"I know what I'm doing. After all, I did my homework." That doesn't mean you're an expert. The average high school student can do their homework too, but I wouldn't want them building nuclear reactors on that knowledge. You, as a race track freshman, shouldn't be building Pick 6 part wheels either.
I got the part of my body normally used for sitting handed to me last weekend. I got cocky with exotic bets. In fact, over the last few trips to the track I got really cocky. Oh yeah, the day after Christmas I came home with nearly $200 over my initial bets and missed the Pick 6 by one, which paid handsomely. There's an old saying "God looks after fools and little children." Since I am well out of childhood, guess which one I am. (Something to remember: God has a lot of fools to look after so he can't keep an eye on you all the time.)
One foolish thing that happened was that I got trapped in the love of one horse who has been handing me money each time he put a hoof on the turf. What happened this time? He didn't put a hoof on the turf. He was tiptoeing through that fluff called synthetic. He tried gamely, but lost all form in the last heartbreaking furlong, coming in dead last. Lesson: If a horse shows winning form on one surface, reconsider betting if they suddenly switch surfaces. I knew this. I also read the pros' comments on this. I bet using my heart instead of my head hoping the horse would prove everyone wrong and run like a champion. The Usual Q.T. is a great horse. He was named the California Three Year Old Male Champion by the members of the California Thoroughbred Breeders Association, but he's still just a horse. He's not a god. He has his faults and preferences just like the rest of us. He tried on the synthetic surface twice and just didn't like it.
Mistake number three was participating in a handicapping contest. What the hell was I thinking? First, I did it in a rushed manner and didn't really take the time to consider my choices wisely. Second, I was going up against guys who do this all the time. So what if it was a cheap game, I was way out of my league and way over budget with the $30 voucher and the $10 entry fee. Until you are picking winners like a pro, stay away from these sucker bets.
I have learned a lesson. Bet wisely and cooly. Bet within my abilities. Handicapping is not unlike a video game: you don't have a reset button. I'm not ready for expensive exotic bets or wild speculations. I'm supposed to be keeping it cheap and fun here.
Ok, breathe. My next set of races are coming up. Time to start laying my plan.
I like my straight show bets. I generally come home with my money plus a little more. Last time I bet $XX and came home with $XX on the show bets. Where I made my mistake was playing boxed exactas, the Pick 3 and Pick 6.
Here was my logic on the two Pick 3s: The day after Christmas I had a Pick 6 that was one away from all six. Had I layed down a pair of back up Pick 3s I would've come home with the pay from the Pick 3 and the pay from 5 of 6 from the Pick 6. Sweet. I would've come home with hundreds. This time I came home with my butt in my hand. I had only two horses actually come in. One on one Pick 3 and the other on the other Pick 3. I was no where near sniffing range of the Pick 6. Never let your next race day plan get screwed up by the Shoulda Sickness of the last race day. Each day is a new day.
Not that I bet a huge amount of money on any one of those 3 bets. I bet $2 on one Pick 3, $X on the other and $X on the Pick 6. (This is the second twenty which I will discuss on a later date. Right now we are discussing getting in over our heads.) For now I will limit my exotic bets to the ten cent superfecta and the Pick All which I've had better luck at, cheaper. (What are those two bets? We'll discuss those on a later date too.)
As for the exactas, unless you are willing to spend more than they are really worth, they are not going to win all that often. Again, it was a bad case of Fools and Little Children the two that I did have come in for me recently.
Exotics are fun and their pay for their price can make them seem justifyable, but they are a lot of hard work figuring out the future. The only one I see as a maybe is the Ten Cent Superfecta and the cheap fun of the Pick All, but we'll discuss that later. Today it's all about keeping your head on your shoulders no matter what. It's about staying within the set budget and within player abilities. Today I wanted to give an example of what cocky pays.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Before You Leave The House
The horse doesn't go out on the track without his equipment. You shouldn't go there without things needed to make you a success either.
It's all very good to have a "plan" but if you don't have tools and certain "comfort" items, you are going to spend the day fumbling. I've shown up at the track with things that I didn't use after all or I showed up without the most important things of the day. Make up a bag or list before the day you go to the races. Just showing up with your wallet and a Daily Racing Form under your arm won't do.
