the honesty and motivation of the author. I was convinced about the second. The author was doing this book as a labor of love, and knew in advance that financial rewards would be slim if any.
Your question regards the first. You make a usually legitimate hypothesis: that 15 of the 25 horses were "very likely" to have gone off as underlays. Most systems probably pick too many underlays. But the value line, which I have never used, makes an odds line and tells the reader to only bet if the horse is going off above that line. That is a pretty good safety measure against betting underlays ... IN THEORY, and would contradict the likelihood of his value line getting aboard so many underlays.
Nevertheless, I think you propose a fine idea, that Johnson should do a public test of his line, as Steve Fierro does on a daily basis with his own lines.
I approved of the Johnson book on two grounds, in a much more limited way than the author would have wanted. First I liked the long section where he argues that all the usual primary and secondary factors (the "usual suspects") will fail to produce a profit. Second, I liked the concept where he advocates that the handicapper would do well to use a line and bet only the overlays. To me, his value line product was quite secondary. The point is that handicappers cannot make a profit by betting underlays, and that includes keying underlays in exotic combinations.
Regarding odds lines, allow me to add that Steve Fierro's The Four Quarters of Horse Investing, though not a literary gem since the author is not a professional writer, goes one step further than Dr. Johnson, by providing the reader with templates that shorten the odds-making procedure, though Fierro does not deal with the handicapping factors as Johnson has done. Fierro is a professional player.
I have spent three entire afternoons next to Fierro as he bet his own lines. He won on two of those afternoons and lost the third time. He ending up with a significant flat-bet profit. My Fierro-watching is equivalent to a "test", though all of us know that three afternoons of betting is the short run and not the long run. To his credit, Fierro also validates his published overlays over the long run.
The joy of this game is when we choose our own horses. For an odds line to be successful, solid contrarian handicapping analysis needs to be poured into the line. Garbage in garbage out would be the result of poor line-making. Hence, you are right in calling for a public test of Johnson's value line. Fierro is tested in public all the time. As for your 20 years of experimenting with systems, I would say, judging from your letter, that you have gained wisdom, learned to be a skeptic, and probably discovered that you would do better by using your own picks than someone else’s. Fierro’s templates do not guarantee success, because we are the ones who have to handicap when using them, but they do assure that we will not be playing underlays, and we can fit our own handicapping into them.
Mark
LATE BLOOMER
In the dialectics of racing, every valid method has its opposite valid method. Late bloomers do make their impact felt, and we should constantly take notes on the background of every late bloomer victory. The victory of Boboman in the Hollywood Turf Cup on December 9, with a $20.40 payoff, presents a case history where there was good reason for the horse NOT being an early bloomer.
Furthermore, we also see why, in many cases, the whole race career of a horse should be considered when analyzing today’s race.
Career races 1-3: Boboman lost three mile races in France.
Career race 4: Boboman stretched out to win at a 1 1/8.
Career race 5: following a layoff, he lost a 6 ½ downhill turf race at Santa Anita. Following this race, the horse was laid off for more than two years.
Obviously, there was a serious physical problem, but the original French owners stuck with the horse.
Career races 6-7. Boboman lost two mile events. Clearly he needed to race himself back into shape following his recovery, and equally clear was the fact that the mile was not his best distance, as you could see from the mirror image of his earliest races.
Career races 8-9. Boboman stretches out to 1 ¼ and wins two for Mandella. His Beyer ratings are gradually ascending, a sign that he is continuing his recovery from whatever drastic condition problem he had suffered.
Career race 10. He is entered in the Hollywood Turf Cup. The stretchout to a mile and a half looks like a good pattern. The horse has always improved when stretching out! However there is a question of class. He shows few credentials at the graded stakes level.
We have ample evidence that Boboman has the right to be a late bloomer. He had suffered from a condition problem and he had been raced at distances which were too short for his true aptitude.
The rest of the handicapping puzzle depends on the context. Here we had a Grade I race in which none of the entrants showed any Grade I wins in their pps. Only two horses, TH Approval and Meteor Storm had ever won a Grade 2. Two of the others had never won any graded race, while several had raced in claiming races. You’d be hard-pressed to find a field more unqualified to be labeled Grade 1.
No question about it: this was a poor field, and represented an excellent context for an improving horse such as Boboman to reach a new peak.
The trainer stats on Mandella add further fuel to the argument. Mandella, one of the greatest trainers in racing history, had been a 15% winner during the whole of 2006. And yet, his stat for graded stakes was 22%, while for “won last race” it was 21%.
Thus, there was a double contextual situation: poor competition and a trainer who excelled in this scenario.
The early bloomer theory was based on a holistic view of the entire career of a race horse. This holistic perspective can discover both natural athletes and those who have good excuses for not having shown their natural ability at the outset of their careers.
PS. Beyer fig readers would have immediately discarded Boboman, with his 94, since other entrants had 103 or 104. But Boboman’s recovery, improvement, and stretchout were three reasons to expect another jump in an already existing pattern of ascending Beyers. C&X research has shown that the average winner of a horse race increases his Beyer fig by 9 points from his previous race.


