UPSIDE VS.
DOWNSIDE RISK---PART 4---THE ANSWERS
Before offering my
answers to my 50 question test, I’m going to again advance a
caveat that was offered in Part 1 of this series.
The 50 answers are
nothing more than my opinion. I’m not looking to do battle and
waste time with anyone over an opinion---mine or theirs. Opinions
are confirmed for each and every one of us every single day shortly
after we buy a ticket from the mutuel system.
These 50 opinions work
for me and have for a long time and that is all that really concerns
me.
If you can incorporate
one or all of these 50 opinions into your overall personal
methodology, it is my belief that you will enhance into your bottom
line. And if you increase your bottom line, my purpose in offering
them to you has reached fruition.
Here goes:
1---UPSIDE---If
there ever was a time when a jockey is “trying” to win,
it is when he makes a
move to a new circuit and is attempting to establish credibility.
He knows that if
he doesn’t start winning early on, his chances of making it on
this new circuit are
virtually nil. I’ve watched many very capable jockeys
announce that they had
moved to Southern California for good and were joining our very
talented jockey
colony. Most returned home 3 months later unable to secure “live”
mounts
because the “homeboys” have most of them locked up. But
before returning
home, they were literally riding the skin off of every
mount that they sat atop in
an attempt to gain a foothold in the jockey colony.
2---UPSIDE---Over
the years there have been 2 factors that have not only kept me
solvent when
it comes to betting last out winners to repeat, but have
consistently proven
profitable. They must be present for me to make a “prime
wager” on a last out
winner to repeat in his next outing.
The first is that the last out winner gained ground at every
running call. This
demonstrates that the horse had complete control of the race and was
clearly best.
He didn’t win a “close one” by a headbob or win
because the race favorite had a
bad trip. He won because he dominated his field.
To confirm the legitimacy of the ground gain at every call,
the “number” earned
in that “big win” must be good enough to beat
horses 2 levels over the level at
which he just won. If both conditions are met and the
connections only step him
up 1 level instead of 2, I know they are quite serious and
are going for the throat.
They’re not being greedy pigs and stepping the horse up
2,3,4 or more levels like
they have the 2nd coming of Secretariat! They are sending
their ready-to-repeat
runner straight at you---no mind games, just very positive
intent!
3---DOWNSIDE---This
should be a “no-brainer”. While your win percentage is
surely enviable
at a whopping 34%, to make money betting 2-5 shots requires
your win
percentage to be nearly twice that. There isn’t a
handicapper alive winning at
a 60% clip year in and year out.
4---DOWNSIDE---If
you like 2 horses equally the same in any race, you only have 2
options.
You either bet them both if the odds will allow it, or you
stay out of the race.
The money management guru that advised his readers to bet
the longer of the
2 horses (the 7-1 shot in our example over the 7-5 runner)
based his opinion
on the premise that if the race was run 100 times, each
horse would win 50 of
them and the 7-1 would obviously be more profitable.
While that might be true in his “make-believe world”
of the same race being
run 100 times, we know that no one race is run exactly the
same way twice
let alone 100 times! His basic premise of 100 races is
wrong, so it follows
that his conclusion has to be wrong!
When faced with 2 horses that I can’t separate “on
paper”, I don’t have to bet
them both and neither do you. If you are on track that day,
merely peruse the
paddock and watch the pre-race warm-ups. You won’t
have to separate the 2
horses, they’ll most likely separate themselves. If
you are at a satellite
facility, all is not lost. Granted, you can’t watch
the pre-race warm-ups, but
you can view the runners. Merely find a good monitor and
watch your 2
horses in the post parade and any other paddock shots
afforded you. Good
“physicality handicappers” have no problem
separating contenders even if
offered nothing more than a 5 second glimpse in the post
parade.
5---DOWNSIDE---My
daily SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA HORSES TO WATCH (DAILY
SCHTW) is entering its 12th year of
publication. During those years, the
staff of the DAILY SCHTW has documented every single
pre-mature pull-
up (horses coming to a dead stop within 150 yards past the
finish line). Each
day in every non-maiden race, we have listed horses that were
pre-mature
pull-ups in their last outings.
An unbelievable 91% of them fail to visit the winner’s
circle in their very
next outings. This startling throwout angle is
fully documentable regardless
of class, distance, surface, sex, trainer, jockey, odds, age
or any other
handicapping filter you choose to include.
Did I hear someone ask why this throwout angle was so strong?
It is very
simple. Win or lose on any specific day, the cooling out
process begins the
moment a horse crosses the finish line. Every horse should
be allowed to
canter out to the beginning of the backstretch, do a “180”,
and slowly canter
or gallop back to the unsaddling area. That comes to about 4
furlongs and
equals the minimum required in the pre-race warm-up. Because
just as a
horse needs 4 furlongs of a light canter before a race to
release oxygen
delivering red blood cells from the spleen and slowly stretch
muscles to their
maximum elasticities, the post-race warm-down begins the
reverse process of
“cooling out” where the muscles begin to return
to their normal relaxed state.
Horses that are abruptly stopped crossing the finish line are
infirm or the
jockey is too lazy to properly gallop the horse out.
Regardless of reasoning,
premature pull-ups invite muscle soreness that often carries
forward into a
horse’s next race. I don’t know about you, but I
don’t know anybody that
shows an annual profit by betting muscle sore horses! Enough
said?
PART
5----THE ANSWERS CONTINUE…………
© Joe Takach 2003 |
