Greyhound Dog Racing Tips.
I usually sit in the same place when I go to my local dog track. Very often there's a guy who sits near me and we shoot the breeze from time to time. After I'd talked to him a couple of times, it dawned on me that he hardly ever watches a race, even though he bets on almost every one.
Andy looks at his program. He looks at the odds board. He looks at his laptop. He does some calculations on the laptop's spreadsheet program and then switches to another window that has a handicapping program on it. Then he looks back at the odds board and so on and so forth until the race is over. Then he looks at the odds board one last time to see if he won. The man might as well be listening to the race on the radio.
Me, I look at the dogs as they're led to the boxes. Sometimes, I even go down and watch them as they're weighed in and checked before the program starts. It's not that I'm expecting to discover some hot clue as to who's going to win. It's just that I love greyhounds and never get tired of watching them.
I don't see them as a bunch of statistics or money on the hoof - or paw, I should say. I see them as professional athletes who happen to be dogs. I know that they love what they're doing - like the best athletes always do. I know they'll run their hearts out, no matter whether people bet on them or not. And I know that they're intelligent, gentle, friendly animals, who get along well with other animals and people. Most of all, I know that they're individuals.
To Andy, they're just numbers. While they're parading down to the boxes, he's crunching numbers and figuring out if the 1 box is still the best box for winning percentage. While they're listening to the lure squeal around the rail toward them, he's looking for that last flip that the odds board does that tells him whether his bet was a good choice based on past statistics.
While they're rounding the first curve and the rest of us are holding our breath, hoping our dog won't get bumped or blocked, Andy is doing a "what if" scenario to see what the 7 will pay over the 3 and vice versa, because the spreadsheet told him to bet both of those combinations in a complicated tri wheel with four other dogs.
And when they get to the finish line and everyone is asking their neighbor whether it was the 7 or the 6 in front or did the 3 get in there, Andy is running calculations on the next race, completely oblivious to what's going on around him. He'll just wait until they put the dogs up on the board and then he'll know if he won. It doesn't really matter to him what happened during the race. All he cares about is whether he can cash his tickets.
I can't understand how anyone can go to the dog track and not watch the races. To me, people like Andy might as well buy lottery tickets or play the slots or some other mechanical betting deal. What in the world is the point of betting on dogs if you don't watch them? Where's the connection with what you're trying to figure out i.e. who's going to win the race?
I guess people like Andy would say that it's best if you keep your feelings out of betting. To them, handicapping is a scientific, mathematical operation that has no room for emotions. Well, I beg to differ. I think handicapping is more than numbers, statistics and percentages. I don't think you can predict what greyhounds will do in any given race using only mechanical formulas and odds board calculations.
Sure, you have to use intelligence and good judgment and you have to bet sensibly. But I don't believe that there's any way to consistently predict the results of dog races based on statistics and spreadsheets without watching how the race plays out. I think people who bury their heads in this stuff and pay little or no attention to the races miss the best part of going to the dog track - the dogs.
I also think that the best handicappers are the ones who have a deep connection to the greyhounds they bet on and would watch dog races even if you couldn't bet on them. I go to watch and win.
Greyhound Dog Racing.