BOOK REVIEW:
TRAINER ANGLES: Maximizing Profits Using Formulator and Advanced Trainer Stats
By Dean Keppler, DRF Press. $14.95.
“As with any statistical study, the results are constantly changing.” Dean Keppler
This is our nagging problem. Those of us who bet on statistics know in advance that it’s not a deterministic exercise. Ed Bain, for example, knows that at the end of the month, his 30%-plus trainer stats, collectively, will produce between 20 and 22 percent wins. C&X has often referred to the fact that a positive trainer stat can maintain itself not because of the trainer himself but in relation to his ability to lay low and stay out of the celebrity realm.
This represents a dilemma for trainers, for they need to develop their “trademark” in order to attract owners, and almost inevitably, this will lead to a lowering of their average mutuel.
Fortunately Dean Keppler is well aware of these contradictions, and he addresses the issue. In fact, you could say that the core of his book is dedicated to uncovering the hidden stat, the stat that has escaped the attention of the public. One of the tools he recommends is the DRF Formulator in its updated edition. Any DRF website subscriber can have access to the incredible Formulator database, and this is quite a bargain … IF you know how to use it.
Too much information is almost as bad as no information at all. For every 100 stats, maybe two or three are real gems, the majority are neutral, and some that once were positive have become negative.
A trainer’s stats are also linked to his owners’ persuasions, though to varying degrees depending on whether the owner is a respected breeder or simply a sportsman. As I have written in Thoroughbred Cycles, trainers, like any other species, go through cycles.
Much of Keppler’s book deals with statistical subsets.
“I like to see win percentages that are considerably higher than the trainer’s general stats at the meet with all starters,” Keppler explains. He demands a minimum of seven starts for a subset with a minimum of 18 percent winners.
By setting these minimums but not engraving anything in stone, essentially Keppler is proposing a balance between science (statistics) and art (interpretation). The rest of his book involves examples of Keppler’s interpretations. If you are expecting the mechanical answer, do not look here. But if you are hoping for some wisdom that can catalyze a higher level of accomplished interpretation and creative analysis, then it’s well worth reading everything he has to say.
He does provide us synthesis of hierarchies of importance which will immediately filter out the static of less useful trainer numbers, emphasizing factors related to claims, recency/layoff, grass, equipment changes, first-time starters and young horses, and jockey-trainer combinations. At the end of each chapter, he lists his choice subsets and specialty stats, and as you would expect, most of the best stats come from the designer-trainer celebrity world. We are also made to understand that these are small samples at the moment he was writing the book and, by the way, playing the same races he was writing about.
Therefore, we would have to see now whether Amy Albright has been able to hold her stat for first-time blinkers: 8 races, 6 wins, and a return of $11.40 for each two dollars bet. Some of the subsets are not so small. For example, Grant Forster tripled your money if you backed his first-time lasix horses over a period of time in which he had 28 starters and 12 wins (over 42% hit rate) and Harry Kube was hitting 40 percent of the time with 22 starts in the first-after-claim category over a period of 22 races ($8.25 for each $2), partly outdone by Jerry McArthur who hit 44% of the time with 29 horses he had just claimed ($8.86 for every two bucks invested). But how long can these people sustain such percentages?
I enjoyed reading about a trainer that C&X has often tabbed as a turf specialist. On April 23, 2006, Chris Block entered his Lighthouse Lil in the Third Race at a mile on the grass. However, the horse had been away from the races for more than 6 months. Under the pps, you see Block with 155 races on the grass, 23 percent wins and a $2.53 roi. You also see that with layoffs of 61-180 days, Block had 27% wins in 33 tries for a $2.75 roi. Lighthouse Lil had won her last race, and in the “won-last-race” category, Block showed 32% wins out of a 57 race sample for a $2.33 roi.
Now here’s my question. Doesn’t this look perfect, no Formulator needed? Block is one of those trainers that has sustained his profitability ever since C&X tabbed him several years ago.
But Keppler wants to show us how dazzling the Formulator is, so he illustrates how you could have combined the two stats (lay-1 and won last race) and come up with 40 percent wins for Block from a sample of 20 races for a $4.39 roi. You be the judge. Did we need this extra stat? Certainly some of us may have doubted the worth of a repeater stat for a horse that has been on vacation for so long! But did we need to go any further?
Strangely, on the same page where Keppler encourages us to check the combined-stat subset, he also writes: “The key is not to rely on these stats alone, but to use them as an added resource to your general handicapping regimen.” I would beg to disagree. Why spoil a good stat by injecting my own flawed mind? The BBC has reported that artificial intelligence is now outsmarting human beings, that computers now regularly defeat chess masters, so who am I to manipulate the stats?
Well, with or without the Formulator subset, Lighthouse Lil won and paid $11.20.
If you had been overzealous about adding stats, you would have noted that Block’s stats at Hawthorne, where the race was run, did not show a flat-bet profit, nor was he profitable with the rider E Razo.
Keppler zoomed in on the lay-1, but I suspect that Block performs less adequately on dirt.
What I am trying to say is that only one of several factors clicked on the lights in Keppler’s head, and I would deduce that a certain dose of artistic inspiration helped Keppler in this and other cases to reduce the overwhelming mass of information to a size that can be manipulated with agility.
The author adds certain tidbits that can enhance our memory of the subject. On these pages we read that Chris Block learned his trade while working for Bill Mott (remember that Mott’s original success came on the grass and also with lay-1), and Keppler’s having isolated this particular trainer stat may have been partly triggered by his association of Block with Mott.
So, without announcing it, Keppler is suggesting, through examples, that we need to interpret and not just process all this data.
To his credit, the author provides us with many case examples of how not to bet, how to filter out, and how to be selective in using this trainer information. Perhaps that’s the greatest attribute of this worthy volume.
Rather than continuing the review, let’s have Keppler himself respond to some of our doubts.

