[QUOTE=danceronice;8022501]
Ehhhhh…an awful lot of handicappers I know, who make VASTLY more money than I do at it, have never physically laid hands on a horse. Reading the condition book isn’t about knowing the horses as much as figuring out who especially weird sub-stakes-conditions were written to benefit. Most who are post-parade watchers, which is a legit strategy, are also not ‘horsemen’ in the sense of having ever directly worked with horses. They’ve been watching racehorses for years, though. Handicapping is, at heart, getting really good at statistics and patterns. (Ironic, given how I suck at every other form of math and stats in particular, though I’m not calculating them, just learning pattern recognition.)
And I’m amused by how giddy the TVG guys are being able to cover Gulfstream.[/QUOTE]
With all due respect, I’m very skeptical that the majority of handicappers you are familiar with actually make a good or subsantial living solely gambling. Though most of the research done on sports gambling speaks to the human problems and social consequences connected with betting, it has been well reported that it is the “tote” that makes a profit, not the gambler. That is why it is called entertainment and that is why the “house” is ever ready to extend credit. The % varies, but less 10% of all track bettors actually leave the track with a profit. Betting shops in the UK, AU, USA, CA, et al are “retail” and considered in a business sense to be enterprises for enjoyment.
I recall some years back that TVG aired a special series highlighting a few CA handicappers. None of them were living anywhere near conventional financially stable lives.
Some years back, Caton Bredar hosted “Night Class” which went into everything involved in the visual aspects of handicapping. The idea that “horsemen” instincts are critical beyond the form.
http://www.paulickreport.com/news/the-biz/night-school-visual-handicapping/
Agree with you that handicapping is recognizing statistics and numbers, but bettors who depend solely on that are highly vulnerable to failure.
Arnold Rothstein, a well known handicapper and gambler and noted “crook,” bet horseracing big time in the early 1900’s at NY tracks primarily at Saratoga without having a clue about what made the horse “tick.” AR, who made unheard of bets on stakes races at $100K and more that had purses for less than $8K, never depended on form alone and maintained friends and employees who were all horsemen to advise him. In his groups of collaborators were racehorse trainers like Sam Hildreth (a capable gambler in his own right) . . .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Hildreth
. . . track vets, grooms, hot walkers, etc. Not to mention a plethora of agents he had salaried as bookmakers across the country. Save none, no one has ever exceeded the gambling prowess (and criminality) of Rothstein in the world of American sports betting.
Unfortunately, Arnold hung around with the wrong sorts and ended up with a bullet in his tummy.
In theory unchanged, gambling has been thriving in the USA since 1607 and Jamestown and as I said earlier, with all due respect, I don’t dispute the fact that a few can make money betting the “ponies,” but “few” is the key word. If it were anything other than that, corporations and businesses would be flocking to the “betting” side of the industry.
Come to think of it, I probably shouldn’t describe that as an activity.