Handicapping Feature

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

A / CD / B / CDEF

A / CD / CDEF / B

B / A / 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:

5:		142.1
1:		137.5
8:		128.4
3:		127.7
4:		126.3
7		123.6
2:		123.0
6:		114.7
9:		113.4

All-Ways software handicapping results gave these probabilities to win:

5:		56 percent
1:		14 percent
8:		12 percent
2:		8 percent

Also, the All-Ways Search screen gave the following key horse candidates:

5

4

2

8

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

5 / 1,8 / 4 / 1,2,3,8

5 / 1,8 / 1,2,3,8 / 4

4 / 5 / 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.