Well...

[HP]

JB - Very good stuff here, thank you.  I can\'t sign on to respond from my work computer or I would have come back earlier.  On KEE, bet the SPEED right?  That was the old saw.  Always struck me as random, like the first week or two at SAR.  

Feel free to ignore these follow ups...

what are the \"questions\" at NYRA and Cali?  You don\'t have to give the answers, but what are you ASKING?  

On workouts and observations...I read that Bonnie Ledbetter book etc.  I\'ve taken care of horses, fed them, rode them, etc.  Real thoroughbreds at the track, forget it.  That\'s good that you have a line on that.  This year Shackelford was a horse that was a good example, if they sweat they SWEAT.  I looked at Shack and said \"forget it\" and he ROCKED.  I understand that some horses don\'t have proper sweat glands so it\'s not good if they DON\'T sweat.  You have to see them start to start.    

Would love to hear some specifics on trainers and jocks, but that\'s real money.  

Best regards and I will buy the next round(s)  - HP

[Beau]

The discipline is what kills me..... PATIENCE!

Thanks...

[TGJB]

What I mean by that is that in NY and California the questions you have to answer are the standard handicapping ones, the ones that can be answered by what we publish (figures and profiles), as well as by the physical info you can get from other sources, and just by paying attention.

I play a lot of exotics, a lot of boxes against bad favorites, and if I lose I usually have an idea why-- the favorite didn\'t bounce, etc. But if I box 3-5-9 and it comes in 2-6-10, and that happens all day a couple of days in a row, I may have a problem that\'s not short term and can\'t be corrected. If the horses I like aren\'t running at all, especially if they are longer than they figure to be, or if horses I don\'t like at all are taking unusual money and running well, there\'s something happening I don\'t understand. Somebody knows more than me, and that\'s a table I shouldn\'t be sitting at (which doesn\'t always stop me, I\'m stubborn). That was happening at Keeneland last spring, an example being the McPeek horses.

[Rick B.]

TGJB Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> But if I box 3-5-9 and it comes in 2-6-10, and that
> happens all day a couple of days in a row...

Sounds like Woodbine to me -- were you checking your tickets?  

That place is a fluster cluck, just inscrutable racing and ridiculous results.

And yet, there will be a story of a guy who is \"making a killing\" there...

[TGJB]

Yep, same guy who kills Keeneland. Which may mean he understands poly better than you and I do. Though I did very well at DMR-- but just that one.

On the \"what are the questions front\"-- the single most important one in handicapping California is, can this horse handle this surface.

[Rick B.]

TGJB Wrote:
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> Yep, same guy who kills Keeneland. Which may mean
> he understands poly better than you and I do.

Oh, there\'s no wiggle room when it comes to me.

I was utterly convinced that there was nothing in this world I understood less than women...then, along came Poly.

[Silver Charm]

Funny how there is also Stress when you are winning.
Like a good run in the Stock Market.
You keep expecting the bottom to drop out on your wagers but also find yourself saying I cant get out because Im winning.

Nice problem to have. Up 30% on handle. WOW.
BTW-When do you have time review make numbers. And find four-legged prospects to acquire.

LOL....maybe you should give up your day job!! Congrats!!

[P-Dub]

Rick B. Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> TGJB Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Yep, same guy who kills Keeneland. Which may
> mean
> > he understands poly better than you and I do.
>
> Oh, there\'s no wiggle room when it comes to me.
>
> I was utterly convinced that there was nothing in
> this world I understood less than women...then,
> along came Poly.

Good one, still laughing. I groaned first.

[jimbo66]

Way to go host.  Glad to see somebody is hitting them.  You mean those bad beats do eventually even out?

Note to TGAB - Good time to ask for a raise..........

[Rick B.]

P-Dub Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Good one, still laughing. I groaned first.

Thanks. I groaned when I wrote it. Glad someone got it.

