Handicapping Feature

HANDICAPPING FEATURE

NOVEMBER 14, 2007

Your Personal Year-End Review

by Steve Zacks

All players have good years and even some lean ones. Even long-time

successful and winning players go through losing streaks or losing periods. One

of the things that make them winning players in the long run is their

willingness to stand back and examine just what has transpired. They do not tell

false tales to themselves; they go looking for the whole truth! For only when

they are completely honest, do they discover the true reasons for their success

or failure. From this starting point they can and do the make the necessary

adjustments to their game plan.

Here are a few thoughts which might help each of us self-evaluate with a view

to making better New Year's resolutions for 2008. Shakespeare, the writer

whoever he may have been, and not the recently retired horse, may have said it

best when suggesting that "the fault lies not in our stars but in ourselves."

Hopefully, you keep some kind of records. That is the best, if not only, way

to track precisely what has been going on and the best way to learn whether

changes in your own performance are due to either intentional or inadvertent

alterations of your game plan. Another influence is a change in the external

circumstances: a period of extreme weather or these days, the switch from real

dirt to artificial surfaces! Either way, the simple recognition of the root

cause of the problem is very often the first step in the turnaround.

Now that the Breeders' Cup and classy boutique-type meets of Oaktree,

Keeneland and the Belmont Fall Championship are history, a fall letdown is normal

for many players. A break in routine may prove beneficial; so too might a look

back with an eye to the future. Whether you have had a great year, or a poor

one, this process of self-examination with an open mind can always lead to

improvement next year. Some honest answers to several questions will tell you if

any applies to your game.

As a long-time player, I am very aware of the fact that there have been

fundamental changes in the racing game over the decades. The whole "recency"

factor is different now than it used to be! While a fastback (a quick return to

the races, be it five days as the BRIS stats utilize or 10 days) is still a

positive move, it is far less common nowadays than it was 30 years ago.

When Frederick Davis and Bill Quirin first introduced a wide array of

statistics to the racing game three decades ago, the majority of races were won

by horses returning to the races in about 14 racing days. That was a key number

in most successful players' book. In those days, there was far less year-round

racing and the 10 to 15 starts that the average runner made usually came in a

compacted period of time, usually between April and November. Layoff winners

were not as prevalent as they are today. (A layoff used to be 31 days and not

the 45 days many use currently.) According to my own personal database for

major-circuit racing, the majority of winners are absent from the races about four

weeks or longer. If one was not aware of these changes, one might not understand

why his performance had deteriorated.

Over the years I have found that the answers to the following three questions

go a long way to finding out just what has been going on and pointing me in the

right direction in search of solutions. You have to have to be able to honestly

answer the questions in an informed manner for the process to be truly

meaningful.

QUESTION #1: Did you make any fundamental changes to your own play, either

by design or accidentally?

QUESTION #2: Is there any fundamental change in the game which is causing

your results to change?

QUESTION #3: Are your horse running as well as anticipated but you are not

profiting? Does your betting profile fit with your handicapping skills?

#1: Very often a player starts off the year with a game plan. Unless this is

purely a pastime, racing should be viewed as a business and this is good

business planning. Very often one then makes some adjustments to the plan;

sometimes these are planned and based on information. However in some instances,

they just creep in without a total sense of awareness.

Here are two subsets from one example of how and why these changes might

occur. The focus of play is the five-day, five-furlong work. A player has

learned from his research and records that a horse with a five-furlong work

within five days is both not that common and wins its share of races at decent

prices. This angle may be used by some, but is not easily quantifiable and is

unlikely to appear in racing publications; so if he can make it work it is

likely to stay profitable for some time.

The player follows two major racing circuits in depth. He has a list of some

20 or 30 trainers that use this work on an occasional or regular basis.

