If I am playing serious money I usually write my opinions on paper for each horse in each race, and then when I am done laying out my ticket(s) I go back and read these opinions and make sure they reflect those original opinions.

As to whether or not to hedge, for me it depends. It really comes down to how much I like where I am sitting and where the value in the sequence was. If, for example, the 3rd race of a Pick 4 sequence has what I believe to be a bad favorite that is likely to be a single on a lot of tickets I will certainly play a couple of Pick 3's or DD as well as the Pick 4 to try to leverage that opinion. I will probably put in the same ticket(s) as my original Pick 4 bet and I may even include some horses not on my original bet. The point being to make sure I am cashing in as much as possible on where I think the value is in the sequence.

As a rule, I usually don't hedge just to make sure I win SOMETHING heading into the last race unless it's really easy to do and I'm about to get paid a lot of money vs the cost of my original bet. It's pretty tough to hedge a 10 horse field when you're only alive to 3 horses no matter what your potential pay off is.

I don't play a lot of caveman tickets, but IMO there is a place for them. For me it's usually when I'm not playing a sequence very seriously but still want a little action. The problem with caveman tickets is they rarely reflect your actual opinions of the races (see my first point above) because they play all horses equally with each other. If that's the best I can come up with to me that's usually a sign that I should not be playing the sequence at all. I may throw a caveman ticket in if I'm just trying to kill some time till a later race and don't otherwise plan to play those earlier races at all, or if there is a big carryover and I feel like tossing a contrarian dart, etc.

IMO one of the edges I have left in this game is the fact that I am willing to do the work to punch out many tickets to try to leverage my opinions as strongly as possible. So for example, I could hit the Pick 4 for $20 if I am dead nuts right with my handicapping, or $15 if I am mostly right but one B horse wins, or $10 if one C horse wins but the rest are A's, or $8 if two B horses win, or $5 if a B and C come in, or $2 if two C's come in, etc. The point being that the way my $ is bet more accurately reflects my actual opinions of whether or not certain horses will win their race, and I get paid more when I am really right and have a better ROI because I waste less $ on combinations that I feel are less likely to hit. I play serious vertical wagers the same way. It took me 35 minutes at the window to put my KY Derby Trifecta and Superfecta tickets in this year. But I am willing to do that work to maintain that edge.