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A Day at the Races with Ed
By Susan L. Sweeney
From the May 2000 issue:
Whenever we meet anyone in racing who uses Ed’s information, we discover that they want to learn as much as they can about the way Ed deciphers his plays. There are so many questions and there never seems to be enough time for Ed to answer them all. In lieu of this, I thought it would be fun as well as interesting to write an article entitled “A day at the Races with Ed.”
I have several self-motivated reasons for choosing March 25 as this day. The first one is that it kicked off the “Ladbroke $250,000 Classic” handicapping tournament. Even though we could not participate the first day because Turfway was the listed track and there is some kind of contractual agreement that does not allow Maryland residents to wager on Kentucky through their YouBet program, I was planning to write an article from a participant standpoint and wanted to keep a listing of each day’s events. The second reason starts out as sort of a sad story yet makes you feel good when you read through. A friend of ours named Alicia was going to the track this day with sixteen family members to celebrate her grandfather’s 76th birthday. This close knit family has experienced some difficult times lately. Just about a month ago her grandmother passed away and since her grandparents were extremely close, her grandfather has been completely lost without her. So much so that he won’t even leave his house. Alicia, knowing of his love for horse racing often talks of the wonderful times she had as a child when her grandfather would take her to the now closed Hagerstown track. Though it was part of a small fair circuit, they enjoyed going just to look at these wonderful animals. Alicia says “My grandfather just loves horses. The way they run and just the way they give they’re all race after race.” She adds, “If he had a farm, I know there would be a horse or two roaming around it.”
Just two weeks after this family suffered the loss of their grandmother, Alicia’s cousin who was just 31 years old succumbed to colon cancer. It broke everyone’s heart and was a tough time for all.
Being the good-hearted person that Alicia is, and knowing of Ed’s and my success at the track, she shared their plans with us for his birthday in hopes of Ed sharing his picks. Whenever any of our non-racing friends go to the track, Ed makes sure they all know that he would be happy to give them his plays. Alicia let her grandfather know of their plans weeks ahead so he would have this day to look forward to. Every time we would see her before the day arrived, she would say, “he just can’t wait.” I let Alicia know that I would e-mail her Ed’s picks the night before since I am never quite sure when he will have them ready.
To walk you through the full analysis I should start with the way Ed lays out his form. Since he manually does this, like all the data he compiles, Ed finds it easiest to first go through all the circuits and list the trainer move. As an example, he will go to Kentucky, open to race 1 and for each trainer that has a lay one, he will write L1, and each who has a lay 2, he will write L2, and so on, up to lay four. He does the same for claims, and then he moves onto the following race. When this track is complete, he then follows the same procedure for the next circuit and so on.
Once Ed’s form is set up, he then goes back to the first circuit and starts recording the statistic that applies to today’s race. Next to the actual percentage, Ed also puts the number of tries along with the number of wins. This is beneficial to him because he only considers the trainers who have four wins or more plus a 30% hit rate or higher (the 4 + 30 Play). I would like to comment that Ed is unique because he truly plays what he sells.
When one of the horses meets his criteria, he puts a check mark to the side of the horse and he continues his recording. This is so he is aware of the trainers’ move when he goes back to analyze the race to choose the ones he wants to play. There are times when a race will have more than one statistic that falls into the 4 + 30 Play. In those circumstances Ed has several decisions to make. If the odds are too low, he will just pass the race. If one of the horses hit the last race, unless the trainer has shown Ed that he can repeat, which means the trainer can win two races in a row with the same horse, he will throw out this horse from any consideration. If both horses have high statistics and no reason to throw them out, Ed may box them in an exacta or play a trifecta part wheel with these two with the field for third. If a pick three is available and he has consecutive stats in three races, Ed may choose to make this bet. On this Saturday, Ed had a small amount of potential plays. It is not uncommon for a Saturday or a Sunday, since most stakes races are run on the weekends for him to have 20 plays or more for each day to choose from. Many trainers use the layoff to line their horses up for the win. The ones that are really tuned into their horses and give them that necessary rest can win in stakes. Several that are excellent on this move that come to mind are Bill Mott, Neil Drysdale, and Elliott Walden.
The great thing about the eight potential plays is every one of them except for the first race at the Fairgrounds went off late in the day. Alicia had to work on Saturday so they couldn’t go to the Penn National OTB until after 3:00. Ed had a more than usual workload on Friday because he basically works on three days of racing, every day. First he records the hits for the previous day. Then he lines up the form for the following day. Then finally Ed gets to sit down and look at the present day’s card to make his decisions for that day’s play. So we talked a bit about each potential and really did not find any reason other than odds to throw any of them out. Since Alicia's family was going for fun, we decided to give them all seven that were late in the day and told them the best way to play them was across the board. Since most of Ed’s statistics are in the money, and they wouldn’t care about the odds, just cashing, we thought this would be fun.
