posted June 3, 2008 at 17:30 EST in Triple Crown Betting Trends

Michael Jordan did not just wake up one morning and start hitting buzzer beaters, Big Brown didn’t wake up and become the world’s greatest race horse and the best online horse betting players in the game did not just wake up and start cashing tickets.

Those efforts take hard work and research about foes and who represents the toughest competition.

One way horse players can get a leg up on the competition is to go the extra yard and do the research and a good place to start is the news and barn notes at your local track.

These genuine gold mines and tidbits of information are posted almost daily on the track’s website and by researching and reading in between the lines, the equine detectives known as handicappers can unearth some true treasures.

Some of these treasures are negative words that should make horse bettors wary about upcoming potential bets.

Just like during the weeks coming to the Breeders’ Cup, if the connections are waffling and changing its mind about where a horse belongs, the same can happen on a day-to-day basis if a runner has a set back.

Trainer Craig Dollase knows exactly what that is all about and his student Monterey Jazz is the subject.

This son of Thunderello turned into a new horse once he was sent a route of ground as he won his first 2-turn event, then won three of his next 4 including the Strub Stakes and the Grade 3 Texas Mile when he posted a 118 Beyer.

The future was very bright for this guy and he was pointed to the Met Mile over the recent holiday weekend but Dollase reported in the Hollywood notes that the runner ‘didn’t come of his work yesterday (May 21) too good. It’s a problem with his hind end. We’re going to take some tests over the weekend,” Dollase said.

Astute horse bettors can learn two things for this news. One, a taxing effort, and a 118 Beyer is a taxing effort, can have an effect on runners and they also learned to be very careful of betting Monterey Jazz in his first race back after this setback.

Another thing horse bettors can look to in the local notes is a history about a new rider or trainer. Recently trainer Jennie Green was quoted in the notes about her charge Wind’s Legacy.

Green graduated from Cal Poly Pomona with a B.S. in pre-vet and she has worked under some good horsemen including Julio Canani, Howie Zucker and Kathy Walsh.

As far as Legacy, Green offered a little history about the colt that horse bettors can glean from right before his stakes debut, Green: “I’m trying not to get too excited, let’s say I’m anxious. He had a little shin problem and we backed off.”

The ‘backing off’ may have been a tell tale sign that Legacy was not quite up to a stakes run. He ended up hung wide in the Grade 3 Barrera mid May at 9-2 and only beat 2 horses home.

That was an ambitious spot and if he is more realistically placed next time, the researching horse bettors may be the ones that can cash.

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