I think you guys may be hurting yourself by being overly preoccupied with vets, drugs and cheating. If you mentally get the point where you think every time your horse loses it's probably because of drugs, milkshakes, vets, steroids etc... it will ruin your handicapping.

The vast majority of the time, if a trainer has been cheating it is already reflected in the horse's past performances. So most of the time you don't even have to worry about it.

What you want to do is key in on trainer changes.

As soon as a horse switches to a so called super trainer (or away from him) you have to be on guard for sudden dramatic improvement/decay in performance that could extend for several races. Once the horse has been in the barn for awhile the new drug enhanced performance level is in the figures.

You might also want to monitor if a specific super trainer suddenly puts out a couple of short priced duds. That could indicate a problem in the barn (even a legit one like all his horses came down with a cough and missed a few days of training) or a vet change.



Post Edited (01-13-05 19:31)