PLAYER PROFILE:
KEPPLER SPEAKS
C&X. "Trainer Angles: Maximizing Profits Using Formulator and Advanced
Trainer Stats" is both a book about the trainer factor in handicapping
and a manual on how to use Formulator, which is available to anyone
who subscribes to the DRF. You make it evident that Formulator can
uncover trainer patterns that are unpublished anywhere, and therefore
pari-mutuelly valuable. But I would suggest that there is value in
reading the book on its own merits. It helps me to see the trainer
stats at the bottom of the pps in a different and more valuable light.
Am I right, or is it a must to use Formulator? I say this as one who
is trying to spend less time in front of a screen and more time as a
railbird.
Keppler. The Formulator program is a wonderful piece of handicapping software. For all its marvelous merits, however, it certainly wasn't the sole reason for producing a trainer angle title and it's nowhere near an absolute necessity for sifting out winning trainer angles. The truth is I was anti-Formulator for the first 18 months of the product's existence. My main reason for avoiding the software like the plague is that I didn't want to become lost behind a computer screen spending way too much time over handicapping and analyzing a zillion racing variables. I was wrong about the product and my initial assumptions were not correct. The software is very user-friendly and the rewards are enormous when you can expertly uncover some incredible trainer stats that may escape the naked eye.
On the flip side, even if you're not computer savvy, I think the trainer influence and the variables you should be focusing on are usually printed right there for you to review in the general past performances. Even if you learn to master only 5 or 6 trainer maneuvers or angles (without the assistance of Formulator), you'll be well ahead of the public masses that may be handicapping and wagering off a regular program without any relevant trainer data at all. The edge is enormous with or without the software.


