The Bottom Line
Pros
- Long-awaited update of a handicapping classic
- Shows how to adapt traditional techniques to the modern game
- Well-written work by a highly respected writer and handicapper
Cons
- May not be of interest to racing fans who bet recreationally or not at all
Description
- Track Bias, Bias Profiles of a Dozen American Tracks, Synthetic Track Handicapping
- The Money Tree, The Trainer's Window, What's He Doing In Today's Race, The New "Supertrainers"
- Key Race Method, An Edge in Class, The Mystery of Allowance Races, The Race is to the Swift
- Pace Handicapping: The New Old Frontier, Pace and the Single-Race Bias, Theory vs. Experience
- Working with Workouts, The Power of Pedigree Handicapping, Drugs in Horse Racing
- To Bet or Not to Bet and How Much, Exotic Wagering, The Best Handicapping Tools Ever Invented, The Winning Horseplayer
- Appendix A: Guide to Daily Racing Form Past Performances -- how to read and understand the PP's, creating a morning line
- Appendix B: Speed Figures -- parallel time charts for one-turn and two-tur races, how to compute speed figures
- Appendix C: Pace Figures -- fractional closkings and pace pars, how to identify too-fast early splits
- Appendix D: Exotic-Wagering Strategies -- how to construct winning daily doubles and exactas up to the pick six.
Guide Review - Betting Thoroughbreds for the 21st Century by Steve Davidowitz
As well, he included track bias profiles for 21 North American tracks including diagrams, and adding a greater focus on the synthetics where the biases can be consistent or unpredictable, shows how to spot hidden class angles at every level of competition, when to use speed and pace figures and when they are a trap, and how to skillfully read race conditions to identify standout plays. He also focuses on the untapped power of pedigree handicapping, a skill that some players may have placed on the back burner as handicapping has increasingly been reduced to number-crunching.
The book is a wake-up call for old-timers, while newcomers will be fascinated by the many different ways a horse race can be successfully bet on, and will find themselves referring to this book for years, possibly using other books to research each of the concepts in more detail.
