As the color background of this page is black, white and gray, so it is with horse racing. Not everything is black or white, there are a lot of gray areas. It is my hope that the messages on this page will be of help to you in your handicapping of thoroughbred horse races.
There are many books on the subject of handicapping, and some of the best are written by Dick Mitchell, Tom Brohamer, James Quinn, Bill Quirin, and Steve Davidowitz. These gentlemen all give good technical advice on the selection process and provide excellent insight into the art of handicapping. But, before you read any of these books, you should start with 'Ainslie's Complete Guide to Thoroughbred Racing' by Tom Ainslie. It is a wonderful book filled with all the basic instructions and charming stories. This book will give you a broad base of understanding before pursuing the previous mentioned books which are more technical regarding mathematics and statistics, computer programs, and wagering advice. For those who only want to go to the track for entertainment and relaxation, Ainslie's book will suffice. For those who wish to handicap races for a living - READ ON.
'Read on' is an understatement, because if you want to be good enough to earn a living at the track you will have to devote as much time to learning as most four year college students. If you think I'm kidding, you may as well stop reading right now....you're not getting the picture! And if you don't get the picture, it will probably cost you as much as a college education before you 'get it'. You will need to invest about $200 for books initially and another $200 later. You will probably want a computer complete with programs, monitor, and printer which will cost $2000, and you haven't bought any handicapping software yet. Depending on whose approach you liken to, it will cost from around $300 to $1500 for one program. Now, you need data which can be entered manually or downloaded from a provider for a fee. If you don't have a life, you can buy the Daily Racing Form for $4 and manually enter the data and develop carpal tunnel syndrome. The downloading services I'm familiar with will cost you about $50 to $100 a month plus the expense of long distance in most circumstances. Are you starting to get the investment picture? Now we'll talk about how much of a bankroll you need if you are in this to earn a living.
From my experiences and from what I've learned, the average handicapper should only invest about 2% of his bankroll on any given race if he hopes to maintain a bankroll. Next, the investor must consider how much he wants to make per day, on an average. Let's assume you want to earn a modest $500 per week and you plan on attending the races four days per week. This means you must average $125 profit per day. The average professional handicapper gets a 20% return on investment wagers. Figuring backwards, you must invest $625 per day to get a profit of $125 on a 20% ROI. The average professional handicapper will probably have two or three selctions per day if playing just one race track. For sake of discussion, we will assume 2.5 plays per day which means an individual wager of $250 each race played. If you are investing 2% of your bankroll per race, then you will need a beginning bankroll of $12,500 if you want to make a living handicapping and $500 per week is your desired income. The picture should be getting clearer, I would hope.
You say you already have a computer? Good, because you should also have a laptop to take with you. Here's why. You handicapped the races at home, scoped out the pace of the race, selected your pace lines for each horse, thrown out the non-contenders, and printed the reports. The race you planned on making a wager in has had some 'late scratches'. One of your contenders was an early speed type horse who figured to insure an honest pace....now he's out! You can't just draw a line through him and consider the remainder of the field without re-handicapping the race if you're using a computer program, you need a computer to achieve this. Inversely, a race may not have appealed to you and you didn't do a printout. At the track there are some late scratches, now a horse is looking good. Without a laptop, how will you assess this field if you are dependent on computer generated selections? The answer is, you can't!