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HANDICAPPING FEATURE MAY 9, 2007 Creativity and Imagination is the way to $$$ if not riches by Steve Zacks Never hesitate to use your imagination or be creative when using available information. There is money to be made by taking an unconventional approach or a different read to a find a variation of a pattern that the public might miss. There is a certain trainer in Northern California who frequently uses a long work followed by a short work as a set up for many of his winners. Several weeks ago, we were discussing a Bay Meadows race with a friend when he commented that he liked the trainer's horse, but it was missing the long work. My response was: "Hey, the horse ran six furlongs 11 days ago and has breezed three days before today's race. Why not read the race as the long work and use this as a variation of the pattern?" The horse fit the race in every other respect. The horse won the race and the trainer has used several variations of the theme to win races since. Bach and Goldberg would have been proud! Trainer Greg Gilchrist of Lost in the Fog and Smokey Stover (Put It Back) fame is winning at a better than 40 percent rate overall. He wins 25 percent of the time with his debut runners and 45 percent of the time with his second-time starters as maidens or repeaters. These statistics tell two things: he is a win-early trainer with his horses ready to run, and he does not waste any time in re-evaluating them and running them where they can win, even if it means a sizable drop. In the second race at Bay Meadows on April 15, a maiden special affair, Gilchrist saddled two of the five entrants including Wild Promises (Wild Event), a third-time starter who was the 2-5 favorite, and Lucky Rylie (Tribunal), a second time starter and the 5-1 second choice. The favorite had last raced on March 10, finishing second at 2-1 (when losing his whip) and earning a BRIS Speed rating of 88 on top of his earlier 84. Lucky Rylie earned an 85 in his April 1 debut when sent off at 8-1. The former had a couple of half-mile works, including a bullet seven days prior to the race. Both had the same riders returning. Conventional wisdom had the betting public focusing upon the higher last race number and the loss of the whip, which made Wild Promises the overwhelming favorite. Long ago we learned to very carefully examine both parts of the soft entry when a trainer enters and runs both; the obvious favorite may not be quite as good as he looks, or the other may be better than the paper suggests. We asked ourself, "Isn't Lucky Rylie at least as good a bet, if not a better one at 5-1, than Wild Promises at 2-5; or even if they both were the same odds for that matter?" Our read was that, the loss of the whip notwithstanding, Wild Promises missed his best chance last time (45 percent with second-time starters) and with the wide discrepancy in odds, Lucky Rylie became a great bet to us. There were of course opportunities to play the longer runner and save in a variety of ways. We got back $12.40 for a $2 wager. The $2 quinella paid $5.80 and a $1 exacta returned $8.80. The moral of the story is simple: by being creative and imaginative with statistics and information one can turn things in one's favor. Greg Gilchrist does not win with every first or second time starter, but most of his runners do win at least one of their first two if they are any good at all. Wasn't Wild Promises, the third-time starter, possibly vulnerable, and wasn't the second-time starter, Lucky Rylie even more likely to improve? Workouts: the last frontier of hidden value? (Chapter 1) Prior to the turn of this century, before the widespread publishing of trainer statistics, we used to win by focusing on recent claims and trainer switches as an entry point for play. Anything that the public cannot measure with precision results in a variety of interpretations and therefore higher odds. The publication of those statistics really did not alter what trainers were doing on the race track, but over the next several years we noticed a significant deterioration in the average mutuel and therefore in the bottom line. In order to continue to play successfully, it was necessary to find something that was not likely to be widely published in the future or would be open to broad interpretation if it was. Having compiled and published trainer stats as well as speed and pace figures for several tracks over the years, we knew that there was unlikely to be much hidden value in those highly used spheres. In earlier publications, we had tried to provide some particulars relating to race preparation -- meaning workouts and layoff patterns. Handicappers can only get six works from the Daily Racing Form for other than first-time starters. BRIS and TSN, with the presentation of the most recent dozen works for each runner in every race, provides a better opportunity to follow race preparation for longer periods of time without referring to back issues of the past performances. Only after considerable thought and exploration did we decide to hone in on workouts and preparation. The basic truth of horse racing is really very simple: past and current form, class, pace and speed are relevant today ONLY if the horse is FIT enough to display his true talents. Some trainers believe in workouts as the best method to ready a horse's wind, muscle and bone for the stresses of racing. Others elect to do it in ways that are not so obvious to the public. Knowing the details of what each trainer does could prove very useful and give us a needed edge over the general public. If we were able to gain a better understanding of how certain trainers approach the process of getting a horse ready for a winning race, we might find under-valued patterns to play as well as overbet horses to avoid. If you take a 25 percent trainer in a certain category with a near positive ROI, and if you can find one specific factor that goes along with a significant percentage of those winners, then you can turn that angle positive and into an almost-automatic play when that factor is in evidence, and a pass when it is not. These subsets are rarely ironclad, but they do help to improve the bottom line. In the next several chapters there will be a discussion of workouts in conjunction with the process of creating an information-base or database to suit your own style of play. As with most things in racing, nothing is simple or straightforward; there will be pitfalls and frustrations and there is a learning curve, but there will be rewards aplenty if you find the right approach and persevere in developing it. At the outset we would like to make mention of two information sources that will help you to better utilize and evaluate workouts. On BRIS and TSN, the HR Clocker Reports are available for New York, Southern California and Kentucky tracks. One should know that these and other available workout services are basically one person's opinion of what they see; over time with regular usage you gain a better understanding of where that individual is coming from and how to evaluate what is written (Currently, the Churchill HR Clocker reports are part of a free giveaway promotion). What the reports will or may tell you are such things as whether or not the horse worked alone or in company (very useful for tracking the in-tandem workouts), whether he worked inside or outside, whether he was on or way off the rail (making the work longer and therefore the time more meaningful), whether or not a jockey or a heavy exercise rider was up, whether he broke sharply from the gate or was away tardily (very important in short sprints for babies), whether he needed a lot of urging or did it easily, whether he was asked early and got tired or was relaxed early and finished strongly, whether they gallop out well and so on. This input will help you to better assess the quality of the reported time. By working with these reports over a period of time and correlating the information to various trainers, you will learn a lot more about what the times of the works actually mean and what various trainers' normal tendencies are. With this information, the 1:16 breeze for six furlongs will take on a whole new meaning if you know that the horse worked the first three furlongs in :40.3 and came the last three in :35.2, or did it in the opposite fashion. Finally, if you wish to gain a better understanding of workouts in general, we would highly recommend that you at least read the book Bruno on Workouts. While this is not a forum for book reviews, we can only suggest that once you have read the book you will have a far better understanding of many more things about workouts. You will learn a lot and you will have a better appreciation of the whole sphere of workouts. The author, Bruno De Julio, has backstretch experience as the underpinning of his clocking experience, and he understands the horse as well as the handicapper.
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