C&X. I've finished rereading an article called "Too Much Information"
from the New Scientist. You warn readers that too much massaging of
date in Formulator could have the opposite of its intended effect. How
do you draw the line between a valid subset and information overload.
Surely some of the filters (categories such as distance, surface,
recency, etc.) have far less relevance than others. It looks more
artistic to me than scientific.
Keppler. It's a very fine line between a valid subset and information overload. I wish I could say there were a fixed number of starts in a certain time frame under an exact condition that I used as my precise criteria for making faultless selections. It's just not the case, and I don't think that exact science exists anywhere in horse racing handicapping. Ed Bain, who is an excellent trainer angle handicapper and noted author of the book 4 + 30, requires 4 wins and a minimum of 30% wins with the trainer categories he bases his selections on. Ed and his wife Susan are very successful in what they do, and Ed's criteria is as good as any as a starting point before he addresses various subsets and filters before finalizing his daily selections. I'm not that restricted when it comes to my criteria and selections. I'm willing to use a stat with a minimum sample if I believe there's some other supportive handicapping data that appears to be pointing towards an improved performance. For example, if a trainer is 3 for 4 when applying lasix for the first time with his 2-year-old fillies in the last five years, I'm not going to toss the stat because there's not enough of a sample to come to what many handicappers would perceive as an accurate number. The trainer data should be used to heighten your handicapping awareness and it's imperative that you don't get married to a specific number. As a beginning rule, I'd recommend looking for stats that are greater than a trainer's overall win percentage performance for the year. If a trainer is only clicking with 9% of all his starts in 2006 from 258 entries, but is standing strong at 29% first off the claim from only 12 or 13 attempts, this is obviously a significant stat.

C&X. Regarding the choice between trainer stats going back 5 years, 3
years, 1 years, and even currently hot trainers who just began to be
so, this looks like timing the market. Trainers do have their cycles.
Are you saying that we can indeed time the market regarding these
trainer cycles? Especially since, as you wrote, results of statistical
studies are constantly changing.
Keppler. Timing is everything and with horse racing, football and even life as a whole it's a game of inches. I believe that's an Al Pacino line from his film "Any Given Sunday", but there's a lot of truth to that statement. We all know being in the right place and the right time is imperative for success. The same is true for capitalizing on successful trainer angles and patterns. A nose here and a nose there and you can probably fill in the rest with your worst heartbreak story. For example, you decide to hit your nephew's 5-year-old birthday party Sunday afternoon because you're a devoted uncle. You forget your cell phone and have no access to the internet or an off-track betting parlor at your current destination. In doing so you unintentionally miss one of your favorite and successful trainer angles: a Nick Zito first-time-starter rolling along at Saratoga on the turf in the 5th. He pays $46 and keys a $23,000 pick 4. It's all about timing. Trainers get hot and cold and a specific stat that's been clicking 76% of the time last year may only be hitting 23% this year. There's a multitude of reasons why these fluctuations of numbers occur, but your main focus as a successful trainer angle handicapper is to try and keep the sample fresh and has specific as possible. The Formulator filters allow for both of these options, and the end result is usually an accurate number that we can confidently wager on. The beauty of the program is that we can see what the stats are for the last year, 3 or 5 years and adjust our bets and selections accordingly. The patterns and streaks become evident with a lot of practice.

C&X. I like the idea of Median Payoff as opposed to average mutuel, as
it protects us from getting stuck with a stat that could be based on
one isolated longshot winner. Have you used this much in your own
handicapping?
Keppler. Absolutely. A ridiculous longshot that pays boxcar numbers can cause mayhem to any average mutuel, and therefore result in contaminated results. We should avoid making selections on these types at all costs. The median payoff is a more realistic measure of the typical trainer data payoff and the one we should be focusing on.

