Greyhound Dog Racing Tips.
I'm married to someone who has ADD. Both of my kids have it too. They all have trouble paying attention and focusing on one thing at a time, because they're easily distracted by whatever is going on around them. I love them all, but I'm exactly the opposite. I'm a plodder, a focuser. My mind sticks with one thing at a time until it processes it and then I can think about the next thing.
What does this have to do with winning at the dog track? A lot. When I take my family to the track with me, they're all over the place. Literally and figuratively. They're off to the snack bar or back to the car for something they forgot. They're texting their friends, braiding their hair (in my daughter's case), writing a shopping list for tomorrow (in my spouse's case) or reading a newspaper they found on a table.
I'm the only one who's watching the schooling races before the program or going over my program to mark the scratches and remind myself of what I handicapped to bet before I came. Of course, my family will pick dogs because of how they look or because they like their names, so what's the point of them handicapping anyway?
But the point is that they notice everything, yet they notice nothing that will help them pick dogs. Me, I don't text my friends while I'm handicapping. I don't read the newspaper in between the races. I don't do anything else but pay attention to the dogs and the track condition and my bets.
Once in a while, they'll pick a dog by name or by looks and it'll come in and they'll be really happy that they "handicapped" a race better than I did, if my dog loses. I don't say anything, but what they do isn't handicapping. Focusing on the program, the dogs, the odds - that's handicapping. And that's enough to pay attention to if, like me, you don't have ADD.
I'm not saying that everyone should be a plodder or ignore what's going on around them at the dog track. I do think, though, that if you're easily distracted, you might want to try to focus more on the important things at the track. To me, this is the key to picking winners. Keep your mind on what you're doing, what the dogs are doing and what the odds board is doing as much as you can from the time you walk in, until you walk out, and you may walk out with more money than you walked in with.
Dog racing is exciting. When the boxes open and the dogs burst out, the crowd is focused on the dog or dogs they bet on. Will it get the lead right away? Will it make it around the first turn without getting blocked or bumped?
Then they're around the first turn and in the backstretch. If your dog is in the lead, you're staring at it, urging it on, whether you're yelling or just thinking (or even praying) silently. Then it's the final turn and as they thunder toward the finish line, you're watching your dog and hoping that no one will close on him at the last minute.
The first dog goes over the finish line and - if it's your dog - you're grinning from ear to ear and telling the guy beside you that you had the winner. In other words, you've just done everything wrong from the beginning of the race to the end and you're really happy about it, if you won.
If you didn't win, you still did everything wrong throughout the race, but have no idea that might be why you lost. Let's face it, you never even really watched the race at all. You watched your dog - the one that you bet on- and ignored the other dogs for most of the race.
Sure, you might have glanced at them out of the corner of your eye to make sure they weren't gaining on your dog. And in the turns you were gritting your teeth, hoping that none of the other dogs would bump yours.
But nine out of ten people watch a race without really looking at it to see what happened, other than to see what happened to the dog they bet on. This is why when they bet on some of these dogs in their next races, they won't have a clue about how to bet them.
When dogs race, even if you don't have a bet on the race, you should watch how the whole race plays out. Look to see which dogs run where, which ones break, and which ones look like they'd come in next race under different conditions.
When I watch a race, I make notes about dogs that just miss or need something that they didn't have in that race. That way, when I see that dog in another race, I know whether they're a good bet.
It's okay to focus on your dog for most of the race, but don't neglect the other dogs. They're the dogs you'll be betting on down the line, so get to know their running style. It's one of those little things that can make a big difference to your bankroll.
Greyhound Dog Racing.