Chapter 18 - Expert Selecting

How to work out a scientific system.

The player who relies on "hunch" and "inside information" will go merrily on his way until his bankroll contracts leukemia and he finally abandons racing as a sport, avocation or pastime.

For once a player begins to believe that he can "pick them by ear," or that the "right connections" will reveal winners to him hours before race time, he is as hopeless as old time prospectors who died of starvation while still "hot" on the trail of a great bonanza. His last two dollars will go on a "hunch" with all the enthusiasm with which he lost his first two dollars, or his last five dollars will go to the very same tipster who bankrupted him but who today soothes with the assurance: "no angle has been overlooked. It will be a shoo in."

The player who spurns "inside tips" and who does not believe that a few visits to the track make him an expert any more than three trips to the zoo make him a big game hunter, can get a head start by permitting some real experts to work for him. These experts are the professional selectors.

The best professional selectors are those who work for the specialized racing papers such as the Daily Racing Form and the New York Morning Telegraph. A few "scratch" sheets also have some good men on them. But the player should not take too seriously any periodical that carries advertisements that promise winners for a stated fee or for a stated play for the tipster.

The fact that no professional selector, as has been pointed out, ends the year in the black does not mean all their work should be ignored. Previous chapters have pointed out the reasons that prevent these selectors from ending up with a profit.

These selectors, however, can cut away much of the thick underbrush and the weeds that the player cannot even hope to recognize until he has been studying charts and performances for months. A player who makes the work of the professional selectors the basis upon which he builds a system will know at least that the particular race he is studying will have been worked over by experts. And experts cannot be wrong all the time.

The selections of the professionals should be just the starting point for any method adopted by the novice. Obviously, just playing a professional's first choice will not return a profit.

The player who does decide upon any method is cheating himself if he fails to keep checking it continually for possible improvements. He doesn't study it so that he can change the rules almost daily in his frenzy because a "big one" got away yesterday. Nor does he want to revise the rules in order to get more action unless the action will protect his investment.

In recognition that the professional selectors have a right to be called experts, many of the methods in this book are based on their work. Each method seeks to use their selections as a starting base.

Since the professionals make their living by rating horses, we can assume that they take due note of all the variables such as distance, speed, age, time, weight and on down into the intangibles. The fact that a horse is putting on weight, taking it off, stepping up or down in class, running a greater or less distance, etc., is not lost upon these men. If a professional selector thinks the horse cannot win under the changed conditions, the novice has little reason to be smug in the belief that he knows more about the situation.

As far as the player is concerned, a system is just a method for attempting to swing the percentages in his favor. As an example, we can go back to the finding that one third of all favorites win. A flat play on all favorites will wind up in the red.

A player who wants a method of playing favorites is asking, in effect, for one, or a combination, of several things.

1. He wants to find a betting method that permits him to make a profit by playing favorites indiscriminately. This is a difficult problem so the player will fare better if:

2. He finds a way to raise the percentage of winners by eliminating some types which produce the most losers. His objective, in other words, is to "screen" the favorites so that he doesn't play those which have the least chance to win.

3. He wants to find a way to eliminate as many losers as possible while also snaring winners which pay the most money. Thus a player might not be interested in playing less-than-even-money favorites although he knew they might have the best chance of winning.

The steps involved in developing a system and the methods by which it can be improved can be shown by the following example. Someone started out with the simple idea of playing all horses which every selector in a racing paper picked on top. The Racing Form has five selectors. In other words, a horse to be a selection had to be named on top by every one of the five selectors.

The person who started this method reasoned that if every selector had the horse picked first the horse must be a good, substantial proposition. He must indeed be the best in the race although the "best" does not always win.

But today there are many methods based on this simple idea. And all are the results of revision of the idea from time to time as someone decided something should be added or eliminated in order to increase the possible percentage of winners, or stated another way, to reduce the number of losers.

The first revision simply added this rule:

The track condition at" the time of play must be the same as that predicted by the handicappers. In other words, if the handicappers said their selection was for a fast track then the track at race time had to be fast, otherwise there was no play.

The purpose of this rule is obvious. A check showed that a change of track conditions made it possible to view the race in another light. The horse that was outstanding on a fast track might have more serious competition from one or more horses if the track turned more to their liking.

The second revision added the rule that one of those handicappers (at least one) must have that top choice as his best bet. This was another attempt to raise the percentage of winners on the theory that the choice was a stronger selection if at least one handicapper thought he was the best risk of the day. However, there is a possibility that a rule of this kind while tending to raise the percentage of winners also might reduce the average payoff price.

The third revision narrowed the field. It said that there was no play in a race in which 12 or more horses started. This provision while helping to restrict competition for the top horse was aimed principally at too large fields with a resultant shuffling and forcing back of horses, especially if they did not break too alertly or if they were stretch runners which liked to come from behind.

A fourth change was to add a rule that selections were to be sought only in sprint races. Many turf fans hold to the theory that the truest races are run only in sprints. Others doubt this view on the ground that a horse trained to run a route and with the stamina to do it can be just as good as a horse that confines its efforts to six furlongs or less. While a route offers more chance of bad racing luck bobbing up, it also affords more chance to correct a mistake upon the part of either horse or jockey.

A fifth change was to eliminate all maiden races and all races for two-year-olds. This revision reflects the old bugaboo about maidens. Admittedly, two-year-olds especially early in the season do not always run according to form.

When the sixth change came along it worked on a different theory. It concerned itself with the competition that the top horse was to meet. So the rule read: "Pass the race if the handicappers in their second and third choices name a total of three or more different horses." This is a rule that can be looked at from two angles. If the five handicappers, all of them agreeing on the top horse, name only three horses as their entire second and third choices, it indicates they are in pretty good agreement on all horses in that race.

On the other hand suppose these handicappers name far more than three horses as their second and third choices? It might be argued in that case that the handicappers believe the remainder of the horses (other than top choice) are of about the same caliber and none of them can dispute the issue with the first horse.

A seventh change was made by this rule: the top choice of all handicappers must be 15 points (or more) better than the second horse in the consensus. This is an attempt to let the consensus do the work of deciding what competition there is in the race for the top choice.

Finally, an eighth change was made. This was a liberalizing provision obviously added in the hope of catching better priced horses without reducing the winning percentage too drastically. The change was that the horse would be a selection if four of the five handicappers had it on top and the fifth handicapper had it for second. In the Form, Hermis especially seems to like to shoot for long shots. Therefore, on many occasions he disagrees with every other handicapper on the top choice. Of course, at times other handicappers besides Hermis also disagree.

But this simple mechanical system is worth studying because it shows what happens to an idea once turf fans begin working on it. Every player will find it interesting to check the system according to its different changes, because it will show him how winning percentages and prices can be made to fluctuate with the simple addition or elimination of rules.

The turf fan will find further interest in studying the various methods suggested of playing the selections once they are made. It can be seen at a glance that this method in all its various revisions deals with horses of rather short prices. True, once in a while a horse selected by such a method will pay a fair price—perhaps $7 to $9—but the average certainly is lower.

It seems, then, that man, who has done so much to help the horse better his condition, has taken a little time out, too, to help himself. For systems, like horses, also can be improved.

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