C&X. There seems to be a universal trainer pattern that a
high-percentage trainer's roi goes down as his popularity goes up. It
also seems as if the many subsets you list in your book of hugely
successful trainer patterns happen to be of trainers who lay low and
have not passed the celebrity barrier. What do you think about this
observation?
Keppler. I believe your observation is 100% correct. Recreational bettors not using any sophisticated trainer data are inclined to overbet hot stables, popular jockeys, and familiar jockey and trainer combos. The end result is that the ROIs for these popular trainers and the jockeys that frequently pilot for them dwindle to an unacceptable wagering level. The key is to find the less popular guy or gal that has a world of training talent that has somehow managed to stay under the radar while clicking with good percentages at generous prices. Each racing circuit from coast to coast has a handful of these expert conditioners that specialize in various categories whether that be with 2-year-olds, grass races, newly purchased stock etc. They are out there. You just need to sift them out and play accordingly.

C&X. You also mention that the trainer patterns/stats should be
integrated as a complement to other handicapping. What about automatic
bets? My idea would be to dig in to the wealth of subsets in
Formulator, and then filter out the 8 or 9 stats that really seem
striking, and then bet them automatically. Otherwise, it seems
overwhelming to handicap with so much info. Your comment please.
Keppler. If you're a fan of the automatic bet (or "Wall Street blue chip" style of betting like I prefer to call it) and it's successful for you, I'm all for it. One of the wonderful things about this game is that know two players handicap or wager the same. Fortunately, at year's end, there are a few different roads that lead to being in the black and you need to find the one that fits your style, level of playing comfortably and bankroll. I wish my style of betting were conducive to playing 3 or 4 horses a day. It's not. I'm an exotics player who concentrates on multiple race bets (pick 3's, 4's and 6's) and my overall success depends upon 4 or 5 nice hits for the year. However, there's no doubt in my mind that a series of automatic play stats can be successfully filtered out using the Formulator program and bet automatically.

C&X. Tell us a little about your own evolution as a player, with
respect to the trainer factor. How much did the trainer factor impact
in your Pick 6 score? What proportion of your own handicapping is
occupied by the trainer factor?
Keppler. I've always been a fan of the trainer factor in handicapping. Some of my biggest and most rewarding scores have come from uncovering a golden nugget of training data that escaped the public's eye. There's no greater feeling than looking at a horse that appears hopelessly inferior based on his past performances, speed figures, and general race-day condition, and having them run a tremendous race based on a sneaky trainer maneuver that you've uncovered indicating a enhanced performance was likely.
I have trainer Doug O'Neil to thank for my Pick 6 score on Easter Sunday. Two of my singles on that particular afternoon were winning trainer angles from the O'Neil barn that I've wagered on successfully in the past, and they happened to find their way on to my ticket when there was a generous California carryover. I'd say 50 to 60% of my handicapping revolves around the trainer factor. The rest of the 40 to 50% includes evaluating Beyer Speed figures, diligent race replay watching, pace scenario analysis, paddock inspection, and other important handicapping facets. Some of the most successful players I know are tedious race watchers that spend 7 or 8 hours a day watching races. It's all about what fits your handicapping style and time constraints.

C&X. Give us a parting shot on the direction of our beloved game. Will
the computer screen replace the rail at places like Hialeah, or will
there be some sort of rebirth of live racing? Or anything else you see
in the cards.
Keppler. I can only hope that the computer screen doesn't replace the live product. I grew up going to the track and to me there's nothing more inviting than spending a day at the races. Whether that is at Finger Lakes in the dead of winter or Santa Anita during a heat wave. I love the live product and I believe there's still a huge handicapping advantage when you can evaluate horses during the post parade and warm-up. There are things you just can't see from your computer screen or simulcast center. Although I'm nowhere near an expert on body language and thorough paddock inspection, I do have an extensive background in breeding, showing and racing Whippets and Italian Greyhounds. I was in the business for 8 years. In the dog show business you learn to recognize correct confirmation rather quickly or you go nowhere even quicker. I strongly believe these unique eyeballing skills that I acquired from playing with the puppies transferred over to horses.

I don't believe that the surge of racinos populating the racetrack community nationwide is the answer to this vanishing sport. My opinion is that these establishments will eventually cannibalize each other without improving the product or attracting new fans. Racing (whether it be Thoroughbred or Standardbreds) are the red-headed stepchild of these establishments, and the executives that run these lottery terminal cash cows do very little to make these locations racetrack fan friendly. It's very unfortunate. An immediate solution may be cut down on race days and the number of tracks that are opened on a daily basis. I see nothing wrong with running three days a week, 12 races a day, when a track would likely attract more fans and likely more interest.

