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HANDICAPPING FEATURE JUNE 28, 2007 A Super-fecta Success Story by Bill Myers Success is often the result of a combination of things. My recent experience attests to that. An important factor that is likely familiar to most readers is the BRIS Prime Power rating. Its use was key to a successful result. Prime Power ratings are provided among the screen reports when you use another BRIS product, All-Ways handicapping software. All-Ways is a powerful yet easy-to-use tool. By importing race results using BRIS Exotic Results Files, a review of how well the handicapping top selections fared can be easily done. I have taken advantage of a recent offer from BRIS to get 20 race files plus their accompanying exotic results for Arlington Park. Combined with previous files for Arlington I had accumulated, my race database now contains hundreds of races. These races are comprised of many varieties and can be categorized using different perspectives. For example, you can select non-maiden turf routes run on a firm surface where the Race Rating was 116 or above. Plus you can subdivide this category by race pace shapes, either lone early, fast, honest or slow. While honest pace races are predominant, it is worthwhile to be able to handicap the other pace shapes differently. The specific case I had was for the common honest pace. By sorting the race types and their results using the All-Ways Analysis feature, I have been able to customize which handicapping factors to apply to specific race conditions such as surface, distance, class and pace considerations. Using Arlington's 10TH race on one eventful day, I was handicapping a non-maiden turf route having an honest pace with contentious characteristics. A betting angle I have noticed with All-Ways handicapping rankings is when its top pick has a probability of winning exceeding 40 percent, there is a positive ROI on flat bets to win. This was key to being able to apply a particular wagering strategy for superfectas. Brad Free is the author of Handicapping 101. I was able to have my library get it for me from another location within their statewide system. I have to credit the wagering strategy I applied to what was suggested in this book. First a horse is selected as a "Win key," selection A. Next a horse is selected as a "Board key," selection B. The other two slots in the superfecta wager can be filled using horses CDE with CDE or CD with CDEF. I prefer the latter to get more coverage lower down on the ticket. Four separate tickets are constructed: A / B / CD / CDEF For a $1 basic bet, each ticket having six combinations gives a total cost of $24. BRIS Prime Power Ratings for horses in this race were:
All-Ways software handicapping results gave these probabilities to win:
Also, the All-Ways Search screen gave the following key horse candidates: 5 It was obvious to me to use the 5 as the "Win key." Since the 4 was a key horse selection second only to the 5, it qualified as the "Board key." And the odds of 10-1 cemented its pick. Horses 1 and 8 were also strong selections to use on the superfecta ticket. The A / B / CD parts of the ticket were easily identified. What about E and F from remaining contenders 2, 3, and 7? The tote board helped provide the answer once again since the 2 was 19-1, the 3 was 5-1 and the 7 was 5-1. I assigned the 2 as E, and used the 3 over the 7 as the F because of its higher Prime Power rating. That left me with the following ticket: 5 / 4 / 1,8 / 1,2,3,8 Just a few minutes later, a finish order of 5-4-8-3 was posted official. The corresponding $1 payoff of $1,051.40 provided a rewarding thrill. It capped off a day that had just seen a $14.20 win mutuel on Flashy Bull (Holy Bull) and a $63.20 exacta coupled with Magna Graduate (Honor Grades) in the Stephen Foster H. (G1) at Churchill Downs. These selections were made using Multi-Caps software, also available on brisnet.com. But that is a story for another time.
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