[PapaChach]

Dear Mr. Brown,

First off, let me offer my congratulations on your recent success with wagering on the ponies. This is a brutally difficult undertaking we are all engaged in and a man who can earn a serious profit at it deserves more than a bit of unreserved praise.

I should probably keep my mouth shut, which I have pretty much doing for the better part of ten years \'round these parts, but being deep into my fourth bottle of Jaboulet\'s Parallele 45 Cotes de Rhone (which, as an aside, is in my humble opinion one of the greatest inexpensive bottles of red to ever have been offered in the American market) and having just had a brief consult with Dr. Grabow (boy, the stars are lovely in the middle of the night in upstate New York at this time of year), I gotta speak my piece.

Please don\'t get yourself into a fight, Mr. Brown. I say this as a fan and sometimes-user of your product. Please don\'t go get your face smashed into a million pieces. Yes, I am sure in your youth you handled yourself with honor and aplomb, as  did I back in the day (another aside: from what I surmise from postings around here, you should picture me as someone who could pass as a slightly older brother of jimbo66) but times have changed, and the world has become a lot meaner in our middle-to-late-middle-age. Did you happen to notice a woman pepper-spraying her way to Christmas shopping glory at an LA Wal-Mart the other day? We\'ve spun off the axis at this point. Look at it like I do: there\'s nothing left to prove at this point, I delivered my emergency-room-inducing beatings more than twenty years ago, and nowadays it seems behind every corner lurks a bat-shit insane psycho who would gut someone just for the thrill of it. Do you really want to get involved in a bar-fight in these crazed times?

My own admittedly amateur advice would be to bag the LES (? - seems like where it\'s at for you these days, forgive me if I\'m wrong) bar scene and the betting world, take a little of that hard-earned profit, buy a plane ticket someplace warm and at least fifteen hundred miles from here and find a nice stool to sit on and get hammered like a gent you are underneath it all for a few days, with little-to-no threat of a dangerous altercation in the forecast.

Now, I admit I have not wagered at the levels you have, but hear me out anyway. I have played for some seriously high stakes. I have sat and watched as my thirty-eight year old wife, the mother of my three children, bled to death, and I have had to come home the following morning and tell those children, the youngest of whom was fourteen months old at the time, that their mother was dead. I\'ve played for the health insurance premium for those children; I\'ve played with no cards other than a last few bucks and your figures and I\'ve turned that weak-ass hand into months of their insurance premiums, of their rent, of their heat, of their breakfasts and lunches and dinners. I hit a Pick of my own on a $96 ticket back in the day, using at a minimum the theories I\'ve read here, and I nailed Noble\'s Promise what seems like two hundred, not two, year\'s ago. Yeah, you can scoff at my numbers but not at their depth; I\'ve played pretty serious, if I don\'t say so myself.

So take it from someone with a little hard-won wisdom: get the fuck outta Dodge, as soon as possible. Take some of that profit, and say goodbye to the potential bar-fights, say goodbye to playing these god-forsaken races. Go. Go somewhere and leave this shit behind for awhile. Get outta town, take a break. You\'ll be glad you did. Seriously.

[moosepalm]

Here I thought Charles Bukowski died seventeen years ago.

[Edgorman]

I\'ll have what he\'s having.

[jimbo66]

So, basically what you are saying is that you are an incredibly handsome guy.....

[TreadHead]

Congrats on the successful year!

I was wondering if you would be willing to share a little more in detail what your ROIs were on various bet types at the various circuits.  What I\'m not yet following is, did you have a huge year simply because of the pick6s you hit?  Or do you consistently have positive ROI on win bets, Tri/super exotics, and pik4/6?

I am just a part-time player and one of those idiots who spreads most of my bankroll on the pick3s/4s and has a tough time posting a profit because of it.  I realize I should probably switch over to single race win bets and exotics, but after hitting some 4 and 5 figure multi-race wagers, it is hard to stop playing them!