Opinions - Teaching Discussions

[Mark]

All the things you discuss are manmade. This is a horse race. You have a collection of horses that may or may not have run at today's distance and/or surface and/or against one another before.
What is the one thing that will be unique to this race that each horse has either shown they can compete against or fail against? The early pace!!!
One or more horses will attempt to get the lead. The faster or slower the early pace will determine the outcome of the race. Fast quick horses engage for the lead and the slower horses lose ground to the leaders. By the end of the first fraction the pack will be formed, it may be closely bunched or spread out over 10 lengths or more. Where will each horse be? Have they shown the ability to win from that position previously? If you develop the skill to project the first fraction of any horse race you will know immediately from each horses
past performances whether he has been successful running against that time. If it has shown in a previous race or races that it can win or run very close to that projected fraction he is a contender, if not, out he goes.
You can find out the mechanics of developing this skill by reading Jim Bradshaw's 5 step approach and the guidelines as to how to project the pace in the Hat Check Blog.
This sounds very simple and after studying and practicing for a period of time it will become so, but starting out it is not.That is why so few people ever master this skill. It is easier by far to look at the manmade factors which can be ranked or logically assimilated.

[Bill V.]

Mark brings up very sound advice and although I am not a raw match up
users I agree that the horses in the match up of the contenders is the key factor

My advise is, no matter if its man made or not. races are carded by a condition book. Its the trainers job to enter a horse in a specific set of available races. And at a specific track or circuit that the owners determine.

The horse is entered into a race period . Once entered it can not control who else is also entered. This is why class and the horses ability does matter.
What is the reason the horse is in this race ?
It may be because its a race the trainer feels the horse has its best chance to win based on its raw ability - or It could be entered at a level to improve its ability. A sprinter stretching out and then dropping back to its preferred distance. This is all part of the puzzle The percentages say that the horse in form and running to capitalize on its best raw ability will be able to best over come the pace of the race its running against or set to pace of race and go wire to wire

Your tools will assist you

Bill

[polambi]

Originally Posted by Mark

If you develop the skill to project the first fraction of any horse race you will know immediately from each horses
past performances whether he has been successful running against that time.

First fraction alone is not enough to point you to the winners. Almost any horse can spit out a strong first fraction, just like almost any human being can run 100 feet as fast as he can, before he starts slowing down.
Take a look at this 10th race at Sarataoga, on Aug 10, 2014. Look where the horse with the best first fraction ends up in a sprint race.

[Alice0607]

I should have listed the tracks I play. They are NY circuit, Dmr, Sa, GG, Fg, Gp, Cd, Kee, Mth, and Wo. I also play some of minor tracks, not on a regular basis. I am also only a weekend player, mostly Sunday's.

[Mark]

Polambi
I don't believe you are familiar with Jim Bradshaw's Match Up. It uses RAW DATA, not adjusted lines. It does not handicap a race using all the horses last lines. I can't seriously believe you handicapped the race that way.
In fact, with the Match Up you use any of the last 10 lines if that is appropriate in today's Match Up and pace scenario.

I hope you make money using the methods you use. I was merely responding to a poster who had interest in and asking help in selecting contenders. I have been handicapping for over 40 years. Most of that time I lost money. Since I read and
studied the Hat Check Blog over the last 18 months, I have become a very profitable wagerer. I am not critical of anyone else's methods. We are all different in the ways we learn and retain information. But the bottom line is making money.
It changes the scenario from a hobby to a avocation.

If you do what everyone else does you are losing money. Information that is available in the public domain will be overbet, particularly if it requires no further analysis than pressing a few keys on the computer keyboard. The Match Up is there on the Pace and Cap website so it is available to all that would like to learn. It is hard to
learn because you have to "unlearn" so much of the mainstream information that has been propagated by so called experts. Yes, there was a time when Speed figures were profitable. Yes, there was a time when Pace alone, betting single factors would
produce a profit. But no longer.

What is unique about every horse race is the early pace that this combination on contestants create. Everything else is a crude approximation based upon averages. If you can assign running styles to the individual horses that are based on
their winning or very close finishes, E, EP, P, SP or S and you can project a fairly accurate 1st and 2nd call, all from the horses' PPs you will know where each horse wants to be at the 1st call and whether he is fast enough to obtain that
position. You need to be able to assess the early contention to determine whether the E horses will be forced to run too fast too early and therefore set the race up for something coming from behind. This race was for 2 year olds with only
3 pacelines from races at 6f!! The race was 6.5f today and probably the first time most of these horses had run that far. You should always remove stratches before you begin the handicapping process, by the way.

In your example you show all but 4 horses as E or EP. Should you be surprised then that they beat each other up and a Presser inherited the lead and won? The horse was favored on the Morning Line!

Bill V and I live no more than 50 miles apart but he and I handicap differently. He plays primarily 1 track and keeps extensive data bases. I play any track that has a field over 8 horses 6f to 8.5f, but I particularly like the minor league curcuits.

I made 3 wagers yesterday, all horses were over 8/1 when I bet them. I won two of the 3 and made a $220 profit. I bet all three $4 win/place. If I can figure out how to insert an image I will do that. Two were at Indiana Downs and the last
which I lost rushing for dinner was at Evangeline. I can't do this everyday because the opportunites don't present themselves when I take an hour or so and sit down to handicap a few races going off in the near future.

So just because you haven't found that the way one guy selects contenders and handicaps races fits your needs doesn't mean that other people might find the informatin valuable.

[Bill V.]

Alice Good skill I hope you have long term success with your outline at all those different tracks .

Mark. Thanks for your nice comments Your post are always inspirational for folks who could benefit from Hat and Richie's way of handicapping

I do focus mainly on just 1 track and I do have a very extensive database
But that focus has helped me win at ALL tracks.

If you listen and read about Bradshaw he did not always just match up raw numbers
He learned by charting 1000's of pace lines and writing programs for Doc

In the "Lets Get Serious " seminar tapes He and Brohamer sit and talk about how in his own way he kind of does use Pars Just like Brohamer
Its not that he says he does not believe in Brohamers methods its just that out of necessity ("I'm a suitcase handicapper" ) He had to find a down and dirty method of keeping pars
He learn this by charting or "modeling" pacelines and readouts

[polambi]

I have no interest in arguing with anyone, because I have not been playing the horses for 40 years to consider myself a know-it-all. As a matter of fact, I usually post only when I have a question, since I am still on my third year of learning. I only replied to that post simply because I think people who are just starting out could be misleaded into thinking that the horse with the best first fraction is a potential winner. That is simply not true.
Since Bradshaw have been brought up into this, I want to point out, in his defense, that he never said to focus on the first fraction alone:
Each horse’s running line and running style will be matched against the others, fraction by fraction, to find the line to use in today's race.
The fractional times used are the first call, the quarter mile in sprints, and the half mile time in routes. The second call is the half mile in sprints, and the six-furlongs in routes. The third fraction is the difference between the second call and final time".
Here is another example of a race that I actually bet on, and the winner, which I got, did not have the best first fraction. It was the 6th race at Saratoga on August 10th, 2014. "Raw fractions" included. Note: the winner does not have the best first fraction.