The first thing you will need is a folio of some sort. You will need something to catch those odd bits of paper (some are called bet tickets), take notes, hold your program while you get a beer, etc. I bought mine during the Breeder's Cup, and although one pocket is so tight as to be nearly useless, I can carry little things like an odds chart or my loge seat ticket. There is a secure place for my membership card and a built in calculator. Even a handy spot for an 8 1/2 x 11 note pad and a thoughtful pen loop. I would opt for a zippered version so nothing falls out. Don't forget a few pens or pencils and a highlighter. I also brought a few of those plastic sticky tabs to mark my place in my program.
You will need a bag you can carry all day. (Guys: a messenger bag is not a man purse. It's a casual briefcase.) Some tracks will restrict backpacks and oversized bags on certain race days so pick one that is about the size that would normally handle a laptop plus a few extras. Make certain your bag's strap is going to be comfortable all day. This bag is going to handle the portfolio and all the junk you will collect at the track. Tracks love to give things away. Most of them fit in my bag, but this weekend the beach umbrella just wouldn't fit. That necessitated a walk back to the car. I noticed I wasn't the only one not willing to walk around with a 3 foot long object that could be used to beat a clear spot along the rail.
Make an odds chart. Starting out you will not be able to remember that 8-5 is going to pay less than 2-1 but 9-2 is a horse that stands a pretty good chance of winning and paying better than either of the other two odds. I copied mine from the internet, printed it and did a poor man's lamination using clear packing tape. (This form of lamination will become your friend as you add other charts in your mix later.)
Get a membership at the Daily Racing Form online. It's free. You can print just the races you need from their website after paying a small fee for that day's card at a particular track. This is a great buy and less bulky than the newspaper edition. It will fit in your folio. The Daily Racing Form in its newsstand guise can be difficult to maneuver if you don't have a box or loge seat. Tables at tracks are hard to come by and are often taken up by the early birds who never give them up throughout the day. (Never remove the Daily Racing Form from a table. That paper is saving someone's seat.) Printing the Daily Racing Form ("DRF") at home also puts it on better paper. You can highlight and use markers without the bleed through.
Go online and check for the track's discount program. Santa Anita has The Thoroughbreds Club. Most of these clubs are free. Some, like Hollywood Park, let you sign up online. Most want a driver's license number to key the card to and you need to sign up in person. Get to the track early the first time to sign up. You can save money with free goodies, free admission offers, win contests and discounted entry.
You might want to find an inexpensive pair of binoculars. I have a small pair that have a magnification of 10x25. They are compact, fit in the bag and give me a good view of the field, but they are not necessary since most tracks now have some sort of big board to watch the backstretch action on. When you do break down and buy a pair, skip the monster version that puts you in the saddle with the jockey. You'll think you're carrying around the horse after an hour or two. Plus they are god awful expensive. Remember, we're trying to keep it cheap here.
Take money for parking, entry, program, lunch and a beer or two, but not enough to do anymore betting if you have an online account. If you don't have an online account, take a twenty just for that purpose. Leave any card at home that is connected to an ATM. These evil machines are found at the tracks and beg you to do expensive withdrawals, betting the last bit of your paycheck, leaving you to starve until pay day.
Ok, you've got yourself together and have yourself armed for battle. Go have a great day at the races.
It's all very good to have a "plan" but if you don't have tools and certain "comfort" items, you are going to spend the day fumbling. I've shown up at the track with things that I didn't use after all or I showed up without the most important things of the day. Make up a bag or list before the day you go to the races. Just showing up with your wallet and a Daily Racing Form under your arm won't do.
The first thing you will need is a folio of some sort. You will need something to catch those odd bits of paper (some are called bet tickets), take notes, hold your program while you get a beer, etc. I bought mine during the Breeder's Cup, and although one pocket is so tight as to be nearly useless, I can carry little things like an odds chart or my loge seat ticket. There is a secure place for my membership card and a built in calculator. Even a handy spot for an 8 1/2 x 11 note pad and a thoughtful pen loop. I would opt for a zippered version so nothing falls out. Don't forget a few pens or pencils and a highlighter. I also brought a few of those plastic sticky tabs to mark my place in my program.
You will need a bag you can carry all day. (Guys: a messenger bag is not a man purse. It's a casual briefcase.) Some tracks will restrict backpacks and oversized bags on certain race days so pick one that is about the size that would normally handle a laptop plus a few extras. Make certain your bag's strap is going to be comfortable all day. This bag is going to handle the portfolio and all the junk you will collect at the track. Tracks love to give things away. Most of them fit in my bag, but this weekend the beach umbrella just wouldn't fit. That necessitated a walk back to the car. I noticed I wasn't the only one not willing to walk around with a 3 foot long object that could be used to beat a clear spot along the rail.
