Catalin,

> What makes this such a bitch is thats there's no way to tell from the PP's who is on and who isn't.<

I think you hit the nail on the head.

During my early days as a handicapper, I made the 2 biggest scores of my life on a trainer pattern. So I was immediately attracted to that style. However, I would also constantly struggle with the timing and changes. If you discover a pattern and wait to see if a trainer is going well before betting, you lose all the value because the public catches on. If you don't wait, you wind up getting on some bad horses. That's why I don't even try anymore. I found that it was a ton of work and a constantly changing style that gave me little confidence I could win consistently.
I do know guys that are very good at it though.

In stakes races it's more about figuring out who is actually better than who and recognizing conditions that might favor or hurt some horses in a particular race.

I like to focus on pace figures, trip, and even class/quality issues that I think are sometimes not built into the prices because people are so speed oriented. Also, a lot of the time reputation dominants the board. I'm always thrilled when the media is hyping some horse that I can tell isn't as good as he looks. There's value in betting against hyped horses too. I also think many people don't have a full appreciation of how lightly raced and young horses develop over time. These kinds if things are less applicable in the claiming ranks where an understanding of trainers is very important.

When one of the supposed juice guys shows up in a stakes, the horse has usually revealed his form prior to making it up to that level. From a betting perspective, I really don't care if a "horse of the year" is juiced or not when I already have his figures.



Post Edited (02-18-05 08:41)