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THE IMMUTABLE LAWS OF HANDICAPPING-----PART 9
(To date the series includes weight, layoff horses, first-time starters, repeaters,
trouble horses, asking a horse to do something new, overlays and underlays, stretching out and shortening up).
Coupled with stretching out and shortening up, one of the oldest of “immutable
laws” is “always give a horse a race over a new surface to see if he likes the change before betting him”.
This could apply to a first-time starter, or a horse trying the turf or the dirt for the first
time, or a shipper, or perhaps a horse running over an off or a wet dirt track for the very first time.
While this “immutable law” will certainly save you quite a few bad bets on horses who simply
don’t like the surface change, it will most likely cost you many times more than the amount you saved by making you pass horses who not only like the surface change, but readily win over it.
Earlier in
this series we touched on “track-specific” breeding. To refresh your memory, “track-specific” breeding merely means that a certain horse’s pedigree over a specific surface is favorable because the sire,
grandsire and/or broodmare sire have been successful in the past over that exact same “track-specific” surface.
“Track-specific” breeding is much more desirable than what I call “universal
breeding”.
“Universal breeding” bases its probability for a horse to perform well over today’s surface on how the parental lineage performed in the past over all racetracks across America, not
just the one you are playing at this moment.
The problem here is quite obvious.
When a horse is given a high “universal rating”, what good is that high “universal rating” if
the horse’s parental lineage has never produced a winner or very few winners over today’s “track-specific” surface?
Quite a few horses have high “universal ratings” that become totally meaningless or
severely diluted over certain other surfaces due to the fact that their parental lineage has NEVER won a race over that specific surface.
Many very strong California sires mean absolutely nothing on
the East Coast because they rarely travel outside of the state to create either positive or negative statistics. California keeps the purse levels quite high so that there is no advantage to shipping out of
the state if you are a home-bred horse.
These same winning California sires get high marks when it comes to “universal ratings” although few of them ever set foot out of the state! What does a
high “universal rating” for a Cal-bred mean in Kentucky? Most likely nothing! In other words, California yes---Kentucky most likely no!
We at the SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA HORSES TO WATCH supply
our clients with “track-specific” winning sire lists before the beginning of any meet. We do this for each of our 3 tracks that make up the major Southern California circuit by offering separate lists for each
track broken down into a dirt winning sire list and a separate turf winning sire list.
This way our clients can be rest assured that whenever they wager upon a horse shipping in or trying the turf or
the dirt for the first time or first-time starters, that the runner in question does in fact (through “track-specific” winning statistics of his parental lineage) have the “right stuff” to win over this brand new
surface.
The higher the “track-specific” rating, the more likely that the offspring will duplicate the proven parental advantage in his initial outing over that specific surface.
The obvious advantage of knowing who will “get” a specific surface running over it for the first time is always reflected in the mutuel price offered.
If a horse has never run over the turf
before today, the return via the tote board will be quite generous. If he wins today, the time to bet him was today because now his ability is evident to the “hot dog” lady. Whereas you might have seen
10-1 today due to Joe Six-Pack overlooking the non-obvious today, this unknown winner soon becomes the 6-5 favorite next out.
Nobody is buying winter homes in Aruba betting 6-5 chalk on a steady basis.
So when can you ask a horse to win over a new surface for the first time? Real simple! When his “track-specific”
breeding for this new surface change is evident in his pedigree!
This assumes that everything else about the horse in question is very correct to include his “backpaper”, his physical appearance and
his pre-race warm-up.
In fact, if you are on track with your binoculars in hand, follow the horse very closely in the pre-race warm-up, as it is often another strong indicator of upcoming
positive performance.
He should get at least 4 furlongs (1/2 mile) of light cantering or galloping. When he’s lightly galloping in this pre-race warm-up, he’ll be “getting” the track if
cantering low to the surface vs. bouncing up and down like a ping pong ball while perhaps throwing his head every which way. Horses bouncing too high are not “getting” the surface and are usually
semi-fractious or high strung and wasting tons of energy needed for the upcoming race.
You’d be well advised to stay off these horses---if they’re “not getting” the surface before the race in the
pre-race warm-up, chances are strong that they won’t “getting” it during the actual running of the race itself!
One can only assume that whenever this “immutable law” came about in handicapping
lore that the creators failed to have either “track-specific” pedigree information in their possession and/or a good pair of 10x 50 binoculars!
Armed with those 2 essentials, this “immutable law” would
have never came about. But since it is still so ingrained into mainstream handicapping thought, those with these 2 essentials are laughing all the way to the bank!
NEXT -- PART 10
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