I have been around horse racing since I was 5, I can write a book on horse racing.
The best reading material just to get you started is pretty much anything by andrew Byer. He is one of the best handicappers in the world, and makes around a mil a year off of horse racing.
Here are a few tips Iw ould give you:
1. Don't try to look for systems... once you start betting you will know exactly what I mean by this.
2. Try to concentate on pace, or the way the race will be run. Alot of times, the best horse will not will the race, becasue the pace will not dictate it.
For instance, the best horse in my opinion, as far as overall talent, was Bellamy Road. However I knew unless he was sacrateriat back from the dead, he couldn't survive the pace at that distance.
3.Try to stay away from trifectas/superfectas, unless you just really have a hunch how the entire race will play out, or if you see an opprotunity to make a killing on a particular race.
4. Recongize your strenghts and play to them... I am good at predicting pace and I am also good at knowing when a horse that is stepping up in class has a chance in hell. I am not parituclary good at turf races, because all of the horses just gallop around and sprint the llast furlong or two.
The best handicapping tool you can have is a website called racereplays.com. I don't know what I would do without it. I never bet on a horse I haven't seen run, like most people out there do, even the ones that make a little money.
5. Learn money management. Picking the horses usually isn't the hard part, it's learning how to make reasonable bets without killing yourself and get great value.
As far as me, I don't normally spend $700 in one day, but It's the derby, and whenever you have over 100 million dollars on one race, you have the opprotunity to make a complete killing. NOrmally, any other race, that exacta would have paid $1100 dollars or so.
One reason I like horse racing more than any other gambling is that it's the only sport where you aren't trying to beat the house.
See, the horse track gets a certain percentage of every bet made off top... usually 17%. They could care less if the winner pays 3 dollars or 300 dollars, because they are going to get 17 percent of the amount bet anyway. You are betting against the public.
Anyway, am I a gambler? I would say no, because I don't think of myself as a gambler... Gambling is when you take a Gamble on something you know nothing about... that's not what I do. If that were teh case, stock brokers are gamblers.
Last year, I was more focused on my business that I owned so I stayed away from horse racing, which can easily take me up to 8-9 hours a day with the amount of reaserch I do. I made around $26,000 after taxes last year, for all intents and purposes in a 3 week period, and 13,000 of it coming from 1 race.
This year I have really been at it since last month and I have made around $36,000 so far, including the $20,000 I made yesterday.
That is how much I made, which means that's how much profit I made, not how much came in before I counted how muchI spent.
However, 2 years ago I lost around 1,000 dollars. That was because I didn't take the research needed seriously.
However if you know what you are doing, you really can make a very, very good living. My dad taught me the ropes, and if he really wanted to, he could probably make a living off of it, however he is not a risk taker, and after owning a company for 2 and a half years, this is a breeze.
Also note, you will lose races... I only win at a 30 percent clip, whcih Means I lose more races than I win. It co uld be higher, but the object is to win MONEY, not RACES.
Like the kentucky derby. For the last 2 weeks, I have been saying that it was going to be High Fly or Afleet Alex. But last night, when I actually started to handicap the race I came to some conclusions.
1. The faverate, Bellamy Road, had no chance in hell of winning the race because of his style, his sorry ass trainer, and the distance. So I threw him out of the contention.
2. I then noticed that all of the horses trained by Nick Zito, the trainer that had 5 of the 20 horses in the feild, all won stakes races, but they all beat up on the same horses. High Fly was impressive in the Florida Derby, but he didn't beat anyone good, but his stablemade, Noble Causeway. Then after that, Zito didn't run him again. That race was 2 months ago. Noble Causeway was a stalker that I haven't seen beat anyone impressive. They always said "he is coming into form at the right time" but I saw an overrated horse that did nothing but pass tired horses.
Sun King beat horses that had no business in a Derby and then went to a REAL stakes race, the bluegrass and got his ass handed to him, coming into 6th. Zito said "I don't know what happend" I do Zito... the horse sucks that's what happened.
He had anot her horse in the field that I can't spell his name, but he had no business in the freaking derby.
And bellamy Road, the hrose everyone was killing themsleves over.
