posted February 1, 2008 at 18:34 in Triple Crown Articles

One thing horse bettors have to resist in this game is the tendency to take the past history as something that is bound to repeat itself. Sometimes one horse can beat another time and time again, and sometimes horses will take turns beating each other and the sooner a horse bettor understands why, the better.

Take for instance a situation where you have a short field and the contenders are right in front of you.

Just because there are two obvious speed horses in a race, doesn’t necessarily mean they will gun, and crash, and burn on the front end. Sometimes clever bettors have to look at the hidden elements of a race to project what is likely to happen today.

And even if there are 2 speed horses and a stalker in a race with obvious benefits, the stalker doesn’t always have to sit behind the duel and cash.

When evaluating runners that have raced against each other in the past, cagey horse bettors look for things that are different than in the other times they hooked up.

Maybe one or more of the horses has changed barns and is now in the hands of a more high-profile trainer. Maybe one of the runners has a new jockey, one that either has a tendency to take a hold and not ask for speed early or maybe the stalker has a new rider that always sends to the lead.

Another thing that can affect outcome when runners come back against each other is post position and the bias of the track on that particular day.

Things can change quickly at the track. This happens not only day to day but sometimes race to race as far as bias is concerned and this is something that is seldom evident from just reading the Form so a player has to know not only the results and the times of races, but what occurred to make those times materialize.

Another thing veteran horse bettors factor into selections is the fact that jockeys and trainers read the Form too. They know in most cases where the other speed is and whom they have to knock off early to make the lead.

If after discussion, a trainer and a rider decide to change strategy, then one speed horse may be able to gun, lead and succeed.

Clever horse bettors know that the best kind of a trip a horse can get is an easy lonely lead. Even inferior horses can get brave on the front end if they are not challenged and they can do it time and time again if they get the right kind of pace.

The best horse players also know there are no rules in this game, only results and that for a stalker or deep closer to win, things have to unfold just about perfectly for to happen.

With front-runners, they make their own luck on the lead.

The bottom line for horse bettors is to take every race as a new puzzle, don’t take the easy route and figure that because in the past 2 horses on the lead burned each other out and the stalker or deep closer won that it is locked in stone to happen just that way again.

The other thing that the best horse bettors really know is that the PRESENT is all that counts.

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