Good horseplayers bet to win. Bad horseplayers bet not to lose.

Statistically fewer than five percent of regular horseplayers win in the long term. There are two things within the horseplayer’s control that determine winning or losing: handicapping and betting. In this book there will be very little discussion about handicapping. There are many horseplayers who are adequate, if not very good handicappers, and in my opinion handicapping deficiencies are secondary to betting deficiencies. If nothing else, there are scores of exceptional public handicappers that publish selections daily if you’d prefer to get a head start on the selection process. Bankroll mismanagement, being in the wrong pools, and poor betting strategy are far more responsible, in my opinion, for money loss than poor handicapping.

There are also things beyond a horseplayer’s control that can affect the outcome of races: the ride a jockey gives the horse; illegal, performance enhancing medication; decisions by the stewards; and something I’ll call bad racing luck. Even given the presence of these external factors, the greatest part of winning and losing is within the control of the horseplayer.

The first part of the book will deal exclusively with external factors. Some of America’s best jockeys will talk about race riding and answer these and other questions all horseplayers have. How much of success or failure goes to the horse versus the jockey? How often are winning horses stymied by poor racing tactics? What are the differences between the top riders and the ones lower in the standings? What are the differences between riding on the turf and the dirt?

Racing stewards from different jurisdictions will discuss how decisions to disqualify (or not disqualify) are made and what they look for during the running of a race.

Owners, trainers, racing officials, veterinarians, scientists, equine pharmacologists, and veteran horseplayers will provide the basis for a discussion of drugs in racing, including the most discussed medication, Lasix.

Bad racing luck – stumbling at the start, losing a jockey, taking a bad step – is nothing the horseplayer can control, but I’ll talk about how often those sorts of things affect a race outcome.

The second half of the book will focus on bankroll management, which pools are best for your bankroll, and the most effective way to bet once you’ve selected a pool – everything you need to turn yourself into a consistent winner.

I’m busy working on the background now and I hope to have it to the publisher by late spring. For now, anyone who has questions they’d like to see answered or input on any of the topics feel free to contact me.

I get it. I really do. The people who believe Lasix is the great scourge of racing are absolute in their conviction that Lasix must be banned. The people that believe Lasix is a necessary therapeutic drug are equally convinced they are on the right side.

Objectively, the weight of medical studies seems more convincing on the pro-Lasix side, although more study needs to be done. While few horses bleed to the point of epistaxis (visible blood coming from the nostril), the majority of horses do show signs of bleeding in the tracheal region after exercise and most show improvement in the level of EIPH (exercise induced pulmonary hemorrage) when treated with Lasix. You can argue the evidence regarding what percentage of horses are in fact helped through the administration of Lasix. You can argue if Lasix has performance enhancing effects beyond reduction of EIPH. But Lasix, for the most part, works as advertised. You might not like it, but facts are facts.

Many pro-Lasix people emphasize the lack of alternative treatments. There is concern for the horse in the sense that if Lasix was banned trainers would revert to denial of food and water. I have no doubt that at some tracks, that would be exactly the case. Many anti-Lasix people suggest if trainers applied better horsemanship techniques they could overcome the limitations caused by EIPH. If they are offering an answer beyond that, other than the worst bleeders should not be racing, I’m not sure I know what it is.

I don’t believe it is arguable that the Barr-Tonko legislation is in part motivated by the idea of identifying a single, federal panel that will be sympathetic to banning raceday Lasix. Just check the list of supporters of the bill if that doesn’t sound right. For both sides, federal legislation is not simply a subject for intellectual debate. It is about the viability of racing.

I’ve previously come down on the pro-Lasix side for three reasons. One, I believe the medical evidence shows it is an effective treatment for EIPH, and currently the best medical alternative. Two, I believe that any alternative that involves denying water and food may be a worse for a horse than applying Lasix, and if you believe trainers won’t do that, or that they will turn a big corner on horsemanship, then you’ve never been to a C-level track. Three, there is a high probability the availability of horses will decrease at smaller tracks, and may ultimately render those tracks not viable. If your racing world is NYRA or Santa Anita this may not resonate, but a lot of states would lose horseracing if stock goes down in large numbers. Even if you believe we already have too many racetracks, the solution to that problem is not to try to delete them through the back door.

