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SUCKER BETS---(part 24) 31---CLAIMAWAYS FROM CERTAIN TRAINERS If you are an owner or know any owners involved in the “claiming game”, how deeply do you investigate the trainer from which you are about to take a horse? If your answer is that you’re claiming the “horse” and not the soon-to-be old trainer, you had better listen up! There are trainers that you can claim from with remarkable success and then there are a few trainers whose stock you should never consider---ever! Hard-core handicappers have been well aware of this phenomenon for a long time. I fortunately discovered it early on in my career, but by total happenstance. I was living on the East coast in the early 70’s researching what trainers were winning “first out off the claim”. Back in those days there were no personal computers, no internet forums or handicapping services that today give you every “number” under the sun on every topic imaginable. Think of the 70’s as the “covered wagon” days of handicapping. There were no quick answers to your pressing questions unless you did the “grunt work” yourself. Sometimes this “grunt work” on any number of different subjects went absolutely nowhere. But at other times, your labor was well rewarded. Such was the case with “first out off the claim” in the 70s. After completing my extended 3 year New York study and lining my pockets with this angle, I moved my arena to the state of New Jersey because I loved to go to Monmouth and Atlantic City in the summertime just to get away from the oppressive Manhattan humidity. I figured that if it also worked in New Jersey, I would have a great angle for the rest of my handicapping career. Of course this information is readily available in today’s handicapping world but in the 70s, few players paid attention to this very profitable angle. After completing my second 3 year study by pouring over old New Jersey charts that never seemed to end, much like the New York circuit, there were New Jersey trainers that were positively deadly “first out off the claim”. I was elated with my new discovery! And I might mention that in both studies, high percentage and medium percentage trainers fell into my category of “deadly” off the claim. Low percentage trainers were still low percentage trainers no matter how many times they turned over their stock. It surely follows that if there were trainers that were “deadly” with new claims, there had to be trainers who were horrible with new claims. How that for “Rocket Science”??? But when going over my notes, I began to notice that when horses were claimed from a few specific trainers, the same exact trainers that were “deadly” first out off the claim failed to win this these “claimaways”. What’s more, these deadly trainers failed to hit the board if they claimed from certain other trainers. What do you do when you find mixed signals? If you’re like me, you dig deeper and deeper until you find out the exact “why”. Did these deadly first out off the claim trainers suddenly get stupid and just make a few bad claims? Did the horse in question injure himself during a morning workout or merely walking around his shed row? Since I was in the paddock every day taking the same copious “physicality” notes that I still take to this very day, I began to notice that these new acquisitions from certain trainers by competent first off the claim trainers simply didn’t “look” the same the next time they ran. Their energy levels were severely depleted. Their color went from good to bad. Their positive attitudes were suddenly nonexistent. Many lost much needed flesh and muscling. They looked like “losers” when they walked into the paddock and confirmed their appearance by the end of the race. Most never picked up a hoof and many pulled up poorly in the post-race gallop out. Delving into totally untested waters, I looked into drugging both legal and illegal because that seemed like the only answer. After all, every deadly first out off the claim trainer couldn’t have possibly all made bad claims from these specific trainers, nor could all of their new claims have hurt themselves on the backstretch. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions. I got mine. The bottom line is that if you do your homework, you will unearth a few trainers on your home circuit that other trainers should never claim from under any circumstances! The “why” of never claiming from these specific trainers is irrelevant to a handicapper and his bankroll. What’s important is not to be a “sucker” and bet these very negative “claimaways”. PART 25----MORE “SUCKER” BETS
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