Over the course of several weeks at the start of one of his key meetings, he

notices that one of his favorite trainers for this pattern has been winning

races with five-furlong works, but six days out instead of the usual five. He

has also noted that this has nothing to do with the fact that these are young

horses or fillies. However, additional research reveals that there have been a

lot of carryover races and that the intent of the rule still applies: the

trainer worked the horse five days in advance of the scheduled race, but the

race was run one day later. So without being fully aware of it, he starts to

allow more five-furlong works six days out into the mix without ensuring that

there was a carryover every time. He is still winning a little but not quite as

much.

There are a few trainers that he would like to have on his list, but while

they often work horses close to a race, they either do not use the five-furlong

work at any time, or as in the case of some, they use it as the penultimate work

and finish off with a three- or four-furlong work closer to the race. So he

makes a few exceptions to his play for certain specific trainers based on

additional research. Here too, he starts to bet occasional horses sent out by

trainers not on the special four-furlong list. He is still winning overall, but

there are more losing bets creeping in and the bottom line is slipping a little.

The point here is that he may have tried to mess or finesse with success and

in the process, by making one exception you start to allow more in. At least if

you become aware of what you have done, you can go back to the basic rule or

ensure that the qualification process is tightened up!

#2: If things have changed from one year to the next or started heading south

at a particular time of year, there might be external reasons for this change.

If you have done the evaluation in question one and have not found the answer in

your own work, then perhaps the change originates in external causes.

When I first started going to the races, periods of extreme weather, then

usually the long dry spells of summer or prolonged rainy periods in the autumn,

could have significant impact on the track surface thus affecting one's normal

performance if you did not adjust. Nowadays, the switch to the variety of

artificial surfaces, many of which play very differently from one another, has

severely affected the play and the success rates of many. Suppose you are an

expert at evaluating early speed and pace plays. Keeneland, particularly at the

spring meeting, could once have been your key meeting for the year. Now that has,

for the most part, gone by the wayside. There could have been positive effects

too; if your focus is normally on sustained running styles, you might have had a

career year in 2007 due to the switch to artificial racing surfaces. External

factors can work both ways too!

Another question to ask: does what you are doing still have the same impact

as when you started using it? The change in recency outlined above is indicative

of this type of change. While the game itself may not have changed, the returns

from certain angles may have been altered by the widespread distribution of

certain information. The easy access to speed and pace figures and trainer stats

severely lessened the returns for many of these factors turning once profitable

angles negative. If you did not adjust, you might be hitting at the same win

rate, but the dollar returns may have been sharply reduced.

#3: It is just possible that the game you play from a handicapping

perspective may not match up with your preferred wagering style or profile.

There is more to winning than picking winners. You must know how to take

advantage of them. This involves both developing and matching your handicapping

and wagering skills to your bankroll. Playing trifectas and superfectas on a

small bankroll is a lot different from playing on a large one; you need to

have the mental capacity to cope with long losing streaks to carry out the

former.

This is one of the problems that I constantly encounter in my personal play.

My game is tailored to finding overlaid longer-priced winners. I get my share

and do okay, though I am not yet ready to retire to a Polynesian Island. I often

have long losing streaks and more frustratingly many streaks where there are few

winners and numerous seconds and thirds paying generous prices behind. This is

the nature of the game I play and most of the time I deal with it just fine, though I experienced a very frustrating two hours last week when four out of

five $10 win selections placed with returns of $50 and $30, $25 and $12, $20 and

$10, and $24 and $11. And of course the fifth one failed to win, leaving me with

a $50 loss. Playing the game I do, I know that there are just too many horses

that do not show up; my game is not as profitable playing across the board as it

is to win -- though the frustration level can be higher.

If I possessed greater skills in putting together vertical plays perhaps I

could do better. But I know that as a longshot seeker, I tend to pass over too

many logical horses to be successful and with a limited bankroll and being

anti-ALL button, I have to live with the consequences. At least I am aware of

what I am doing, and at least I have done the necessary work to know that

betting to place or show is not the answer -- in the long run anyway!

I can only hope that some of these ideas will help you to make yourself more

aware of your game and hopefully lead to improvement in the future. Now it is

time for that island in the Pacific. Best wishes for a great holiday season and

may the goddess of racing shine on you in the months to come. Good Luck!