The “Six Secrets of Successful Bettors” are hardly secrets at all, but a more apt title — like “Six Characteristics of Successful Bettors” — for the new book by Frank Scatoni and Pete Fornatale wouldn’t sound as snappy. Interviewing more than two dozen top players, the pair distilled handicapping success into these principles: treat betting as a business, make good use of available resources, only bet when you have an edge, manage your money to maximize your advantage, know how to handicap yourself, and control your emotions. Anyone who’s approached handicapping seriously, or thought about trying to do it professionally, has probably hit upon most of these ideas intuitively. Still, it’s kind of nice to have these commensense recommendations condensed into one book, with each principle illustrated through quotes from the likes of Steven Crist and Andy Serling.
Posted by JC in Books on 04/14/2005 @ 1:30 pm / Follow @railbird on Twitter
Bobby Frankel addresses the fad for fewer preps and fresh horses going into this year’s Derby:
Everything has changed and the reason it has changed is because obviously what we’re doing now works. So what we did in the past, it was great then, but now we’ve figured out that having your horses fresh and everything for these kind of races, that they run their best races. But the negative part about it is when you run them so fresh and they run so hard like, well, it’s like [Nick’s] or maybe our — my horse will run in the Bluegrass like that or something like that, the negative part is that they’re subject to bouncing a lot easier than a horse that’s been having steadier races and more races and having a better foundation.
Â
So there’s a [definite] negative, but to get your ultimate performance out of a horse, I think running them fresh in these races is the way to go…. [Charlie Winningham — sic] got me to do it, to be honest with you, and I did it one step further where I run them even fresher than he does now. So other people watch me do [inaudible] running horses off for three, four months and they run great, so they start doing it…. The reason I gave my horse five weeks off the Louisiana Derby was because he hadn’t run in four or five months, so I’m hoping that time in between and I try to train him fairly hard so he wouldn’t — so he’ll have some sort of foundation and — he’s going to be 100 percent fit, my horse, for this race and hopefully, he doesn’t have two separate races and he can come back in three weeks. (NTRA)
The fresh horse theory of training seems to work if your horse has to race no more than once a month, and preferably, no more than once every six to eight weeks. What happens though, if the winner of the Kentucky Derby is a lightly raced horse such as High Limit or Bellamy Road, and he tries to come back three weeks later and win the Preakness? And then, two weeks later, the Belmont? We may not see a Triple Crown winner until this penchant for long layoffs passes.
Posted by JC in Racing on 04/14/2005 @ 11:40 am / Tagged Kentucky Derby / Follow @railbird on Twitter
Andrew Beyer can’t say enough good about Bellamy Road following his Wood Memorial triumph:
Bellamy Road’s victory in the Wood was one of the most stunning and authoritative performances ever delivered in a prep race for the Kentucky Derby … He earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 120 — the best performance in a Derby prep race since these numbers began appearing in print in 1991. It was better than the winning figure in any Triple Crown race during this period. And it was better than any horse of any age has earned in the United States this year … based on the limited evidence of the Wood Memorial, no horse in years has gone into the 3-year-old classics with such an advantage in raw talent over the rest of his generation. (MSNBC)
Posted by JC in Racing on 04/13/2005 @ 10:55 am / Tagged Kentucky Derby / Follow @railbird on Twitter