There are two nagging problems in my opinion. First, there doesn’t seem to be anyone looking for the middle ground. As far as I can tell the anti-Lasix people are fixed that Lasix should not be allowed on raceday. The pro-Lasix people see it as the safest, most effective medical treatment for EIPH, and thus a necessity to allow many horses to race. Perhaps both sides fear that if they gave an inch, they would lose their argument. Second, the anti-Lasix people often conflate supporting the use of Lasix with having a support for use of drugs in general. It’s an ugly tactic designed to reinforce the position of the pro-Lasix people that Lasix supporters are wrong. But what if we lowered the dose from 10 cc’s four hours before a race to 3-5 cc’s? The change can certainly be tested and studied. All or none only works when the decision makers have homgeneous beliefs.

There is certainly a substantial subset of racegoers who believe illegal drugs are rampantly used by trainers. While it makes for spirited discussion, trainers who use illegal, performance enhancing drugs are an entirely different discussion than trainers who use Lasix, and the issues have to be dealt with separately. Lasix is not the “marijuana,” the gateway drug to Class 1 and 2 PEDs, and I for one am tired of the anti-Lasix people clouding a necessary discussion by lumping anyone who supports use of Lasix with someone who would use PEDs to gain an illegal advantage. Good people with good data and good intentions should be able to find good solutions without reducing the arguments to exaggeration and misrepresentation. And maybe without involving the Congress.

I think the category of horsemen and horseplayers who are fine with the use of raceday Lasix but have zero tolerance for illegal PEDs is substantial. I count myself in that group. A trainer like Roy Sedlacek who admitted using a supplement in the hope of gaining a performance edge should be dealt a harsh punishment. As you can read for yourself in my blog, I gave him no support for his actions.

I’ve grown weary of trying to convince those who despise Lasix and see drug conspiracies behind every winner that you can only have a serious discussion by finding the areas of agreement and building from there. You have to believe both sides are willing to work toward the best outcomes for racing overall. But if you see the other side as deluded and wrong-headed, you won’t have a productive discussion. You won’t solve any problem by telling people who have a legitimate, intellectually honest position that they are simply wrong. If you sincerely want to solve this problem, step one is to understand the position of the other side and treat it respectfully. If you can’t do that, at least get out of the way of those who will.

Meanwhile get this right. Illegal, performance enhancing drugs have no place in racing. And you can tell everyone that is my unequivocal opinion.

Big day in sports today. American Pharoah, racing’s first Triple Crown winner in 37 years, was a solid winner of the Sports Illustrated fan poll for Sportsman of the Year but lost out in the end to tennis star Serena Williams.

I’ll admit I feel about tennis the way most serious tennis fans feel about horseracing, but I’d agree you could make a solid case for Serena as the winner. If you’ve ever subjected yourself to sports talk radio, hyper-arguments about even the most inconsequential topic are the meat and potatoes of the genre. It would be naive to believe the Serena v. AP argument wouldn’t occur on all the public media sites, or that the arguments wouldn’t occasionally degenerate into the absurd. One chucklehead suggested that if you favored AP over Serena you were a racist. Of course, there are a lot of horseracing people whose passions extend far beyond simple fandom. When Shared Belief, and even the young sire Scat Daddy, died, there were people who reacted like they had lost a family member.

The other thing that seems to be part of the sports discussion genre is that no one ever convinces anyone to change their minds. The discussion usually goes something like this.

A: I’m right

B: No, I’m right

A: You’re an idiot

B: No you’re an idiot

And then it’s like shampooing. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I have no idea how important the Sportsman of the Year award is to an athlete, but it means almost nothing to me. Do you get more endorsements? Your Q rating go up? Does it bring you new fans or shut up your critics?  If any of those are the case, then better that it goes to a human than a horse anyway. The fact is, Pharoah would have no clue one way or the other, and Baffert, Zayat and the rest of the team will hardly suffer for not getting another award. He’s going to win horse of the year, and frankly that will do as much for the AP team as the SI award might have. There’s hardly a good reason for the horseracing community to go all sports radio on Sports Illustrated, other than AP was technically the people’s choice and we love our champions just like fans of other sports do. But in a week we might not even remember who was SI SOY.

