HANDICAPPING THE PUBLIC PART FIVE "VIDEO REPLAYS"

Modern technology has undoubtedly played a huge role in the new age of handicapping, especially for the use of video replay. I’m not sure when replays exactly began to become a common place through track websites and ADWs but it certainly provided an edge to those who used them when they first were accessible. As time went on, more tracks and more options became available for the use of replay and you’d be hard pressed to find a good handicapper now days that doesn’t at least watch a few replays here and there. Personally I find it the most important tool to a handicapper as visually you can see things much clearer than the chart callers brief comments, and let’s not forget they are human too and can be wrong. I know charts are useful and should be used, but I have seen some pretty amusing ones myself proving that mistakes do happen.

Training yourself to watch video replays is one thing, it’s another thing entirely to interpret what you see. As a harness handicapper, it’s a big advantage to see little subtleties like ear plugs coming out. As a thoroughbred handicapper, it’s a big advantage to see little subtleties like when a horse quits running, or to use slang, “spit the bit”. But let’s face it, we all know that the most important thing whether it be in harness or thoroughbred racing, when analyzing replays the trip supersedes all other aspects as the perfect trip still wins more often than not. Not getting that perfect trip often results in a different outcome, even with similar horses which is why the PP’s just don’t do it justice. Also horses often ease with big leads late in races, so sometimes they win by a length, when he could have won by more and the opposite, horses closing ground late often look better on paper.

The betting interest in the sport, really is what makes video replays so much fun, it’s amazing how even two skilled handicappers can watch the same race and see totally different things. Now I couldn’t in one blog describe to you how to perfectly watch replays, or in 100 blogs probably because it’s such an imperfect science. But trying to see what the public doesn’t generally see or even look for can be key. You have to remember that most people watching these replays had vested interest in a single particular horse in the form of a wager, and seeing things that you want to see can be much easier for somebody than seeing what actually happened. Don’t think for a second that this hasn’t and won’t happen to us all again as we all have bet back a horse off a bad trip to watch him run up the track, the goal is to limit how many times that happens.

The confirmation bias is a psychology term used basically to describe seeing what you want to see. This is reality and this happens whether you know it or not, to all of us. We see this all day every single day, you ever watch Fox News or really any channel that supports specific views? They all hire writers and reporters that are going to share the same personal views on different issues, ignoring the facts to support each other’s opinions. How does this relate to horse racing replays? It’s simple, the public likes being right, so when they are wrong, they find excuses for why they weren’t right. As a handicapper you have to be objective and not let your betting interests influence your homework. This goes hand in hand with my thinking that you should very rarely, if ever, back a horse just because of who he/she is. Some cases surely are justifiable but it’s important to relate what happened last time to the task at hand this time around, which is very difficult to do.

When you watch replays there are several things you want to pay attention to whether it be harness or thoroughbred. The most important is pace, as we all know that pace makes the race, whether there is a fast one or a slow one is key. Everything else comes secondary in my opinion as most trips are conflicted because of pace scenarios. For example, a closer in a race with no pace will have a tougher time advancing late in the race, but that doesn’t mean they raced poorly. If the closers all make up ground after chasing a fast pace, the race may look better on paper than it actually was visually. I say everything else is secondary because most bad trips are the effect of the pace scenario. Obviously horses can miss the break, blow the turn, get impeded, change leads, and be blind switched but they are much rarer if you will. Those types of trips, often become traps though as the troubled trip is overcompensated by those people that backed the horse last time, and forget to relate it to the horses task at hand because they are trying to confirm personal bias. Think about it, why else would they have a show called Trips and Traps. My advice to anybody watching that show, and it’s a great show, is to look for trouble in those races beyond what the public is seeing, and avoid any short prices that come of horses on that show as they are quite simply often big underlays.

You want to look for things that aren’t obvious to the general public, and trust me they will watch the front end all the time because they think that’s where the winner is going to be when they cross the wire, and they like being right. Troubled trips are very subjective and often times the inflicted horse causes conflict among other contenders in the race, but also often helps pretenders. So many things can happen in a horse race and seeing things others don’t can be a big edge.

To use a recent example, on July 12th in Race 5 at Belmont, King Gettigan got as perfect of setup as possible and still couldn’t get by the winner. Sure enough, after the near miss, he was heavily backed to be the 2nd betting choice, only to not get the same set up and miss the ticket. Inflated because of it on August 4th Race 2 at Saratoga, 2 horses that exited that same race on July 12th, finished ahead of King Gettigan, at bigger odds. This happens all the time in harness racing, near misses often lead to underlays and horses that nearly miss a lot, tend to keep nearly missing at short prices. Just ask people who bet Jenny’s Creek recently at Saratoga, that horse should pay $100 or more if she ever wins that’s how good she is at losing.

It’s very difficult to look at a horse’s troubled trip and estimate how much it actually affected the horse and as a rule of thumb, price should be dependent upon your guess when it comes time to wager. I mean if a 10-1 horse had a troubled trip, but everybody could see it affected the outcome, do you need 2-1 next time out? The most common mistake is people overcompensating how good a horse’s effort was, and it’s easy to do.

To use another recent example, on July 3rd in Race 10 at Belmont Park, Orient Harbor attempted to break his maiden with Taylor Rice aboard. Nothing against Taylor Rice, but she would tell you too that she’s no Rosario and it’s very apparent in the video, if you aren’t just watching the race be run but the particular horse she is riding, Orient Harbor. She rides him as if she didn’t want to make a mistake, she gave him a ground saving trip and didn’t appear to be confident in her horse’s ability at all. Fast forward to Saratoga July 24th Race 5, this time Joel Rosario rides. He rode Orient Harbor like the best horse in the race he was, and while others moaned and complained that the horse got a perfect trip last time and couldn’t win, he won for fun with a less than ideal ride to break his maiden. In that replay on July 3rd, the only thing you had to do was watch Rice’s ride, she never does anything to give her horse a chance to win the race but instead, perfect trip or not tries not to lose the race.

It’s very tough to handicap using replays but I find it most important in determining which races are stronger than others. For example, a 1:10 at 6F as the only horse in the race, may not be as good as 2 horses from another race dueling the whole way and going 1:11. Replays can sometimes hinder your opinions also and that’s part of this game as every aspect some of the time at least you will be wrong. Seeing things that other people may not even be looking for though can make your opinions stronger ones and ultimately lead to a better priced horse. Seeing is believing, as long as you unbiasedly believe what you are seeing regardless of how others believe to see it.

#partfive