Here's a great gift that is available for all horse players: the gift of losing.
Eliminating losers is an essential part of the game.
Getting off a loser can be a festive occasion.
Winners are hard to find. They're hidden in seemingly endless rows of innocuous numbers, in bad luck, thoughtless rides, and mindless training. But losers are everywhere. Most everybody has one, often free of charge.
I'll never forget my first glorious gift of an almost guaranteed loser that turned into an exciting no bet. This generous offering saved a friend and me more than $200.
I'll never forget my first glorious gift of an almost guaranteed loser that turned into an exciting no bet. This generous offering saved a friend and me more than $200. Here's what happened. We were following a TV picker who would have had trouble hitting what day it was. He was on a breathtaking losing streak and had tried everything to shake it, long shots, odds-on, horses that looked like they were modeling tape, layoffs, inside posts, outside, humor, begging; and still the parade of losers continued to make the rounds. This fellow didn't pick early enough to enable a handicapper to bail out of pick-3s and pick-4s. He picked each race about ten minutes prior to its post. To see and hear that he loved one that you had put in a pick-4 was like a punch to the gut.
One afternoon he picked a horse that two of us loved and had win tickets on, a 10-1 shot that showed speed at a sprint before stopping like the finish line was a school crossing at three in the afternoon. This horse figured to open up a gigantic lead over some goats before he was caught toward the end and won or lost by a foot. There was some doubt that the horse would have enough oomph at the last of it to break the beam of light that triggers the photos. The TV picker had been so bad that we cancelled our bets on the spot and watched with emotions mixed with fascination and relief as the horse we almost bet finished sixth.
Here are some ways to recognize losers from within.
Most everything you doubt will lose. A rotten perspective greatly alters what you see and feel. It's why you can see a movie at different times and feel different things. It's the mood. If you sense that a loss is about to happen, it's probably the only time that you'll be right at the races all day.
If it's too obvious, you lose. A wager on the obvious is usually based on the most recent thing that happened. And in sports, events seldom transpire in the same way back to back. A good handicapper has a warning system that warns him or her off the obvious. Here's something unpleasant. There are obvious middle to long shots that have little chance to win, horses whose recent trouble or recent works or recent gossip from connections makes it seem like a good play. Trendy horses go to the post at five to one or more and, when touted by TV pickers, go immediately into the no play pile.
If you play horses or teams that have a place in your heart, you'll probably lose. Money lost on football teams by graduates or dropouts of that school make you wonder why there's no national parlay card, whose profits could knock a big chunk out of the national debt in about a month.
Receiving a gift of losers is like remembering on which store counter, or by which barstool, you left your wallet full of credit cards, it's that thrilling.
Celebrating after not betting opens up a new way to look at handicapping.