The Bottom Line
For over two decades, Jim Mazur's Progressive Handicapping is famous for their Crushing the Cup books, and more recently the Triple Crown Handicapper. Florida-based professional horseplayer Mazur reveals his secrets to betting the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes, and Belmont Stakes. His system of "knocks" to eliminate non-contenders based on historical data can be used to point out possible longshot winners and horses to round out exotic bets. Truly an indispensible tool in the betting wars.
Pros
- Excellent resource for fans of betting angle analysis of Triple Crown races
- Well-written, enjoyable to read for any fan
- Points the bettor towards viable longshots in races where longshots do come in
- Kentucky Oaks analysis included as a bonus
Cons
- May not appeal to all fans, especially those who don't handicap or wager
Description
- Horses that need the lead in the Derby are overall bad bets in the Kentucky Derby.
- The vast majority of Derby winners rally from off-the-pace but recently a stalker trend has emerged
- The Dosage Index angle is actually stronger in the Belmont than at the Derby
- Mazur also devised a quick-and-dirty method called the "Mazur Index" or MI.
- He uses the MI in conjunction with the horses' odds to sort out overlays and underlays.
- Just before each race, you can also purchase The Derby Zone, Preakness Zone, and Belmont Zone
- These publications apply the angles to the known entrants in this year's race.
- New for 2006, Mazur releases "Triple Crown Undercard Handicapper" for the undercard stakes races.
- Package deals are available, combining the Triple Crown Handicapper, Undercard, and the Zones.
Guide Review - The Triple Crown Handicapper 2006
To demonstrate how the system works, he takes the time to recap last year's Triple Crown, showing which horses were selected, which bets he made, and what profit (if any) was gained from those bets. He explains, "Now, this is NOT a forum for us to gloat about our successes. As you will see, we slip and fall numerous times en route to the windows!" Having done this, he now moves on to the angles. Each of the three Triple Crown races, and the Kentucky Oaks, gets its own chapter. In each, he starts off with a list of the past 20 winners, then goes through the most powerful angles to use. These come from many sources, such as earnings, pedigree, jockey, trainer, and prep schedule. This is the most important section to study, since some of these angles have held true for years and may point to a false favorite or short-priced horse that, under this system would be an automatic toss-out. Each angle is assigned a knock or two, depending on the severity of the angle. Horses with the least number of knocks are considered contenders, while those with too many are pretenders. He calls the mid-range group "The Gray Zone", horses which have a few knocks but some positive attributes and may be worth a bet at a decent price, and definitely worth including underneath in the exotics. Needless to say, the objective of this exercise is to find the elusive "crush", given that Triple Crown races, and especially the Kentucky Derby, are often the home of boxcar payouts.