Make an odds chart. Starting out you will not be able to remember that 8-5 is going to pay less than 2-1 but 9-2 is a horse that stands a pretty good chance of winning and paying better than either of the other two odds. I copied mine from the internet, printed it and did a poor man's lamination using clear packing tape. (This form of lamination will become your friend as you add other charts in your mix later.)
Get a membership at the Daily Racing Form online. It's free. You can print just the races you need from their website after paying a small fee for that day's card at a particular track. This is a great buy and less bulky than the newspaper edition. It will fit in your folio. The Daily Racing Form in its newsstand guise can be difficult to maneuver if you don't have a box or loge seat. Tables at tracks are hard to come by and are often taken up by the early birds who never give them up throughout the day. (Never remove the Daily Racing Form from a table. That paper is saving someone's seat.) Printing the Daily Racing Form ("DRF") at home also puts it on better paper. You can highlight and use markers without the bleed through.
Go online and check for the track's discount program. Santa Anita has The Thoroughbreds Club. Most of these clubs are free. Some, like Hollywood Park, let you sign up online. Most want a driver's license number to key the card to and you need to sign up in person. Get to the track early the first time to sign up. You can save money with free goodies, free admission offers, win contests and discounted entry.
Check the track's layout online. I prefer to pay a bit extra and sit in the clubhouse. It seems a bit quieter there and less crowded. You can also check parking and entry fees, whether the program is included in the price, where you will eat, etc.
Many tracks have a turf club. This club is much more expensive and usually has a strictly enforced dress code. I don't mind a couple of extra dollars to sit in the clubhouse, but paying fifteen to twenty dollars more to sit in business attire while listening to people drop hundreds, even thousands of dollars on single races while I'm there making little two dollar bets makes me feel a bit out of place.
Many tracks have a turf club. This club is much more expensive and usually has a strictly enforced dress code. I don't mind a couple of extra dollars to sit in the clubhouse, but paying fifteen to twenty dollars more to sit in business attire while listening to people drop hundreds, even thousands of dollars on single races while I'm there making little two dollar bets makes me feel a bit out of place.
Open an online betting account. There are several. I have one listed in my links here. I often go with just enough money to buy beer and lunch. I lay my bets at home using my online account. It's a stress free way to bet. You can check your bets carefully before committing and even cancel on a second thought. You don't have someone breathing down your neck waiting for you to finish your bets.
If you have the internet and an online account why go to the races? I go to the races to enjoy the fun of watching the races live. I could watch races for Santa Anita at home using CalRacing's simulcast but it's not the same as being there. Ask anyone who has been offered tickets to the Lakers, or the alternate of sitting at home and watching the game. Whether they have money on the game or not, they want to be there to feel the emotion. I could've stayed home and bet on the Breeder's Cup, watched the replay a few hours later on YouTube, but I would've missed the historic emotion that followed the spectacular win of Zenyatta in the Classic. In sports you never know when something historic might happen. The use of the online betting account is to keep you from betting too much and with too much emotion. Spend the twenty before you leave the house and don't take another twenty with you....yet. Many handicappers would disagree with me stating that things change right up to post time, but you're not there yet. You wouldn't understand a change in situation if it walked up, introduced itself and bought you a beer.
If you have the internet and an online account why go to the races? I go to the races to enjoy the fun of watching the races live. I could watch races for Santa Anita at home using CalRacing's simulcast but it's not the same as being there. Ask anyone who has been offered tickets to the Lakers, or the alternate of sitting at home and watching the game. Whether they have money on the game or not, they want to be there to feel the emotion. I could've stayed home and bet on the Breeder's Cup, watched the replay a few hours later on YouTube, but I would've missed the historic emotion that followed the spectacular win of Zenyatta in the Classic. In sports you never know when something historic might happen. The use of the online betting account is to keep you from betting too much and with too much emotion. Spend the twenty before you leave the house and don't take another twenty with you....yet. Many handicappers would disagree with me stating that things change right up to post time, but you're not there yet. You wouldn't understand a change in situation if it walked up, introduced itself and bought you a beer.
