Whether you have been betting horses a long time or are relatively new at the game, one thing has been consistently true for decades. You are wasting your money with horses that tease you with close second and third place finishes but can’t seem to get to the line in front.

I do not favor rote rules when it comes to handicapping, the kind that seem to accompany “systems.” You know, throw out any horse who hasn’t started in the last 45 days or something similar to that. But sometimes it helps to have some general guidelines.

Lots of handicappers avoid maiden races because of uncertainty, but they are often as bettable as other races. When it comes to maidens, once a horse has more than 10 starts, it either needs to be

• in an incredibly weak field
• up against a group of other horses who have more than 10 starts
• making a major change, like going from a major circuit to a minor one or dropping substantially in class

to be considered as a win bet.  In maiden fields, I like to look for horses  with a few starts and something to show, especially lately.  In the two maiden races for 3 and up at Belmont on July 3, one was won by a horse with only three starts and the other by a first timer. Look for horses in maiden races that haven’t shown themselves to be on the road to professional maiden. They 18 start maidens will occasionally win, but just not often enough to justify the investment. Yet year after year they suck money like a Dyson inhales dirt.

This is just as true in NW2 races. Let’s look at the 7th at Belmont on July 3. Distorted Dream’s line was 16-1-4-1. He was a very low win probability yet he was the second choice in the betting at 5-2. He would have been a bad win bet at 10-1, primarily because he hadn’t shown the ability to “close the deal.” He sucked a ton of money from the public that saw he could finish within a few lengths of the horses that won the races. He barely held on to second behind the clear winner Official, a horse that had only started six times and had a first and a second.

In that same race the #5 Ginger’s Joe started with a record of 41-1-1-2.  That many starts and that many out of the money finishes puts him in the category of “no hoper,” and as expected he didn’t outrun his 50-1 odds. I think you shouldn’t even put that sort of horse on an “ALL” ticket.

Let’s go to the 9th race and look at #1 Desert Bliss with a record of 26-2-6-7. The first thing that jumps out? Less than a 10% win percentage, but almost 60% in the money. The crowd conflates the win probability of a horse for the in the money probability, and they’ve been doing it forever. At 9-2, Desert Bliss finished 4th.

These kind of examples abound. Here’s some general guidelines.

• In maiden races be suspicious of any horse that has started more than 10 times at the approximately the same level and has shown an ability to be in the hunt but never enough interest to pass all the horses. They are unreliable win bets.
• In maiden races for the most part look for horses with six or fewer starts and have shown some interest in running. Obviously you still have to handicap. If a horse has started six times and has faded every time, you need a really good reason to decide today he isn’t going to fade. Same sort of thing for NW2 races. Horses that broke their maiden and have been at the NW2 level for a lot of races are generally bad bets in the win pool.
• One of the most consistently productive angles in racing is the straight maiden dropping into a maiden claiming race. The levels of competition between straight maidens and maiden claimers is exactly like the difference between allowance horses and claiming horses.
• Any horse that has less than a 10%  lifetime winning percentage should be scrutinized very closely before being put in the top spot.
• Any horse with three or four times the number of 2nd and 3rd’s as wins is a weak win play, especially at lower odds. Desert Bliss was probably 10% to win the race and 60% to be part of the superfecta.
• Any horse that has more than 20 starts and less than 2 wins,  30 starts and less than 3, or 40 starts and less than 4 should generally be discarded from win consideration.

There’s certainly more than what I’ve said above, but it gives you a start. Make some comments, ask some questions. I’d be happy to have a discussion.