posted October 18, 2007 at 19:24 in Triple Crown Betting Trends

One of the things that successful bettors do in this game is to learn every single day no matter whether they are cashing big tickets, or getting beat in a number of photos.

With experience, cagey gamblers look for trends that point to a runner that just doesn’t want to lose, a runner that has another gear and virtually gets mad if another horse passes him and shows him up.

Enter the recently deceased John Henry.

I was honored to watch Big John in action live a number of times and the emotion he stirred among grizzled veterans is something that I had never witnessed and have not witnessed since.

So lets take a look at some things this runner did in his career with an eye toward successful horse bets in the future. Horses are creatures of habit and they will excel in repeatable situations.

Some runners like to race every 3 weeks but are dull after a 5-week layoff. Some like to have steady drills up to a race then get an exclamation point on the training with a blowout right on top of the race.

And some runners like John turned into monsters once they got the right surface, and in JH’s case it was grass.

The first thing bettors should look for in a contentious scramble of a race is which runners seem to enjoy the limelight and the winner’s circle and which kind of just go through the motions with a lazy attitude.

Horse Racing bettors should think of runners a bit like basketball players. Gamblers want to bet on guys like Dwayne Wade, Kobe and LeBron who will do anything to win rather than guys like Joe Barry Carroll or even Lamar Odom.

The same goes for horses. Horse bettors should stay away from runners that tease, but don’t please and if bettors isolate runners that have many more second and thirds than wins, they are definitely bets against.

John Henry did not have that problem. Even in his debut at a minor circuit, he won by a nose coming from third to last.

After winning a stakes in only his 5th start, by a head of course, he went into a major funk until put into a $35,000 claimer going long on grass. John did not cut it close that day, he drew off by 14 and the rest as they say is history.

Sharp bettors should be keen to follow horses that are doing something different in today’s race whether it is going dirt to turf, visa versa or sprint to route or the other way.

Keen observers will be able to identify trends that show what a horse really likes.

The bottom line is winning in this or any game and that is the type of courage a sharp bettor looks for in racehorses and it doesn’t have to come in stakes either.

There are plenty of game runners around the country that have a refuse to lose attitude, similar to John Henry, and those are the runners that sharp players isolate, key in the exactas and trifectas, and then walk away with winning tickets.

For the record, JH won 47% of his 83 starts and was in the money 24 other times but the key to his winning ways is extremely evident in that very stat.

He wanted the gold chalice, he hated minor awards, and those are the type of runners that sharp bettors have to be on the look out for whether we are talking $5,000 claimers, or $500,000 stakes races.

Learn How to Handicap & Bet on the Breeders' Cup

Horse racing with BetUS Racebook Online Racebook. We've got up to date lines and odds on 85+ racetracks. Join BetUS today to get in on the action.