Anyone who believes AP getting the SI award would bring horseracing into the mainstream, I have two words for you. Women’s soccer. The World Cup championship game was the most watched soccer game in U.S. history. A few months later, you still don’t see women’s professional soccer anywhere on TV, radio, or the print media. It was an event, like the Kentucky Derby or the Breeder’s Cup. When it was over, it was back to watching what Americans know as football.

I believe if Serena had won the U.S. Open that may have settled the arguments. Jordan Speith in golf had a great year and dominated in a way not many have since Tiger Woods at the peak of his game. The Kansas City Royals were mentioned, but c’mon, doesn’t the award need to go to one sportsman? I guess that means the U.S. Women’s Soccer team gets a similar DQ from me. Stephen Curry could have easily been justified as a winner.

All in all these sorts of general awards are anachronistic and for the most part silly (sorry, but I’m including the Heisman and the ESPY’s in the silly category). How do you seriously compare a female tennis player to a horse to a male golfer to a soccer team?  And moreover, how do you get angry when your favorite doesn’t win? In the big scheme of things, this really isn’t worth much more than a sentence or two stating your position and then moving on. Unless you have a blog to write or something.

The other big news was that MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred denied reinstatement to Pete Rose. I don’t know Rose beyond what I read, but I still have some sympathy for the guy. On statistics he could have been a unanimous first ballot addition to the Hall of Fame. But anyone who plays professional baseball should remember that tolerance for betting on baseball has been zero since Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis (is there a more somber name in sports?) sent the Chicago Black Sox to the sidelines permanently, including another potential Hall of Famer, Shoeless Joe Jackson whose guilt is still argued. Rose, on the other hand, is guilty beyond the shadow of a doubt. Some of the bookmakers he used have sworn that he bet on baseball and more than just his own team while he was still Cincinnati player-manager, something that elevates the sins to their most serious level.

I’m not suggesting Rose shouldn’t have been punished severely, but Rose didn’t get to be baseball’s leading hit-getter on anything but sheer talent and determination. Part of me says you have to recognize Rose for that achievement, because that achievement is baseball’s achievement as well. That doesn’t mean he has to be elected to the Hall, but it’s a farce for baseball to deny him recognition in the place where baseball recognizes it’s most worthy achievements. And  perhaps gambling is only worthy of a lifetime ban in cases where that gambling influenced the outcome of events that, ironically, other people gambled on. If you want to extend the arguments, any professional player who is in a fantasy league may be gambling just as much as Rose did, at least if you believe New York and Nevada. Lots of baseball players (and other athletes) are horse players – Paul LoDuca, a retired player, is even an analyst on TVG. So it isn’t the gambling itself that is the issue, it is the gambling on your own sport while you are an active player or manager (or taking bribes as in the case of the Black Sox) that is disqualifying. I think.

Rose has done a lot of things wrong since deciding to bet on baseball, most especially denying his guilt for years. Whether or not he has done whatever would be necessary to prove he has rehabilitated himself is subject to interpretation. Manfred certainly didn’t think so. Rose’s reinstatement is nothing that keeps me up at night, but it does bother me that we’re still going through the case again and again. Let’s face it. Charles Manson isn’t getting paroled no matter how many times he goes to the parole board, and no matter what he does to rehabilitate himself. It’s a farce that state law insists the parole board go through. But nobody worries when Charlie comes before the Board. On the other hand, there is no law that forces Manfred to reconsider Rose’s ban at some regular interval. I believe Manfred either has to make it clear that the book is closed on Rose, or he has to lay out specific conditions for how Rose gets back in baseball’s good graces. Rose and his lawyers rejected negotiating that kind of agreement previously, and if they do it again, Manfred should slam the book shut permanently. Let’s face it. Manfred holds all the cards and Rose is 74, meaning he doesn’t have much time to prove himself Hall worthy. For 26 years this story has regularly appeared on the sports pages, and enough is enough. Rose should either be in the Hall or he shouldn’t and Manfred has the power to decide that once and for all.

