Greyhound Dog Racing Tips.
Do you look at the break call when you handicap dog races? That's the second row of numbers right after the post position for their last few races. Some people will tell you that you can look at it and predict which dog will win the current race. I don't think so.
I do think that the break is important, but not so much for who got out first. What matters more than that is where they went in the split seconds after they broke. Another consideration is where the chartwriter calls the break. Some call it pretty close to where the dogs were right after the boxes opened and the dogs came out.
Other chartwriters call it farther along the track - sometimes almost halfway to the first turn! This isn't a break call, if you ask me, but no one asks me. You can probably find out from a track official where the break call is charted at your track is you ask. You might want to do that.
If it's called near the boxes, what you need to know is where the dogs went right after the boxes opened and all 8 dogs shot out. Dogs don't usually just break straight ahead. Most of them have a preference for the inside or outside of the track and that's where they head as soon as the trap doors open.
How can you tell which way they went? Well, for that, you have to depend on the chartwriter's lines. If they write that the dog "ran inside", you'll know that the dog probably broke to the inside of the track. Ditto for a comment that says "outside." If there's nothing in the comment lines to tell you which part of the track they prefer, you'll have to go back and check their previous races to see where they like to run.
This, more than who breaks first, is what will determine what happens in the crucial few first seconds of the race. It's often here that dogs bump each other or get in the way by crisscrossing in front of each other, trying to get to the part of the track that they "break to."
If you can figure out where the dogs will go when they break, visualize it and think of what will probably happen to most of the dogs as they break, you're a long way toward picking the dogs that will cross the finish line first.
Greyhound Dog Racing.