Horse Racing Handicapping Facts and Fiction Checklist For Picking Winners
If you, like many people, have been going to the horse races for many years, you may have certain things that you believe to be true.
You may think that some of the things you use to handicap horse races are facts when they are actually fiction, half truths, or myths.
It's funny, but we all do the same things.
The more often we hear something, the more we believe it's true, even when there is no basis for that so-called fact.
But the biggest problem we horse players have is the half truth.
It is something based on a general fact or statistic that we apply in all situations, even those where it has no basis in truth.
Let's look at one of those well known and often used truths of horse racing handicapping and see how it really holds up.
Go to any horse track or OTB parlor and ask the patrons how often the favorite wins the race and they will tell you about 33% of the time, in other words, about a third of the races are won by the betting favorite.
We all know that, even the neophyte horse player quickly picks up this gem that many future betting decisions will be based on.
A big part of our handicapping revolves around beating the favorite or finding a legit favorite to back if the odds are right.
I've met some well-meaning bettors who thought they simply had to bet on favorites that went to post at better than 2-1 in order to make a profit.
They quickly learned that what looks good on paper doesn't often hold up at the horse races.
I like to call "the favorite wins a third of the time," a pseudo fact.
Yes it is true if you look at thousands of races that the favorite will win about a third of the races, but do you have a bankroll that can hold up for thousands of races including huge swings in wins and losses? The truth of the matter is that it depends on which races we're talking about when we try to rely on the that fact.
For instance, on October 3, 2012 if you were playing the races at Belmont you would have been confronted with races with a wide range of winning favorites.
The second race, a Maiden Claiming Race showed a 50% win average for favorites since the beginning of the meet.
There were ten such races and half of them had been won by the betting favorite for a positive ROI.
In the next race, a turf race over the Widener Turf Course for Claimers three years old and up, the favorites had won just 25% in 16 races since the meet began.
Obviously, betting against the favorite in the second race would have been some tough sledding, but in the third race it made more sense.
This is just one example of how that one simple fact can cost a horse player a lot of money and skew his or her thinking.
You may think that some of the things you use to handicap horse races are facts when they are actually fiction, half truths, or myths.
It's funny, but we all do the same things.
The more often we hear something, the more we believe it's true, even when there is no basis for that so-called fact.
But the biggest problem we horse players have is the half truth.
It is something based on a general fact or statistic that we apply in all situations, even those where it has no basis in truth.
Let's look at one of those well known and often used truths of horse racing handicapping and see how it really holds up.
Go to any horse track or OTB parlor and ask the patrons how often the favorite wins the race and they will tell you about 33% of the time, in other words, about a third of the races are won by the betting favorite.
We all know that, even the neophyte horse player quickly picks up this gem that many future betting decisions will be based on.
A big part of our handicapping revolves around beating the favorite or finding a legit favorite to back if the odds are right.
I've met some well-meaning bettors who thought they simply had to bet on favorites that went to post at better than 2-1 in order to make a profit.
They quickly learned that what looks good on paper doesn't often hold up at the horse races.
I like to call "the favorite wins a third of the time," a pseudo fact.
Yes it is true if you look at thousands of races that the favorite will win about a third of the races, but do you have a bankroll that can hold up for thousands of races including huge swings in wins and losses? The truth of the matter is that it depends on which races we're talking about when we try to rely on the that fact.
For instance, on October 3, 2012 if you were playing the races at Belmont you would have been confronted with races with a wide range of winning favorites.
The second race, a Maiden Claiming Race showed a 50% win average for favorites since the beginning of the meet.
There were ten such races and half of them had been won by the betting favorite for a positive ROI.
In the next race, a turf race over the Widener Turf Course for Claimers three years old and up, the favorites had won just 25% in 16 races since the meet began.
Obviously, betting against the favorite in the second race would have been some tough sledding, but in the third race it made more sense.
This is just one example of how that one simple fact can cost a horse player a lot of money and skew his or her thinking.
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