The first potential play was in race one at the Fairgrounds. “Rocky Treasure” was on his first race after a layoff for Steve Asmussen, 29-10 and he was training this horse for a relative, Keith Asmussen. Ed passed the play just because it was early in the day and he prefers to make his bets at the OTB rather than phone them in. Since we really weren’t going to go make our bets until later in the day, he just decided to be happy with the results if “Rocky Treasure” won. Which he did for payouts of $10.80, $5 and $4.
The second and third potential play for Ed came at Turfway Park, race 9. This was a big stakes day at Turfway and they started earlier than their normal time. “Globalize” was a Jerry Hollendorfer shipper from Bay Meadows with a race record of 7-4-1-0 and was coming to this race on a lay four route with a 58% win rate, 12-7. There was another horse in the same race with the 4 + 30 criteria. “Runspastum” was on a lay 3 route with a 30 percent hit rate for Alan Goldberg, 20-6. Yet “Runspastum” had hit on his first race and second race back from the layoff and Ed didn’t show any information that Alan Goldberg could three-peat. So Ed eliminated “Runspastum” as a play. We gave Alicia “Globalize” to play across the board and Ed played $200 to win on him. I chose to play $10 across the board and I decided to exacta box him with “Runspastum” and “Elite Mercedes.” I couldn’t help but to tell Alicia to do the same because I thought that this exacta had a real chance of hitting and it did. “Globalize” won and paid a wonderful $25.20, $9.80, and $5.40. “Elite Mercedes” came in second for an exacta payout of $184. All I kept hoping was that Alicia and her family made it to the OTB in time for this play. “Globalize’s” win was quite a race. He was there early and looked like he gave in and then came back at the end and won up the rail going away.
The next potential play was Fairgrounds Race 6. “Takeback” was a Louie Roussel lay two sprint with a 32% hit rate, 22-7. Ed decided to pass this play because he won the last time out. He finished third and paid $2.40 to show.
The fifth potential play was at Santa Anita Race 2. Ted West had a 43% win rate on “Gypsiesinthepalace” on a lay four sprint, 19-8. Ed once again chose to pass this play because he is familiar with Ted West’s regular riders and I.D. Enriquez isn’t one of them. He was correct in his analysis because “Gypsiesinthepalace” ran out of the money.
The sixth and the seventh potential play were also at Santa Anita, race 7. In this race there were two trainer stats and each as powerful as the other. “Vinka” was a Simon Bray lay one route, 43 percent hit rate, 14-6. I gave this one to Alicia to play over the “El Sueno” Patrick Gallagher lay four route of 40 percent, 15-6 because Victor Espinosa was the jockey on “Vinka” and this races was a mile on the turf. Ed has tracked trainers who hit with certain jockeys at certain distances on certain surfaces and discovered that Espinosa was a killer at a mile on the turf for Bobby Hess. So I recognized that Espinosa hit at a mile on the dirt or the turf for everybody at all kinds of payouts. So this is a flat bet for me. Ed did not want to choose between the two and he liked “Swept Overboard” in the 8th, which would be the final potential play for the day. Yet he knew “Swept Overboard” would go off as the favorite so he chose to do a pick three instead. Ed doesn’t play small pick three’s although he thinks he does. He wagered a $20 pick three part wheel starting with “Vinka” and “El Sueno” in the 7th, with “Swept Overboard” in the 8th, with All in the 9th. I told Alicia to play “Vinka” across the board and do the same for “Swept Overboard” because we didn’t want to get too elaborate with their betting style. Well “Vinka” won and paid $10.60, $6.60 and $5. “Swept Overboard” swept the win for $3.40, $2,40 and $2.60.
We had TRN installed a few months back and enjoy going to the OTB to make our bets on the weekends instead of phoning them in. Then we like to come back home and watch our plays. I decided to make all the same plays that we gave to Alicia’s family regardless of the odds just so that I could root along with them. After “Vinka’s” win all Ed and I could imagine is that Alicia, her grandfather and the rest of her family were having the time of their life. We pictured them screaming for joy and were both extremely happy at this thought for a family that had recently been through more than their share of sorrow. Well Alicia couldn’t contain herself and wait till the next time she saw us so she called the following day. She was so excited that she was talking really fast and she said her whole family, especially her grandfather, had the time of their life. She said he’s not a yeller like the rest of them but he sure “giggled a lot.” Her husband Jeff kept going up to the television screens and rooting the horse’s home. After winning their third race, everyone in the family said, “Ed was the man! His stuff really works!” and Alicia told me the best news of all. She said her grandfather wants to now leave the house and the next thing he wants to do is go to live racing with her family to the Charlestown Race Track.
All I have to add is, it doesn’t feel better than this.
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