| My SO and I figured out a pretty good one a couple of years ago, but it
took hours of day-before data entry. I can't remember exactly what we
ended up doing, but I think it was something like we only bet on
three-year olds who had had at least three starts in the last year, and
we looked at performances only for the current track, factored in speed
figures, and I forget what all else, and then if any of the horses
running the following day met the criteria, and if they went off at
odds of better than 3-1, we would bet on them. We made about a 30%
profit over a week at Saratoga. Our system was based on a handicapping
book by Bauer (I think that's his name). But the problem is, of
course, that when you figure out how much per hour you get for all the
figuring, etc, it's easier to work at DEC! With parimutuel betting, of
course, you can't throw huge sums of money on what you think is a sure
thing without adversely affeceting the odds, and therefore your payoff.
(And assuming you even HAD huge sums of money!)
But we had a lot of fun...if you call spending every night entering
data into a spreadsheet (we used a palm-top Atari) fun. 8^) But
then some time later we lost the disk on our PC that we had our whole
"system" outlined on. And, of course, we had no backups.
Oh, another important part. Once the computer selected the horses for
the day, the crucial next step was to watch them in the saddling
paddock and to decide go/no go on each particular horse.
Of course, then there's a method I've found to be OK, but not as
reliable. Bet the morning line favorite to show if he goes off at 2-1
or better. And DO NOT BET ON ANYTHING ELSE. When I do this, I usually
end up at least breaking even.
Good luck
-ellie
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