THE E. CLIPS HORSE-TRAINER OF THE YEAR
I’m not paying any attention to the politics of the Eclipse Award. Instead, I call Elmer Clips, regular player, who has his own way of judging horses. According to Elmer, the horse of the year is the one that provides the highest returns for his backers: the players.
This year it was an easy choice. The E. Clips Award goes to Miesque’s Approval and his trainer Martin Wolfson.
Here are the numerous reasons why.
(1) If you had bet him in each of his starts, this horse would have returned 15 times what you’d invested. (Cramer’s failure in the BC Mile was his prejudice in favor of the Euro horses. Of the Americans, this was the prototype of the overachiever, having won at 48-1 and 6-1, having thrown in a place finish at 10-1, and a couple of wins as heavy fave.)
(2) If you’re an oldtimer, you gotta like him. Through his sixth birthday, with five years of racing, he’d won only 7 in 36 tries. That’s not shabby, but once he became seven, an age that horses should have become stallions, he stuck around the track and won 5 of 7.
(3) Trainer Martin Wolfson turned this horse around. He came from the Mott stable, and Mott is a first-class trainer. So Wolfson was not raiding an impoverished stable to get this horse. His Beyer figs jumped more than 15 points on average from the horse’s 6-year-old campaign.
(4) In the BC-Mile, Miesque’s Approval got the job done in a setting that is not usually conducive to American horses, on the turf against the Euros. He faced horses trained by Aidan O’Brien, Michael Soute, and Saeed bin Suroor (Godolphin), all veteran winners of BC races. Aboard MA, Castro had to defeat Dettori, Gomez, Prado, Velazquez, Soumillon, and the hot Leparoux.
(5) This horse has been good for racing, our game. Why? Because he stuck around and raced as a 7-year-old. One reason racing loses its public is that horses are turned over so quickly. We could also mention Perfect Drift and Better Than Now as good for racing thanks to their career longevity, but they are geldings and have nowhere else to go while Miesque’s Approval is a horse.
Primarily, the E. Clips Award goes to bettors’ horses. The overachiever factor, even if C&X missed it this time, should be a primary addition to the mix of handicapping factors. Like the stock market, racing is a game of psychology, emotions and biases. There are undervalued stocks and undervalued horses. The investor-public has its perennial favorites and often overlooks successful performers even after they have proven to yield a profit.

