When handicapping a race, the first instinct for any horseplayer is to find a justification of beating the favorite. From there it's just a matter of how to play it, do you toss the chalk out for the win and play them underneath? Or just consider keeping them out of the money altogether. However you play it, the feeling is generally; beat the favorite, and be rewarded with boxcar payouts. However there are times when ever the most contrarian player can't help but use the 3-5 shot, simply because they are the best horse in the race. Particularly the big multi-race players, pick 4s, 5,s and 6s, where the strategy is to just get through the races. In those situations, the question becomes, how confident are you on your opinion. If your confident that the favorite is the best horse in the race, do you single that horse in your pick 4 play or do you dilute that opinion using other horses defensively?
There are two sides to this dilemma, one, you single the favorite and he overcomes a bad trip to prove he's the best horse in the race, but he loses by a nose. The other side is, you get defensive, using 3, or 4 horses in the race, causing you to thin out your bets in the legitimately wide open races. The final result is that the favorite wins easily, and the next race, which is a wide open 12 horse turf race brings in a 17-1 shot that you had to toss in order to keep your costs down. The decision knocks you out of the pick 4, costing you hundreds or possibly thousands of dollars in the process. Now if this seams very stressful, then you either, a. probably should stick to penny slots, or, b. you're probably a sane and well adjusted human being, which in that case I'm not sure how you got this far in the article in the first place.
The answer to this problem lies in the difference between a novice bettor and a seasoned pro; the novice knows enough to be a novice but not enough to be indifferent when they feel they got the best price for their opinion. That is because the pro has enough back knowledge and working information in their memory to know when they're beat, and when to push all in. In the 'art' of handicapping horses, that zen like quality only comes about after a rigorous amount time and preparation. Preparation that not only consist of studying the races before hand, but reading books, watching races and analyzing concepts and betting angles. This idea; which is anything but new, is one that was delved into by Malcom Gladwell in his book 'Blink', where he discusses how years of hard work can develop an inexplicably intuitive sense. The field of cognitive science has described this phenomenon as 'chunking bits of information'.
The art of using the 'key race' concept -
Last Saturday at Gulfstream Park featured a challenging late pick 5, Florida Derby Day is the marquee event of the meet with seven stakes races on the card. Three of the five races of the pick 5 were turf races, which are traditionally the more wide open of betting events. The two dirt races of the sequence were the Skip Away Stakes and the Florida Derby. The Florida Derby was essentially a three horse race as far as win bets were concerned, which made the ten horse field of the Skip Away Stakes an important race to boil down to 1 or 2 choices in order to go deeper in the turf races.
This is where having a working knowledge of various angles comes into play. The convincing angle that worked here is the concept of the 'key race'. The idea is very simple, but effective when but into practice. Simply comb through past performances to find races that produce next out winners. Obviously the more winners the better, but more importantly horses that have not had to drop down in class to get that win. After familiarizing yourself to this, you will begin to see patterns that uncover rare gems of information. In his seminal handicapping classic "Betting Thoroughbreds" Steve Davidowitz brilliantly articulates many betting angles that worked for him on his rise to becoming a handicapping sensei. One of them was the 'key race' concept. Here he is explaining how through researching past performances at Laurel Park, he discovered isolated horses who made strong middle moves on the turn for home.
"The turn into the the stretch at Laurel was the roughest piece of real estate in Maryland. Any horse in good enough shape to make a move on it was a horse worth tabbing for improvement next time out."
So lets get back to Saturdays Skip Away Stakes, where Cigar Street was the 5/2 morning line favorite. The question here was, is he a legitimate favorite, and if so, is he a horse I want to key in my multi race wagers, thus opening me up to go deeper and (maybe) catch a price in later races? The problem becomes more difficult when you consider that although he has shown talent, this is the first stakes race he is entered into, and one that features multiple stakes winners. It's always a tough call to confidently bet a horse to do something they have never done before.
Going back in the past performances I saw that on February 17th at Gulfstream Park, Cigar Street ran in an Allowance Optional Claimer at a mile and an eighth. Cigar Street won with relative ease, but the important part is that he won easily against Big Screen, a horse who came back to run a monstrous race at Aqueduct. The strength of that race was that Big Screen came home in :24 and 1/5th seconds drawing away from the field to win by 9 and 1/4 lengths, earning a very powerful 110 Beyer Speed Figure in the process.
So with the confidence of knowing how handily Cigar Street put away a worthy opponent like Big Screen, it then became an easy decision to single him in the multi race wagers. Needles to say he won, paying a chalky $5.60, but it allowed me to go deeper in the other races, and catch a $19 dollar horse in the first race of the sequence.
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