When I started my blog a year and a half ago, my “goal” was to get noticed for my handicapping and writing ability and ultimately get picked up by a handicapping service or a publication, or maybe have advertisers begging me to put their ads up on my site. At the very least I was hoping to find a web designer who would take pity on me and help me develop a slicker site.

As Burns said, the best laid schemes of mice and men go often askew.

Somewhere along the way I thought it would be a good thing to write opinions. My first thought was to write about two topics: the parts of racing that needed fixing, and informational articles on how to bet and handicap. If you check my blog you’ll see plenty of articles on both, and they are as good as anything you’ll read.

One day I was on Twitter and news of Doug O’Neill’s suspension for Oxazepam was posted. The tweets were immediately harsh – O’Neill was seen as a serial cheater who continued to operate as a trainer in spite of his convictions. I’m embarrassed to admit there was a moment when I wanted to join with the crowd. After all, O’Neill was as easy target and piling on has become a national pastime.

For whatever reason, I started looking into the case and came across O’Neill’s letter explaining his side of the story. I also looked at the report Dr. Steven Barker prepared on the sample analysis. It struck me, just because O’Neill had this unsavory reputation, it didn’t mean he was automatically guilty every time he was charged. I wrote a blog suggesting maybe the New York authorities were unfair in this case, that O’Neill had some valid points. To this day I am convinced that authorities have not caught up with the science on environmental contaminations. The absolute trainer rule may make a trainer automatically guilty, but that doesn’t mean he did anything wrong.

After that for me,  Alea iacta est.

Most of you probably remember what happened next. I talked to O’Neill on the phone for quite a while, went out to meet him when I attended the Breeder’s Cup and that March got to spend three full days shadowing him all over the track. I had unrestricted and often unaccompanied access to the stables. I had the opportunity to question him extensively about any topic I wanted. I talked with his assistants, his exercise riders, some of his regular jockeys, his vet, his farrier, and even the state vet who examined the horses pre-race.

I wrote about my trip and made it absolutely clear that O’Neill had been a bad actor in the past, but that I believed he had turned a corner and rehabilitated. That remains my opinion, and I can only cite as proof the fact that he is winning a lot of races and big races and he hasn’t had a bad test since 2013. What more do you want from the guy? He made his mistakes, he admitted them, he paid his penalties, and he says he wants to be the right kind of trainer. Still, the response was about the same as if I’d said I was in favor of toradol for horses with breakfast, lunch and dinner.

I’ve freely admitted my current bias about O’Neill. He is an infectiously likable person, and we connected immediately. I root for him to succeed and he actually taught me an important lesson. When he was at his lowest, his real friends were there for him, and I realized that having friends and family support you is greater than having all the money in the world. I also believe Doug works every day to repay the faith of family and friends by being an exemplary trainer. There is such a thing as learning your lesson.

But I would staunchly maintain my objectivity was never compromised. I stand by what I wrote as the untainted facts.

And that, as Cantinflas used to say, is the rub. Once I decided to write about trainers whom I believed had been treated unfairly by racing commissions, I believe I became radioactive, although it would be fair to also point out I can be argumentative and very direct in my critiques. I took ARCI, the racing commissions in New York, Colorado, West Virginia, Maryland, and Kentucky, and especially Joe Gorajec to task for sloppy investigations and unfair treatment, and that didn’t make me popular in some quarters. I’ve been critical of the RMTC regarding its research for medication standards and I’ve been critical in general about the inability of all the stakeholders to come together to work on compromise solutions to racing’s problems. Like my fellow Amsterdamian, Nick Kling, I generally start off thinking I am right (perhaps it is the water, which has always been horrendous. When my grandparents visited from Brooklyn, they brought their own water) and it sometimes takes more work than most people probably think it is worth to dissuade me. I know it isn’t my handicapping or writing ability that is lacking. I shouldn’t be shocked that it’s hard to achieve success as the guy who unabashedly defends “drug-cheat” trainers (although I’ve never defended anyone I didn’t sincerely believe was treated unfairly). I’m not Ray Paulick or the DRF, mainly reporting the news. For whatever reason, I decided it was important for me to be a provocateur in a way that would make some of the people in charge uncomfortable enough to fix some of the obvious problems. Maybe that wasn’t the best way to go about being an agent of change, but building a platform for change is never easy. In the world of horseracing, it doesn’t seem as if I am one of the majority when it comes to some drug/medications issues, although I’ve said over and over that trainers who knowingly use illegal performance enhancing substances should be dealt with harshly.

