Winning Money At The Horse Races Takes Patience And A Systematic Approach
- Date: 2008-05-12 - Word Count: 954
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Have you ever wondered or asked yourself if anyone ever really consistently wins at the race track? I certainly used to wonder while I was learning the handicapping game. I had many losing years and a lot of frustration. I have owned horses and raced them, spent my share of time on the backside and also worked for a racetrack. I have been a writer and visited and wrote about tracks as far away as Venezuela.
So I do have a little experience in this business and have some insights I'll share with you. First of all, no one wins all the time and nothing is easy about this business of handicapping races whether you do it as a hobby or try to make serious money at it. It is very demanding and to be successful you must immerse yourself in it without losing yourself in it. That means that if you lose your perspective, you can start to take it too seriously and lose everything. It is like the poker pros and the wannabees. Go to any poker tournament and you will see the greats seated beside the wannabees at the beginning, but as the days go by the wannabees soon fall away and the greats are left to fill the seats at the final table.
A lot of the wannabees had as much knowledge about poker but couldn't keep their perspective or emotions in check and wound up burning out. The same is true of handicapping races. If you want to win and consistently, get your emotions under control, be realistic, and don't let it dominate your life or ruin your relationships with the people in your life. The great poker pros usually have a family or loved ones supporting them in what they do and can keep family and friends at the top of the list of important things in life with poker, of course, running a close second. I speak from personal experience when I say there have been times in my life when I left the race track feeling hard used and found refuge and comfort in the love and understanding of my family and friends. If you can look at it no other way, then consider this. They are an important key to your winning because they will be there for you during the rough times if you treat them right and don't let winning at the track get between you and them.
With that said, let's get down to business. When I say a systematic approach I mean that you need to use certain criteria to rate your bets and determine whether a bet is a good one or a lousy one. It comes down to these factors, first of all, what is the risk? Secondly, what is the return? When risk outweighs return, it is a lousy bet. When the return outweighs the risk it is a good bet because if you stick with positive expectancy bets, your wins will offset your losses with a profit. For instance, it takes time and experience, but after a while you should be able to look at a runner with whatever system you have and determine if the race was run ten times, how many of those times a certain runner would win. If it will win only one time out of ten then anything under 10-1 is a losing bet. That is a very simplistic approach but I think it demonstrates my point.
If you can't tell what each runner's relative chances of success are in a race, you shouldn't be betting on the race. There are a few decent systems out there that will help you to narrow that down and we'll talk about them a little later. For now, take a piece of graph paper and make a ladder on it for the race you are handicapping. Next, put the worse runner at the bottom of the ladder. Put the next worse runner somewhere above it. The amount of space between them (rungs) is determined by what you think their chances are of winning. Do this with each runner.
Now give yourself enough time to look at the odds and your ladder and decide which horse(s) based on its place on the ladder and the rungs between it and the others, is really a good bet. I guarantee this simple visual aid will amaze you and your handicapping will move up to a much higher level, not to mention that fact that you will improve the more you use the ladder. All it requires is a consistent system and practice. This won't make you a great success overnight but it will improve your performance and help you to quantify the factors that separate the runners. If you use a separate sheet of paper for each race you should have enough room beside each horse to make a note about the horse and what you thought was important.
After the races are run and you are relaxing, look back over your notes and see how each horse fared. After a few days of this, certain things will start to stand out and you will see your won strengths and weaknesses. Keep it up and keep improving yourself. This is like any other school. The race track is your classroom and you are the teacher and pupil. Be a good student and pay attention. Use your notes when your head is clear and you can really think about what happened as opposed to what you thought would happen. I guarantee that if you do what I have shown you, you will be a good handicapper in time.
Start with a good system and graph paper and patience. The rest will come to you in time.
So I do have a little experience in this business and have some insights I'll share with you. First of all, no one wins all the time and nothing is easy about this business of handicapping races whether you do it as a hobby or try to make serious money at it. It is very demanding and to be successful you must immerse yourself in it without losing yourself in it. That means that if you lose your perspective, you can start to take it too seriously and lose everything. It is like the poker pros and the wannabees. Go to any poker tournament and you will see the greats seated beside the wannabees at the beginning, but as the days go by the wannabees soon fall away and the greats are left to fill the seats at the final table.
A lot of the wannabees had as much knowledge about poker but couldn't keep their perspective or emotions in check and wound up burning out. The same is true of handicapping races. If you want to win and consistently, get your emotions under control, be realistic, and don't let it dominate your life or ruin your relationships with the people in your life. The great poker pros usually have a family or loved ones supporting them in what they do and can keep family and friends at the top of the list of important things in life with poker, of course, running a close second. I speak from personal experience when I say there have been times in my life when I left the race track feeling hard used and found refuge and comfort in the love and understanding of my family and friends. If you can look at it no other way, then consider this. They are an important key to your winning because they will be there for you during the rough times if you treat them right and don't let winning at the track get between you and them.
With that said, let's get down to business. When I say a systematic approach I mean that you need to use certain criteria to rate your bets and determine whether a bet is a good one or a lousy one. It comes down to these factors, first of all, what is the risk? Secondly, what is the return? When risk outweighs return, it is a lousy bet. When the return outweighs the risk it is a good bet because if you stick with positive expectancy bets, your wins will offset your losses with a profit. For instance, it takes time and experience, but after a while you should be able to look at a runner with whatever system you have and determine if the race was run ten times, how many of those times a certain runner would win. If it will win only one time out of ten then anything under 10-1 is a losing bet. That is a very simplistic approach but I think it demonstrates my point.
If you can't tell what each runner's relative chances of success are in a race, you shouldn't be betting on the race. There are a few decent systems out there that will help you to narrow that down and we'll talk about them a little later. For now, take a piece of graph paper and make a ladder on it for the race you are handicapping. Next, put the worse runner at the bottom of the ladder. Put the next worse runner somewhere above it. The amount of space between them (rungs) is determined by what you think their chances are of winning. Do this with each runner.
Now give yourself enough time to look at the odds and your ladder and decide which horse(s) based on its place on the ladder and the rungs between it and the others, is really a good bet. I guarantee this simple visual aid will amaze you and your handicapping will move up to a much higher level, not to mention that fact that you will improve the more you use the ladder. All it requires is a consistent system and practice. This won't make you a great success overnight but it will improve your performance and help you to quantify the factors that separate the runners. If you use a separate sheet of paper for each race you should have enough room beside each horse to make a note about the horse and what you thought was important.
After the races are run and you are relaxing, look back over your notes and see how each horse fared. After a few days of this, certain things will start to stand out and you will see your won strengths and weaknesses. Keep it up and keep improving yourself. This is like any other school. The race track is your classroom and you are the teacher and pupil. Be a good student and pay attention. Use your notes when your head is clear and you can really think about what happened as opposed to what you thought would happen. I guarantee that if you do what I have shown you, you will be a good handicapper in time.
Start with a good system and graph paper and patience. The rest will come to you in time.
Related Tags: horseracing, horse racing handicapping, win money at the horse track, winning bets, profitable bets
Bill Peterson has been in horse racing for 50 years. "Horse Racing is in my blood." Learn how an insider handicaps horse races by visiting Bill's website Horse Racing Handicapping with Willie's. To see the systems Bill uses, go to Bill's Handicapping Store or True Handicapping Your Article Search Directory : Find in Articles
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