All really good points bluechip.

In all honesty, I have a completely different take on horses. I play the big races on the big days, but I don't wager much money. It's more the environment and the large crowd, etc.

My issue has always been with Handicap/Stakes horses is there are many times so little room for error. Many times your horse runs his eyeballs out and still gets beat by a horse who had a little better effort.

I'm just as comfortable betting a 5K claimer as I am a stakes horse. In the claimers, you have a field of ten, about 5 of them are cripples and 50/50 to even make it around the track. 2-3 are usually "not going today", so that leaves me with a couple horses to consider playing. Contrarian for sure.