I apologize for nothing I did. I wrote what I believed and I tried very hard to stick to the facts. I’ve heard often that my pieces can be lauded for the amount of research I do and my willingness to get it right. If I missed and someone pointed it out, I made a correction. As my father once told me, everybody makes mistakes. What’s important is that you know how to fix them when you do. If someone disagreed with me, I printed their responses in total and unedited. If you think that is enough to stop detractors from taking pot-shots, it’s not the case. I think I’ve got a pretty thick skin, and most of the time I recognized that if you stick your nose out, you can’t act surprised when someone takes a swing at it.

Still, sometimes things get to you. I remember asking O’Neill how he dealt with the vitriol on public media, and he basically said you just have to not look at it. Keep your head down and do your job as best as you can. Easier for him than for me.

One person on Twitter remarked that I was a laughingstock because I defended O’Neill, even though that’s not exactly what I did, suggesting I was the subject of regular behind the scenes derision. That might have been the most intelligent thing he said in a slurry of ridiculous tweets. I’ll just mention one advantage I’ve had. I looked O’Neill in the eye and asked him if we’d ever see his name associated with a drug/medication overage. He was looking dead at me when he told me he would do everything in his power to make sure he didn’t. Another person went into what seemed to be an uncontrollable rage because I had the temerity to suggest the RMTC wasn’t doing a great job, a position I still hold with what I believe is good reason. The lesson from that was, I will have a mature, intellectually honest discussion with anyone, but if you want to act like a complete ass I’ll have no more to do with you. Perhaps I am a laughingstock in some quarters, but I’d like to think most people realize I’m trying to fill a niche not many have the guts to take on, and I’m trying to do it sincerely and with no ulterior motive. I make no money from my blog, and nobody pays me to write what I write. If you agree with me great, and if you don’t agree with me but I make you think, good enough. If you don’t agree with me and can’t stand what I write, I have an easy fix – don’t read it. But never assume I have any higher motivation than to make racing better for horseplayers. If in some small way I am a part of that, it is all worth it. Believe me, as most people who lay it on the line publicly find out, the amount of shit they have flung at them publicly far exceeds the public praise, even if there is a silent majority who favors them. Believe it or not I don’t perversely enjoy having shit flung at me. Perhaps the Irish part of me avoids ducking sometimes.

I had a really good 2015 by most measures and I have a lot to be thankful for. I get to do a lot of the things I love doing, including playing the horses and writing. I have family and friends who support me. I published a book, I shot a 77 (not quite my age) at a really tough golf course, I can still referee high school basketball, and I made a lot of great friends on and off the track. I’m not sure I’d trade my life with anyone.

I’d still like to think I’m one of the elite handicappers (for NYRA) and one of the elite handicapping writers. I’m not bragging – I posted every racing day through the Aqueduct main season and anyone can check any claims I make. Besides, as Dizzy Dean said, if you can do it, it ain’t braggin’. I’ve got plans to write two more books, one on horseracing tentatively titled, Betting Horses to Make Profit, and another fictional novel. 

I’m not sure why I haven’t been “rediscovered” (I use that term because I have a lot of articles that were printed in American Turf Monthly and Horseplayer Magazine – not like I’m new at this – that have drawn wide praise) but like O’Neill said, keep your head down and do your job as best as you can. Expect that from me in 2016.

