SUCKER BETS---(part 6) by Joe Takach

11--RUNS A GREAT RACE OUT OF NOWHERE, BUT JUST MISSES AT WIRE
Here’s a “sucker bet” that gets all of us more than once during our horseplaying careers.
It sets up like this and occurs at all class levels.
You’re handicapping a field of 25K claimers. Their names are very familiar. You’ve seen every one of them run many times in the past and frequently against each other.
As you look at each horse’s past performances, all of a sudden you note remarkable improvement in one of them. This horse usually runs at the 20K to 25K level and hits the board every now and then, but never wins. You see that last out he was running at the 32K level, went off @ 14-1, and finished a close 2nd beaten only a length. You put up his speed and pace figures, handicap the balance of today’s field, and come to the conclusion that with his drop back to the 25K level this afternoon, he’ll bury these if he runs that last race again! You begin to mentally salivate. You’ve found the “lock of the century”! You can’t wait to get to the track.
Sucker!
This horse isn’t going to win.
You already know that he hasn’t been able to win at this level in the past though sometimes hitting the board. Why should his drop back to 25K this afternoon suddenly be the “answer”----because he ran well at 32K???
There could have been many reasons for that apparent “great effort” last out. Perhaps the 32K field he ran against was nothing more than a bunch of 25K horses running for an inflated 32K purse. Maybe he caught the “golden path” that afternoon on a heavily biased surface, or benefited from a perfect trip. He could have been drugged (legally or illegally), or he could have just awakened that day feeling good with all his ailments at a low ebb.
I could go on and on as to the “why” of his last out improvement even though it was out of place. But more likely than not, his last out good effort actually was his best recent effort.
He won’t repeat that effort today.
Why should he? He hasn’t done it in the past!
Do these horses ever win when dropped back?
Yeah, once in a great while when it all goes their way. But don’t hold your breath and don’t be a “sucker” and think that you can “time” them.

12---CLAIMED OFF A WIN AND MOVES FROM GOOD BARN TO POOR ONE
Somebody once asked me how I handled last out claims in my daily handicapping.
That was a very easy question to answer. It all depended on where the horse moved. Did he relocate to a better or worse neighborhood?
Many handicappers fail to grasp this determining difference.
The “sucker bet” sets up like this.
A claiming horse from a top barn is winning and/or finishing close up and is “going very well” of late. He’s in peak condition and always makes a solid paddock appearance and warms up well before every race.
He wins his last outing by 5 going away in good time while well within himself, but he gets claimed by a clueless barn.
Whudda ya do?
You pass him next out unless you’re a “sucker”!
The first thing you should understand is that the newly claimed horse was running well in the recent past because he was in the better barn. The better barn did all those little and necessary things to get the best out of their runner and they did it every single day. That is exactly why they’re the better barn.
When the horse moved to the clueless barn, all the essentials needed to win suddenly are no longer there as they were in the past. The horse fails to get the best of everything from proper diet and nutrition to regimented and necessary training schedules needed to maintain winning fitness.
If the new clueless barn did these things, they’d be a better barn. But they don’t because they’re clueless, cheap, lazy, or any combination of same.
The “why” of the cluelessness of this specific barn is meaningless to the handicapper just as long as he knows that this know-nothing barn can “snap defeat from the jaws of victory” rather than vise versa. They can turn lemonade back into lemons. They couldn’t train a dog to bark or a fish to swim.
Don’t let them “sucker” you no matter how much their new acquisition seems to lay over today’s field!

PART 7----MORE “SUCKER” BETS

© Joe Takach 2006