Happy Holidays and a great New Year to all.
I had a nice year at the windows, thanks mainly to TG. I have a pretty busy schedule but I managed to reserve one two-hour slot for playing late every Thursday PM. The Create-A-Card product enabled me to check out a few races at three or four different tracks during this designated time period and concentrate on the best ones. For whatever reason, I did very well in Chicago, and the Arlington to Hawthorne changeover didn\'t hurt at all. With Chicago as the main course, I supplemented with Kentucky, and I had some nice scores at Louisiana Downs (!) as well, and I tried other tracks with varying results.
I kept close track of my bets and results for a few months. I made a \"sheet\" for each race I played and eventually I was able to review about 150 races that I played to see what worked and what didn\'t. While this didn\'t have too much of an impact on my handicapping, it had a tremendously positive effect on my betting (type/amount/etc.) and I would highly recommend this to any recreational handicappers looking to improve their game.
With only a week left it\'s safe to say that this will be my most profitable year in quite some time. As far as handicapping products go, I have tried quite a few different things, but right now I\'m down to just using TG (no Racing Form).
The Create-A-Card is a great product, and it was great to see TG push ahead into new areas and new types of data. Happy Holidays and thanks to TGJB, TGAB and the rest of the staff... HP
Before this becomes a thing, HP once worked for us, and now pays full freight for his data.
HP,
You\'ve been helpful in this regard before. Would you be willing to share some of those \"sheets\" for instructional purposes with another recreational player if I gave you my e-mail address?
Regards for the holidays,
Mike
It\'s pretty straightforward. This is what it looks like --
---------------------------------------------
Date
Track
Race
Distance
Conditions
Track Condition
Contenders
Trainer/jock/other issues
Favorite
Win bet?
Play
Result
Comment
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I print them out and I fill them in -- one for each race. If I hit, I put an asterisk at the top of the sheet and if I think I really screwed up I\'ll put an \'X.\' The \"win bet?\" line reminds me that they actually take win bets and sometimes those are good enough!
I probably don\'t put in enough detail, but even a summary is a huge improvement over just throwing away the tix and moving along race to race.
Hope this helps. HP
HP,
It\'s a good start. I have always found that recordkeeping keeps you honest and this is the kind of thing that would force me to actually look at my results, instead of just moving on.
Thanks,
Mike