Horse Racing Handicapping Remains the Same Despite Appearances

by, Bill Peterson

People who sell data and information would have us believe that picking winners at the horse track is different today than it was years ago. But let's take a look at what it takes to pick winners now and what it took say, 50 years ago.

Today, in order to pick winners, you have to have a good way to compare the runners. Horse racing handicapping may mean starting your computer in the morning, downloading past performances or other data provided by one of the services. It could also mean letting a software program crunch the numbers for you.

When it is all done you might print out the results. Perhaps you'll have some charts to look at that compare the horses class, speed, connections, recent races, workouts, etc. You will try to make some sense of it all and find an overlay or maybe put together an exotic bet or two. Next, you will go to a website that you can bet from with a toteboard so you can watch the odds, or perhaps you'll turn the computer off and go to an otb or track with a toteboard and place your bets there.

50 years ago you would have walked or driven to a place to get a racing program, Morning Telegraph, or Daily Racing Form, or perhaps you would have picked one up on your way out of the track. Next you would sit down with your information source and read through the races and perhaps circled or underlined things that caught your eye. Maybe you would make a few notes. When you were done you'd look each race over and compare the horses relative merits and the notes you'd made.

Then you'd go to the track and make your bets based on the odds on the toteboard.

There's no doubt about it, there is more information available now than ever before, but is that better? Isn't the process basically the same and isn't that why about the same number of favorites win? Kind of makes you wonder how much of all this information that is now available is really necessary and how much of it is just fluff that is making someone a living selling it.

Thousands of years ago two guys were riding across a wide open plain and decided to see who had the fastest horse. Maybe a few people were standing there watching and decided to place a friendly wager on it. Each person thought of what horses those horses had beaten in the past, maybe they thought about how good the riders were and also compared the sires and dams of the horses.

Basically, they did the same things we do now to pick winners. And probably, the crowd picked about the same percentage of winning favorites back then, too. I have been saying it over and over and will keep repeating it. It is the basics. Learn the basics and never lose sight of the basics of horse racing handicapping, because that is what it takes to keep picking winners.

The most consistent horse racing systems have to have the basics and a handicapper must understand the basics. I have been around horse racing for 50 years including as an owner. Without the basics the rest is not going to do any good. If you want to learn how a horse owner and insider handicaps just go to http://williewins.homestead.com/truecb.html and get the truth.

Bill Peterson is a former horse race owner and professional handicapper. He comes from a horse race handicapping family and as he puts it, "Horse Racing is in my blood." To see all Bill's horse racing material go to http://williewins.homestead.com/handicappingstore.html Bill's handicapping store.

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