[docicu3]

Originally Posted by Kasept

This is a monsterously broad topic that has unlimited answers that apply individually but only one that applies universally: Play horses you 'like'.

The difficulty with a standard application of a betting formula of any kind stems from the fact that the casual player has varying degrees of motivation, time and opportunity when it comes to his or her horseplaying. Because of that, the casual player generally is betting too many races on their race-playing days to be especially successful long term.

The discipline to only play horses that you identify as most likely winners is only the first part of the equation. From that point. you then have to decide what an acceptable price is on that horse for you to be involved as well as how you want to utilize that horse or those horses. Handicapping will lead you to horses in every single race that you believe are the most likely winners. If one 3-1 and one is 8-1, where do you go from there? Do you key both in tris? Do you box them for exactas going heavier with the lower price on top? Do you use the pair as part of the foundation for P3 or P4 plays? Do you bet both to win?

No one can answer that for you because each player has to apply their own style of play and personal price-value ratio to their investment strategy.

Hooves' style of play is exceedingly unique and not for everyone. To utilize some baseball analogy, he is very much like Adam Dunn of the Reds. He may bat .246 on the year with 170 strikeouts, but hits 47 home runs and drives in 118 runs. His 'production' makes him a success. Like Dunn, he maintains a high confidence level that allows him to go to bat each time thinking he's going yard in that at bat, and doesn't allow the days with 3 K's in 4 at bats to shake his confidence.

Does that make him better or worse than an 'Ichiro' type horseplayer who gets 215 hits for a .366 average but with few home runs and far fewer RBI? It doesn't make him better or worse... Both are successful. The Ichiro horseplayer takes lower prices and bets them conservatively and ekes out out a steady profit. The Dunn horseplayer is prone to pendulum swinging streaks of misses and scores where the longshot prices of the scores more than offsets the misses.

And as in this analogy, 'taking pitches' is the key. Dunn goes to the plate with the attitude that every any pitch near the plate is hittable and swings accordingly. Ichiro is content to take pitch after pitch waiting for a pitcher's mistake before swinging. That is the same as approaching every race as playable versus being willing to accept a 'walk' by passing a race and looking forward to your next at bat. A fat pitch coming in looking like a grapefruit is a horse you like. If you're an Adam Dunn, there's a pitch every at bat that looks fat and if you're Ichiro, there's maybe one pitch a day that looks fat.

What are you looking to do? (i.e. singling to move runners up = getting through the leg of a P4.. Tying the game in the bottom of the ninth with a solo homer, etc..). The fact is that being a horseplayer is a lot like being a baseball player. It's a long season or career..

They play 162 games a year in baseball and that may be about how many times a casual fan plays races (about once every 2 days on average over the course of the year). What you do in your last at bat (that one day) isn't important. "Getting even" on the day is not important. There is no 'bet of the day' just as there is no 'at bat of the day' for a baseball player. You swing at pitches you like and if you don't see a pitch worth swinging at for three straight games (or 12 straight races), so be it.

If you're in a groove you swing at everything and everything is a double off the wall or carries out of the park. When you're in a funk, it doesn't matter what you're doing, you miss everything or you line out viciously to the shortstop. The important thing is that you're going to take the field tomorrow and get the same chances you had today. You're looking to be put up Hall of Fame numbers OVER A LIFETIME.

Like baseball, horseplaying is a game of redeeming qualities. Identifying what you do best and having confidence in your attributes as a player is all that matters. No one should be adjusting your stance or tinkering with your swing. The only good advice is simply to maximize your pitch selection, accept bases on balls when they're offered and swing when you see something you like. Remember that Rod Carew AND Harmen Killabrew are both in the Hall of Fame, though both took entirely different routes to get there.

I have only read a year of your stuff but excluding columns this has to be the longest post on a subject I have ever seen you leave. Either great coffee for the first two hours of a day or a real chord was struck with you on this one Steve.

I have seen you write time and time again that you don't beat this game over the long run with the 9/2 win shots. That the only way to beat this game LONG TERM is the exotics (exacta,tri's and super's) and taking advantage of the payoffs with lesser take out such as the P3 or P4 sequences. As much as I certainly agree that you should play horses you like I would also make a play for playing the types of races you like.

I happen to think that I am better off playing turf races and maiden races because the payoffs seem better and exotics are my thing. Some angles (turf breeding for one) require faith without form you can see if your betting maiden special wgt or turf routes that your keying pedegree based on stats and trainer styles of handling horses that tell you the trainer thinks he has something though the horse may never have run a turf or a route before.(Contessa the day he said "If you see me drill a day or two before a maiden race say 3F's and I let the horse blow it out I mean business") It seems that occasionally it is an angle in a race you like or look for that you key.

Haven't you over the life of your handicapping found that certain races, trainers and favorite tracks bring out the best in you Steve. It seems you murder New York tracks with the predictabilty of tax day. My guess is that has to be a comfort zone for you.