that gut feeling
 

Got a theory about handicapping, not one that hasn't been proposed before, I'm sure, but was wondering what other people thought.

When I handicap, I use the standard stuff -- pace, form, trainer stats, my "horses to watch" trip notes, etc. -- and write everything down on a legal pad, listing all the plusses and minuses for each horse (and, yeah, I do feel kind of dorky walking around with a legal pad at the track, but it's handy for making exacta payout grids). I try not to make too many value judgments of one horse versus another when I'm making these notes, but when I get done, I look at the whole thing and try to get a sense of what seems most important in this particular race. Sometimes, one horse seems to stand out, even if he doesn't have the most plusses, for reasons that I might not have considered that important in a different race. In these situations, the assets of the horse don't seem proportional to the sureness of my feeling that he's gonna' win. My records appear to show that I'm right about that horse, when I get that feeling, more often than my normal ability to pick a winner, but it happens too rarely to be sure.

Here's my theory: intuition in these cases is the subconscious processing of information to achieve a right result, even when you can't express why you're so sure because there's too many factors to consciously grasp. Sort of like a black box computer that spits out the answer without you knowing the formula used to get there.

Is this wacky, just self-delusion, or do others have this experience? Seems to me that if this is a real phenomena, you should be able to somehow exercise this ability, make it happen more often. There's got to be a hard-nosed empiricist out there who can tell me I'm not nuts.

Of course, it also seems to help if I find a lucky heads-up penny on the ground on the way to the window.

I'm pretty much retarded when it comes to capping, but I do have a wacky story that happened to me this summer.

It was a ny-bred maiden claiming race and in my prior capping I liked 3 or 4 different horses and was trying to decide which would be the best bet. Well as I was watching all of the horses come down the path to the paddock this gray filly pulls her groom towards me, stops, and then looks at me in a way that no other horse in my years of being near them has looked at me....it was actually kind of creepy because it felt like she was peering through me or something. Anyway, I look down at my notes and see that she (Stag Dancer) was one of the horses I liked and was 12-1. At this point I feel as if I have no other choice but to bet her (WPS) and she wins! I think she won 2 or 3 races after that too, but she has now disappeared.

Don't know if I trust gut feelings, but I sure wish something like this happened again! LOL (and it was probably just some weird coincidential luck)

You need to see the movie "Let it Ride," which is where my signature quote comes from.

I'll have to check it out. :)

I guess I've never been one for any sort of calculation system when it comes to handicapping. It just seems there are so many angles and intangibles that it feels like comparing apples to oranges anyway. I'll look at the PPs and throw as many out as possible, then pick from what's left. I'd say that gut feeling is as good as any.

Another weird coincidence. Eurobounce just posted a thread with a link to Jay Cronley's column on the ESPN website. Jay Cronley wrote "Good Vibes," the book on which "Let it Ride" was based.

It has helped me a few times...

I try to combine gut feeling and analysis.

I found the movie on e-bay for ultra cheap and bought it. I'm an e-bay addict. :cool:

So am I... ugh. It was the death of me last year. LOL

I found all of these great dresses, tags on, for under $20 and that is all it took! :D

You people and your Ebay! Between that and QVC, being a railbird is starting to sound respectable.

Hehe... I love ebay. I bought 3 pairs of lucky jeans off of ebay for less than $40 a pair. They retail at over $100. :p

Absolutely, that's why I believe the LAST impression is much better than the first when betting horses. When you assess all the pp data, how the horse looks on the track, the betting action, the sixth sense has an uncanny knack of being better than the initial impression.

I copied this from Horsepartners.com web site regarding Stag Dancer.

Stag Dancer (South Carolina)

01/08/2007 - A few owners have ask why we didn't send Stag to run at Gulfstream Park. Here are the reasons.

Out side of NY stag is only eligible for an open company Non-winners of 2 race. If she were to win this race she will net about $18,000. Then she will have to run in either a stakes or claiming race.

In NY she is eligible for Non-winners of 2 NYB, Non-winners of 1 open and Non-winners of 2 open, which combine is worth about $62,000. Then after winning theses conditions she can run in claiming and stakes races.

If she was to run in Gulfstream and won the non-winners of 2 open, she would only be eligible for claiming or stakes races back in NY, and we would lose about $44,000, plus all the seconds and thirds.

12/28/2006 - Will be shipping to Belmont Park on March 1st.

Thanks for finding this!
What a tough situation when a horse runs out of it's conditions

My gut feeling is some of the time right but i dont play it because of the odds...for example...the other week at aqueduct a horse caught my eye and was 30-1/35-1 and im like there is no way this horse is going to win...lets just say the horse won and paid about $100-$125 across the board and i didnt play it