You might want to find an inexpensive pair of binoculars. I have a small pair that have a magnification of 10x25. They are compact, fit in the bag and give me a good view of the field, but they are not necessary since most tracks now have some sort of big board to watch the backstretch action on. When you do break down and buy a pair, skip the monster version that puts you in the saddle with the jockey. You'll think you're carrying around the horse after an hour or two. Plus they are god awful expensive. Remember, we're trying to keep it cheap here.
Take money for parking, entry, program, lunch and a beer or two, but not enough to do anymore betting if you have an online account. If you don't have an online account, take a twenty just for that purpose. Leave any card at home that is connected to an ATM. These evil machines are found at the tracks and beg you to do expensive withdrawals, betting the last bit of your paycheck, leaving you to starve until pay day.
Ok, you've got yourself together and have yourself armed for battle. Go have a great day at the races.
Friday, January 1, 2010
Why Twenty Dollars?
Race tracks are like Ikea. You go there with the intention of a budget but all those exciting possibilities jump out at you and you rationalize spending next week's gas money on things you shouldn't. Of course, race tracks and Ikea would disagree.
Why twenty bucks? Because that's what I walked into Santa Anita Park with on October 3, 2009. I didn't have anymore than that to play with. It had been a bad year. Many of you had a similar bad year. I had left a long term job in 2008 to move up in my field and got laid off 6 months later in 2009. The only job I could find after that barely paid more than my unemployment benefits. (Who do I work for? Hint: The people who pay me make blockbuster movies that make hundreds of millions.) So twenty dollars was a lot of money.
I walked into the track's clubhouse with a plan. Even though I had grown up with horses, I am no handicapper. I couldn't pick a winner if you paid me. My earlier track outings had been limited to betting on gray horses or jockeys wearing pink. You can guess the results. This time I had a plan and a Daily Racing Form. I wouldn't bet on horses that hadn't won in the last three and I would only bet show bets. I bet all the races. I only bet two dollars each race.
I stuck to my plan and went home with my twenty, and seventy cents profit. That's the key to fun at the track: a plan. I was hooked.
Yes, it doesn't sound like a lot of fun, but you would be amazed at the psychological zing you get when you have even a dollar on a race. It's some sort of stake and it's yours. You are in the game. You see your horse charging down the stretch and all you can think is "hang on to third."
Yeah, when the horse wins by seven lengths you wish you had bet to win and bet this week's groceries, but I will guarantee the horse would've done what one horse did to me this weekend when I had a six dollar across the board bet on him because the horse was on a long winning streak. In the final few yards he failed. He went from the front of the pack to the back of the pack. He went from first to dead last in the blink of an eye. When starting out never regret a show bet. You got your money back and at least ten cents on top of that. You've lived to bet another day.
Why twenty bucks? Because that's what I walked into Santa Anita Park with on October 3, 2009. I didn't have anymore than that to play with. It had been a bad year. Many of you had a similar bad year. I had left a long term job in 2008 to move up in my field and got laid off 6 months later in 2009. The only job I could find after that barely paid more than my unemployment benefits. (Who do I work for? Hint: The people who pay me make blockbuster movies that make hundreds of millions.) So twenty dollars was a lot of money.
I walked into the track's clubhouse with a plan. Even though I had grown up with horses, I am no handicapper. I couldn't pick a winner if you paid me. My earlier track outings had been limited to betting on gray horses or jockeys wearing pink. You can guess the results. This time I had a plan and a Daily Racing Form. I wouldn't bet on horses that hadn't won in the last three and I would only bet show bets. I bet all the races. I only bet two dollars each race.
I stuck to my plan and went home with my twenty, and seventy cents profit. That's the key to fun at the track: a plan. I was hooked.
Yes, it doesn't sound like a lot of fun, but you would be amazed at the psychological zing you get when you have even a dollar on a race. It's some sort of stake and it's yours. You are in the game. You see your horse charging down the stretch and all you can think is "hang on to third."
Yeah, when the horse wins by seven lengths you wish you had bet to win and bet this week's groceries, but I will guarantee the horse would've done what one horse did to me this weekend when I had a six dollar across the board bet on him because the horse was on a long winning streak. In the final few yards he failed. He went from the front of the pack to the back of the pack. He went from first to dead last in the blink of an eye. When starting out never regret a show bet. You got your money back and at least ten cents on top of that. You've lived to bet another day.
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