THE LAST WORD

Dean’s last comments have prompted me add a few notes. Please excuse me for my romantic illusions about racing and horse betting.
In the State of Delaware, gambling revenue, including state lotteries and income from its three racinos, contributes 9 percent of the state's total budget. Columnist Al Mascitti, in The (Del.) News Journal, suggested that dependency on slots is not sustainable, referring to competition from neighboring states: Nobody can be sure how big a hit Delaware will take when out-of-state gamblers start playing closer to home. But the Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council is floating a seat-of-the-pants number that demands attention: $120 million, roughly half the current amount raised on slots. Even a $100 million shortfall would amount to nearly 4 percent of the state's revenue.
Given the “state” of competition these days for gambling dollars concentrating on the most feeble but “giving” end of the gambling market, Delaware will only know how to respond by expanding its gambling, perhaps with riverfront establishments and sports betting. The frenzy of competition will be escalated. Racetracks will be hard-pressed to match this competition, and perhaps this will be for the long-term good. Perhaps.
“Slot machines at racetracks turn racetracks into casinos much more than just enhancing the attractiveness of racing. We have here what is fundamentally a truth-in-labeling issue. If you have slot machines at racetracks you really don't have racetracks anymore, you have casinos that happen to have animals that run in circles,” according to Dr. Bill Eadington, professor of economics and director of the Institute for the Study of Gambling and Commercial Gaming.
A typical slot machine in a Las Vegas casino yields significantly less than one of the same machines at a race track, Eadington notes. It’s the law of the marketplace. Slots expand in Nevada so that there are too many of them, and they begin eating away at each other’s profits. Slots at racinos have less competition and remain in service more intensely throughout the day. But once “convenience” slot machines in neighborhood bars have been established, and more accessible gambling emporiums expand, the yield from racino slots will inevitably decrease, and race tracks will need more and more, as with a heroin habit.
In areas where racinos have the only slot concession from the state, it amounts to a state subsidy for racing. Think of it. If slots were allowed everywhere, or even in other controlled environments, racing would benefit far less from the slots.
In fact, we all know deep down inside that contributions to purses and other aspects of racing that come directly from slots players represent an inefficient method for bolstering the racing game. If the racing industry cannot sustain itself on its own market characteristics, then eventually the fix will not satisfy the user.
The obvious answer is that racing needs to learn all over again to build its own consumer base by improving the product and the services that surround it. But it ain’t so simple.
Consider that slots players have always subsidized racing. But it used to be a hidden factor. Before the advent of legalized slots, intrinsic slots players, those who do not really want to actively engage in a challenging game, those who do not want to use their brains for pleasure, these guys were always subsiding racing because in the days when other forms of gambling did not exist, racing was the only game in town.
(Apart from the future of the industry, we horseplayers should consider what it means to our own betting. The slots players used to subsidize us. They used to play numbers, and colors of silks, and tout sheets, and that improved our own bottom line. Now they’re largely gone, and it certainly makes competition tougher for us.)
I see two possible solutions, both of them radical. First, we could admit that racing is not sustainable all by itself. The airlines industry has always been subsidized by the government, because it was considered that airlines provide a vital service. With no government help, would airlines survive. That’s just one of many major industries that are nourished by government subsidies.
So why not racing? It’s a labor intensive industry, and therefore it produces jobs. There’s a spinoff effect by which racing nourishes other industries and livelihoods. Few people question that governments should help the arts because art is necessary for the cultural landscape. Well, I believe that racing is also necessary for the cultural landscape, and racing is to casino gambling what classical music is to top forty. Classical music would not survive without subsidies, because how can you pay 100 members of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra when similar sounds could be produced artificially, and a quartet would cost far less than a whole orchestra for the same size audience.
That’s my first proposal, and this would allow racing to continue in smaller venues that might have to be eliminated in a contracting market. I love small tracks. Not only is it fun to go racing there, but they provide an ambiance to their regions: Charles Town in West Virginia, Fairmount in southern Illinois, and so many other places that do attract people. I think of Canterbury Park on a Thursday or Friday night. It’s a place to go, and young people show up for the festivities. The track provides other forms of entertainment to stimulate the attendance and there’s a great ambiance.
Okay, so this first proposal will not go down well with orthodox free market believers, so let me offer them a second proposal: sustainable degrowth. Yes, let the industry contract. Let the weak competitors die, or if not, force them to find new ways to seduce a fan base.
In some ways, this is what C&X is already doing, in a humble way. We are highlighting the most stimulating aspect of racing, from the point of view of the player. We are insisting, against the grain, that the art of horse betting is a worthy pursuit and a stimulating challenge to the intellect.
But beyond the worthiness of playing the ponies, there is the spectacle itself. In areas where race tracks struggle to survive, track management needs to do a better job at promoting the unparalleled thrill and colorful spectacle. Places that do it right should be studied. Saratoga, for example, where the whole region’s eyes are fixed on the yearly race meet, maybe because it is a short meet. How can a race meet be an “event” if it lasts the whole year? Contraction and not expansion would make for a more intense consumer base.
Perhaps race tracks cannot survive without the infusions from hopeless gamblers who now play the slots. Perhaps this whole industry is unsustainable, like a great symphony orchestra when faced with competition from synthesizers and rock bands. The orchestra that provides the racing show, the overworked grooms and trainers who must be on call 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, most owners who go into the game knowing they will probably lose money, riders who risk their lives and most of whom do not get rich: there is a whole society of contributors to this great orchestra who are willing resist valiantly against being replaced by mindless coin machines and futile lottery tickets. But these good people need race track managements to discover more creative methods to promote the spectacle.
My suggestion: “It’s the culture, stupid.” In places where racing has become part of the local culture and tradition, it can thrive.