A week ago I made a casual statement that in 83% of NFL games, the line doesn’t come into play when determining the winner of the bet. In other words, the winner of the game is either a favorite that covers the spread or an underdog that wins outright 83% of the time. In 17% of the games the favorite wins but doesn’t cover the line. Another way of saying it is that if you picked the winner of every game without paying any attention to the line, you’d win 83% of your bets in the long run.

I know, it sounds outrageous, but I’ll explain how the statistic works and why it doesn’t trouble Vegas.

Anyone who understands Vegas knows that the line is set in order to direct the action 50-50 between the teams (in theory). It does not represent, as many people think, the number of points Team A is superior to Team B. The books make money based on what is called the vigorish (or the vig). Let’s say I bet $11 on team A and you bet $11 on team B. The book holds $22. If team A covers, I collect $21. The other dollar, the vig, is profit for the book. What Vegas is essentially attempting is to predict the division of the action based on giving one team a handicap, also known as the point spread. If New England was playing Cleveland and there was no point spread, the vast majority of the action would be on New England and the books would take a bath if New England won, a pretty good probability.

So back to the 83% figure. This is a pretty well known statistic, but someone on Twitter just went apoplectic with me, saying among other inane things, I think I know more than Vegas. I’d reprint the exchange, but you get the idea. Someone who doesn’t understand something often chooses to berate the person who does understand it. I’ll give you a good example.

I was telling someone that if you shot a gun on a perfectly straight line, and dropped a bullet at the exact same height as the exit opening of the barrel and at the exact same time the bullet exited the barrel, both bullets would hit the ground at the same time. It’s a pretty simply application of the principle in physics that states the force due to gravity is not affected by horizontal velocity. But I might have well as been trying to explain Tourette’s Syndrome to the Salem puritans as an explanation why it wasn’t witchcraft. No way he was buying it. Same with the guy on Twitter. (For all you Sheldon Cooper’s out there, yes, it only works perfectly in a vacuum, but it is close enough in the real world to make the point.) Now admit it – it just doesn’t sound right, does it.

I’ve learned, once the thickness hardens, there is little you can do to penetrate it no matter how hard you try to explain. But here goes once again.

Let’s assume Vegas has done a perfect job and the winner of the game is a favorite that covers 50% of the time, and 50% of the time the underdog wins the bet and there is the exact same amount on both bets. They get all the vig. Of the 50% of the underdogs that collect the bet, two-thirds of them will win the game outright and one-third of them will collect because the favorite won but did not cover. Again, these are statistics you can verify all over the internet. So doing the arithmetic, 50% + (0.67 * 50%) = 83%

So 83% of the time the betting line does not determine the winner of the bet and 17% of the time it does. Pretty simple. If you pick the winner of the game, you’ll only lose 17% of the time. If you think about it, the statistics make perfect sense. So why aren’t people killing Vegas? A few reasons.

First, people like betting the favorite because after all they do win the game 67% (or so) of the time (same arithmetic as above), even if they only collect the bet 50% of the time. People, on average, bet the favorite 65% of the time in Vegas and the underdog 35% of the time. (I’ll avoid a discussion about “trap” lines). Vegas knows this and because they are uncanny about setting the line, they keep the 50-50 division fairly intact. Second, and this is the big one, it’s really hard to pick underdogs that will win outright or cover in 50% of the games. For that matter, it’s really hard to pick the 50% of the favorites that will cover. Just as with horseracing, if you bet the favorite every time, you will be a small loser. If you don’t believe me try it sometime. Millions have and Vegas is still ahead.

Now there are even more broken down statistics available on the internet for percentage of time the favorite wins based on the size of the line. As you might guess, the closer the line, the more likely the underdog will win. In fact, there are public handicappers who base their picks purely on the macro-statistics, and some weeks (or even seasons) they do pretty well, and of course they never do really horrible.

So if you want a system that won’t cost you a ridulous amount of money paid to an “expert” service, look at all the games and identify the 50% of favorites that have the highest probability of winning the game (ignore the line) and bet them. In the other 50% of the games, bet the underdog. And if you are really, really good, you’ll win 83% of your bets.

I’ll await the apology from thickhead, although I’m guessing I’ll wait a long time.