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Confessions Of A Public Handicapper - August 2009 by Keith Gisser
(Reprinted by permission of The Harness Eye/Daily Racing Form)
If a man knows not and knows not that he knows not, he is a fool, shun him; If a man knows not and knows that he knows not, he is common, educate him; If a man knows and you know that he knows, he is a leader, follow him.
I have no idea where that quote comes from, but I do know it can relate to our handicapping success. A couple weeks back, I was asked to provide my picks for the Meadowlands Pace, and while I wasn’t exactly out on a limb picking Well Said, I commented to editor Derick Giwner that I really wasn’t much good at handicapping mile tracks. He generously offered to publish the disclaimer. The simple fact is that we need to stick with what we know. We can fake our way through handicapping tracks we do not know, beating them for short periods of time, or for specific races, but we are doomed to fail if we spread ourselves too thin and try to force plays at tracks we do not follow on a regular basis. It’s the reason that Dave Brower, in his excellent book Harnessing Winners confined his comments to The Meadowlands, the track he knows the best, and called on others, including your humble scribe, to discuss other venues. Even so, Dave, a great mile-track handicapper, limited his discussion to one track, The Big M, not multiple mile venues. Dave did not throw in The Red Mile or Prairie Meadows, or the 7/8 mile tracks that often (key word there) play out just like a mile track. He knows the Meadowlands and that’s what he focused on. Nor did he have just one alleged half-mile track expert write in broad generalities. He had Mr. Giwner write about Yonkers, a track he knows well and which plays differently than Northfield, while sticking me with the task of describing the angles needed to succeed at the Home of the Flying Turns.
Here is how I started my chapter: When Dave asked me to put together a chapter on handicapping Northfield Park, I was afraid I would repeat a lot of what had been written about half mile tracks— how the twice-arounds favored inside posts and horses with good gate speed. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that Northfield is not like a lot of half-milers. So, let’s take a look at some of the keys that make Northfield a track that still gets a great deal of play (ie: decent size pools to wager into) and still provides good value. And while that is all you are gonna’ get from me without buying the book, the fact that I know Northfield well is the reason I am successful there. It is not because I am a great handicapper, or (unfortunately) even a thorough handicapper these days. But, I know the track, the horses, the driver tendencies and the condition sheet. That gives me a huge edge and allows me to grind out a small profit pretty much every year.
I am told by big shots in the business that home track players have a huge advantage over those at remote locations, to the tune of millions of dollars every year at well-bet tracks. And yet, we continually go chasing after the cash at some track we don’t know. In the long run, it is a sure road to ruin, but it rarely stops us. There are certain circumstances that betting the track we do not know can be beneficial, however.
I discussed one of those situations last month. The slumpbuster. When we are in a slump, forcing ourselves to play another track may help us for the exact same reasons that it generally hurts. We do not know the tendencies or the biases of that track, so we can only handicap by going back to basics…reading the past performances and trying to find our winners that way, instead of looking for local angles or playing with our gut based on something we saw last week. The unfamiliar track forces us focus on the numbers.
The second time we leave the comfort of home is in big stakes races. There is often value in these races even when there are well-known favorites like Well Said or Muscle Hill (or even Mine That Bird), by playing exactas or by trying to get an underpriced favorite beat. Mine That Bird was suspect in the West Virginia Derby because the track has an anti-closer’s bias. And Well Said was a questionable play in The Adios. Well Said was clearly the best horse, but 2-5 from the outside post against horses of that caliber made him unplayable on top of the ticket. He raced well, but the post was too much to overcome. Yet, in both the W.V. Derby and the Adios, hordes of casual players were all over the marquee horses. Now, I still had the wrong winner in the Adios (and had Well Said wheeled underneath in an exacta) but my analysis was correct. To a point. And, if we are students of the sport, we should know enough about Ron Pierce’s driving tendencies on a horse we have seen race, even if only on television, that we can safely use him on our tickets. Dave Miller and John Campbell make fewer mistakes than Dave Majeski and John Wengerd. So, in the big stakes races, take shot.
“But Keith,” you say, “If we can play the big drivers in the big races, doesn’t it make sense to go after them when they race at Yonkers, Pocono, Chester, Freehold, Dover or M1 in overnights?” No. First, these guys are running around to multiple tracks in a day, which wears on them and that makes them less reliable. Plus, some of them are better on big tracks than on small, or vice versa. But most importantly, we do no know the horses they are driving, unless we are specializing in that track. I cannot name a single $15K claimer who races at any of those tracks. Of course, I can’t name one at Northfield, because we do not currently offer a $15K claimer. But I can list the top five $8 claimers at the track off the top of my head. I have no way of knowing if XYZ Hanover racing at Chester always looks a little off in his right front while scoring or if that is the way the veteran pacer with 200 career starts is sore. Yea, I know what Pierce might try to do with him, but how the horse will respond. It opens us up to bad plays in bad situations.
The third time it is okay to bet a track we don’t know is when we are there in person. If I am eating in the clubhouse at Pocono (and if it is half as good now as it used to be, it is pretty good), I am going to bet Pocono live racing. I am there. I don’t get the same adrenaline rush watching Northfield on a monitor. I may not win much, nor do I expect to, but I am willing to make that investment in my enjoyment, just as I would with a bottle of wine or a good cigar. It’s the cost of the entertainment, and if I can cash a few tickets to offset that great. I can’t do that at an Indians or Cavs game.
And the last time it is okay to chase the track we don’t know is in must-win or carryover situations. This is simple math. If the track is returning more money than is bet into the pool, I have a decent chance of getting a return on my investment. One of my best hits ever was in a must win Twin-tri at the Downs of Albuquerque. I know nothing about t-breds, but there was a $112K must-win carryover, so I took a crack. Got a couple exchanges worth $120 each, and reversed my numbers on my two tickets and managed to have 1 of about 40 winning tickets, making about $6K for an investment of $96 (if memory serves). Negative takeout is a positive situation, and while you have to handicap carefully, there is enough potential upside that it is worth the risk of betting a track with which you are unfamiliar.
So there you have it. A bit of wagering philosophy from your humble scribe. Agree or disagree, I would love to hear from you. E-mail me at klgisser@earthlink.net and let me now what you think. As Martin Fischer said, “Knowledge is a process of piling up facts; wisdom lies in their simplification.” So keep it simple and stick with what you know.
See you next month. Now go cash!