This horse beat a 6 horse field with absoloutly 1 horse that had a chance in hell of beating him, and that horse came up limping half way through the race. So when he started to slow down, Bellamy Road hit the rail and was gone to a 17 length win. The commantators on ESPN were saying "he ran a 120 Beyer speed figure" (which is insanly fast) but he basically did it running by himself.
Back to my point, I threw out the 5 horses that he trains so I am down to 15 horses that have a chance.
I then look at the distance,k which was a mile and a quarter, VERY long for a horse race. So I went threw and found all of the horses that like to havet he lead, which were High Limit, HIgh Fly, Sun King, Spanish Chesnut Going Wild, Sort it out, Coin Silver.
I took these hrorses out, leaving me with 10 horses now.
Now it gets a little harder.
I looked at Flower Alley. He hasn't won a race with anyone in this field in it, being in 3. What makes you think it's giong to change today. Plus he is extremely lightly raced. So I took him out.
Greater good is from my home track, Oaklawn, so I have seen him upclose in personal. I don't like his style. It's like he tries to hard to run. Plus he threw in a real clunker last race and hasn't been training too well. He has a habit of getting worked up before races, and I could imagine him in front of 150K people. I threw him out.
Greeley's Galxay... I actually like this horse... It's the jockey I don't like. I have watched enough races to know that he doesn't feel extremely comfortable sitting back in the pack and waiting for the front runners to break down. He has to be in the action, somewhere up in the front, even though this horse is suttited to sit in the back in the pack. Poor Greeley's Galxay... If you would have had Pat Day instead of this asswipe (that costs me 15,000 one day last year) you could have won.
Now, I didn't tkae him out, becasue his trainer could have very well told him to sit in the back, and he might have listened, so I bet him, but not a lot. I think I spent 10 dollars betting him in all.
So now I am left wtih:
Greeley's Galaxy
Giacomo
Afleet Alex
Wilko
Bandini
Don't Get Mad
Closing Argument
Buzzards Bay
Better than 20, but that's still too many.
I decided to go aheand and take out Greeley's Galaxy, because even though he looked impressive, He hadn't beat anyone.
I was going to throw out Giacomo without even looking at him, but when I looked at him I saw a horse that had the absolute perfect running style for this particular race, and he hadn't won ina while, but he was loosing aginst some damn good horses...
I decided to keep him in there.
I really liked Wilko, but not enough to beat on him. He always finished close but never wins... That tells me something.. That he or his jockey doesn't know how to win... and this is aginst horses not near this calibur. So I took him out.
I really, really liked Bandiani. Pefect running style, Hot Trainer, good post position.
I also really, really liked Don't get mad. 3-3 at churchill, in the race he had the best runnign style suited for this race. Only questino is could he step up to the class level.
Closing arguement hasn't really showed me anything in the past, and I told myself "the only way he can come close is if all of the hroses try to kill themselves in the first half of the race, and he passed them up". Then I told myself "hey, that could actually happen" So I kept him in there.
I knew buzzad's bay would be close but I didn't know HOW close, so I kept him in there.
Now, I made odds of winning for the horses left that I thought they had to win.
Giacomo 10-1
Afleet Alex 4-1
Bandini 5-1
Don't Get Mad 12-1
Closing Argument 12-1
Buzzards Bay 10-1
So I weighted my bets.
I honestly though Afleet Alex would win followed by Buzzards's Bay, Bandiani or Giacomo.
So:
For Giacomo to win, the base would have to be pretty darn fast, meaning that odds are either Closing Arugement or don't get mad would be in 2nd, more so than Afleet Alex becasue he likes to make a somewhat early move.
That's how I handicapped the race:
What happened? The race went 80% percent to plan. They kilted each other in the first half mile. The closers came and took over the last half.
Bandiani was hurt or something... came u very short I didn't expect that.
afleet alex got in some traffic towards the end and I think that costs him
Also, that was jermery roses only mo unt of the day... if he would have raced eariler, he would have saw that the inside of the track was dead and you needed to stay away from it... When he came around the Back Stretch hugging the rail i knew he lost.
