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Handicapping During the Winter Season
2012 is upon us bringing a New Year of anticipation and excitement for the thoroughbred industry. A subtle change in the last few years is that trainers and owners are keeping a higher percentage of their horses up north during the winter season. This is due to purse increases making bearing the cold and winter weather much more attractive since the advent of casinos at various racetracks around the U.S. The bigger stables have seen greater opportunities to compete at these venues leading to fuller fields and better payouts in the exotics.
So with these new opportunities for handicappers what principals of handicapping would serve us well when analyzing races in the winter season?
A tried and true angle that is already paying dividends at tracks such as Aqueduct, Tampa and Gulfstream Park to name a few is “Horses for Courses”. When handicapping it is imperative to see if a horse has had success in prior years at these venues. Many of the trainers who bring these horses to these tracks often lay off the horse for a month or two prior, to revitalize the horse from a tough summer and fall campaign targeting a certain race or series of races. Trainers who have had success in the claiming ranks often go to tracks throughout the U.S. reclaiming back these horses to ship them back to their “home” track. Often times, they will give them a race or two in higher claiming company or find a starter handicap prepping them for the season, so it is a good strategy to go back into the past performances to see if any patterns exist that can tip you off to a top performance. This goes for both dirt and turf. Remember that each track has both marked and subtle differences in surface consistency, type of turns (sharp or sweeping) and number of turns for a specific distance. Doing your homework on these factors substantially increase your chances of finding the right horse for the course.
Another pattern that seems to play out each winter season is to follow the “hot” apprentice. Many of the top jockey’s winter at the bigger venues looking for that top three year old champion horse who can get them to the Classic races. Santa Anita and Gulfstream are the crème de la crème tracks of the winter season where the top trainers and owners target the qualifying races to the Kentucky Derby. Since the chances of an apprentice getting a “Live” mount at these tracks is relatively low, many have taken their tack to the other tracks to make a name for themselves. Many of the top jocks today have made their leap into the big time by crafting their trade at the winter tracks. In my experience tracking apprentice performance, very few actually make the transition from losing their bug weight and competing with the best of the best. So capitalizing on a weight advantage for an upcoming, hungry apprentice is a value proposition you can’t ignore.
The third and probably the least known angle is to look for trainers who drop their horses into lower level claimers to pick up a big win check. Over the past month, I have seen very attractive purses in these low level claimers that are almost begging owners to take a risk of losing a horse to pick up a lucrative purse check. Many of the “so-called” claiming trainers have lived rather lucrative livelihoods picking off quality horses that were dangled in front of them when the owner took a shot at a larger purse race. The propensity to take these chances certainly has increased in the past few years due to the bigger purse payouts.
So in closing, I would recommend that as a handicapper you step back and reassess your winter betting strategy to incorporate these angles into your vast bag of handicapping tricks to maximize your chances of a positive Return on your Investment. This is what makes this such a fun game. Good Luck and Happy Handicapping!