SUCKER BETS---(part 21) by Joe Takach

Moving to a horse’s hooves, barshoes and covered frogs are very negative pieces of equipment. A barshoe is used to prevent a weak hoof (or hooves) from spreading or cracking to the point where it is extremely painful for a horse to so much as walk, let alone race!
A frog is the fleshy underneath of a hoof. When a frog gets covered, a metal plate is inserted in between the frog itself and the horseshoe. This plate allegedly serves to protect a frog that is tender, bruised, cut, or swollen.
Horses wearing barshoes and/or “covered frogs” need ample recovery time on a farm, not some half-assed Mickey Mouse quick fix!
While barshoe information is usually listed in the past performances and over many satellite shows all over the country, at the time of this writing (August 2006), my DAILY SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA HORSES TO WATCH is the only source of this critical information on the major Southern California circuit!
If you don’t believe this, I defy you to find so much as one single horse listed in anyone’s past performances on the major Southern California circuit from the Equibase supplied past performances to the past performances of the Daily Racing Form (electronic or printed newspapers), or to any other computer generated past performances, or from any other publication of any kind.
The only handicappers that know which horses run with bad feet are those taking personal notes in the paddock every day or subscribers to DAILY SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA HORSES TO WATCH.
Why? Simply because we are the only publication gathering this essential and proprietary betting information! We have to be in the paddock every single day doing the grunt work for every single race, looking at every single horse’s hooves, while taking copious notes and upgrading our own “shoeboard” every single day.
The staff of the DAILY SCHTW has been doing this for 15 years because there are no “shoeboards” at Del Mar, Santa Anita or Hollywood Park. Nor is this information listed anywhere in the track program, or verbally offered over the PA system, or on the outgoing satellite show.
Do barshod horses ever win?
Sure they do in the MINOR LEAGUES where problematic horses are forced to race for “chump change” purses against other misfits! But at the major ovals in Southern California consisting of Del Mar, Santa Anita and Hollywood Park, at year’s end you could count all the combined barshod winners at all 3 ovals with only one hand and still have room left over!
And when they do win on this major circuit, most often it is at the very bottom of the claiming ranks when facing horses that have no legs, let alone bad feet!
Yet, it‘s not at all uncommon to see barshod horses run in allowance races, high-priced claiming events and even Stakes races in S.Cal.!
If you want to stay financially solvent on our Southern California circuit or any circuit for that matter, you must stay off these barshod horses-----period!
They are nothing more than “sucker bets”!
While were on negative shoeing, ¾ shoes and square toed shoes are also “sucker bets”.
Horses running in ¾ shoes have patched ¼ cracks on their hooves. These ¼ crack patches go hand in hand with a ¾ shoe because the hoof itself won’t take a nail for any number of reasons ranging from tenderness of the hoof itself to the inability of the fiberglass ¼ crack patch to hold a nail.
Needless to mention, horses running with ¾ shoes on any hoof are at a very serious disadvantage and are “sucker bets”. It’s hard enough to win a race with normal shoes let alone ¾ shoes!
Squared toes shoes are just what the name implies. Instead of the shoe being rounded at the top like the ones you use when playing horseshoes at a family picnic, a squared toed shoe is straight across at the top almost like one end of a rectangle.
There are countless reasons as to the “why” of these negative shoes, but the bottom line for the handicapper is that they are a “no-no”. Can’t remember the last time I saw one of these negatively shod horses win on our major circuit, but I’m sure they win in the minor leagues where all is possible.
Not to blow our own horn again, but beep---beep! The DAILY SCHTW is your only source for ¼ cracks, ¾ shoes and square toes.
This moves us to “blowouts” and “stops” which might be the most negative equipment of all negative equipment if there is such a thing.
We’ll discuss them thoroughly in the next installment.

Stay tuned!

© Joe Takach 2006