Saturday, June 30, 2012

You Have A Fat Dog


Greyhound Dog Racing Tips.

Have you been told that you have a fat dog? Do you fit the definition of fat or obese? Believe it or not some people do not think of themselves as being overweight. Unfortunately they pass the same eating habits onto their dogs and cats.

Be honest. Are you overweight by 500, 300, or 100 pounds? Are you overweight by 50 or 25 pounds? Ten pounds or less is considered vanity weight and is easily corrected as it is usually a temporary condition. Most often the health of the dog or cat reflects their owners' food philosophy.

We have a family member who is overweight, has owned 3 dogs, has overfed these dogs, all three became diabetics, and all three have died from their illness. Diabetes is a disease of overweight.

Here is a checklist of health problems related to over weight:

  • Cancer

  • Arthritis

  • Ligament injury

  • Liver Disease- especially in cats

  • Heart failure

  • High Blood pressure

  • Blindness

  • Kidney disease

  • Diabetes

First and foremost what is the breed of your dog?

My parents raised Greyhounds for racing. This breed requires a very different feeding program and pet care from many other breeds of dogs. They must be kept streamlined for optimum health and racing speed.

Different breeds of dogs are bred for work, hunting, and as pets. The types of foods, required nutrients, and health care will vary according to the breed.

Underweight dogs will show their ribs. Their abdominal area is extremely narrow or sucked in. Food intake and correct nutrition needs to be increased.

Obese or extremely overweight dogs have overall body fat which makes them look like an over inflated balloon and their head size appears very small. They labor at walking and pant heavily from the stress of carrying extra pounds on their body.

Overweight dogs have bulging chests, a large sagging abdomen, and a saddle dip in their spine from the weight of the abdomen. They have no waistline and have fatty hips. As you stroke and massage your dog or cat you can feel the softness of the fatty tissue under your touch.

Correct body weight for a dog is viewed by looking at the topside of the animal. It should have an hour-glass shape which means it has a narrow waistline. The abdomen is raised. As you pet your dog you will feel a hint of its ribs and firmness in its muscles as you stroke him.

You have a fat dog if your dog is extremely overweight or obese. Worse; you are shortening the life of your pet.

The problem we have with our pets is their dependency on us for their wellbeing. Therefore we are truly responsible for their weight problems.�

Have you been told you have a fat dog? What are the solutions?

  • Change of diet

  • Controlled feedings

  • Increase of exercise or activities which are suitable for the breed

  • Change types of treats

Have you been told you have a fat dog? Discover how to have a healthier lifestyle for your pets. Visit the pet care section of Infotrish at and review Veterinary Secrets Revealed.

Greyhound Dog Racing.

Yes, There ARE 4-Dog Trifectas and They Pay Big Bucks


Greyhound Dog Racing Tips.

Do you bet trifectas? Do you win very often? The nice thing about trifectas is that you don't have to hit too many of them to make a nice profit.

Of course, they're harder to hit, which is why they pay better than quinielas or win, place and show bets. You have to really refine your handicapping skills to be able to find the 3 dogs who will cross the finish line. And then you have to figure out how to bet them.

I'll tell you. In my experience, it's the rare greyhound handicapper who can pick a trifecta cold more than a few times in their life. It's only a $2 bet, which is why you'll find so many losing tickets with a straight trifecta on it on the floor after a dog race.

Those $2 bets add up, too, especially if you make more than one of them on each race, which is common. Talk about nickeling and diming yourself to the poorhouse. Any bet that doesn't come in, even if it's a $2 bet, is a step down the slipper slope to being a loser. Don't go there.

So should you give up betting on trifectas? Well, let's say that you should definitely change your way of betting if you're losing on straight trifecta bets or even 3-dog boxes. It's almost as hard to come up with the 3 dogs who are going to win the trifecta as it is to come up with it straight.

Instead, why not find a fourth dog and box all four for $24? If that sounds like a lot of money, maybe you should be betting quinielas instead of trifectas. The 4-dog trifecta box is a good bet if your system of handicapping can eliminate four dogs who aren't contenders.

That way, you can put the other four dogs into a trifecta box and have a pretty good shot at hitting the trifecta. Since almost any trifecta will pay more than $24 for half of it, you're only limited by how well you can handicap and the size of your bankroll.

Check it out on some old programs where you played trifectas and see how much better you would have done if you'd only put another dog into your 3-dog trifecta box. You'd be surprised at the money you can miss by leaving out that one dog.

Greyhound Dog Racing.

Winning Quinielas in Dog Racing


Greyhound Dog Racing Tips.

Trifectas usually pay bigger than quinielas at the dog track. So why would I want to bet quinielas, you ask? Why would anyone want to play them when they could win much more with a trifecta bet?

Well, for that matter, superfectas, Pick-Sixes and other exotic bets pay more than trifectas, so why doesn't everyone just play them instead of trifectas? You know the reason, although you might not have completely thought the whole thing through yet.

You can play a four-dog quiniela box for $12. A four-dog trifecta box will cost you double that - $24. You chances of hitting a quiniela with four dogs are much better than your chances of hitting a trifecta with four dogs.

A quiniela, as you probably know, is the dog who finishes first with the dog who finishes second. Unlike the exacta, where you have to pick the dogs in the exact order of finish, with a quiniela, you can have the dogs in either order. As long as you have the first two dogs to cross the finish line, you win.

What does the average quiniela pay? Well, that depends on your track takeout, the odds of the two dogs and the order they finish in. But at most tracks, the average quiniela pays between $12 and $24. Once in awhile, there are much bigger and much smaller quinielas, but that's the average payout.

Obviously, in order to make money with quinielas, you have to hit enough to pay for your $12 box bet with enough profit to cover the races where you bet but don't hit the quiniela. This isn't as hard as you might think it is.

If you have a system that narrows down the likely contenders, such as the Graded Greyhound Handicapping System, the Two Key Trifecta System or the Marks Method, you have a very good chance of picking the quiniela in most races.

Or, if you're pretty good at greyhound handicapping, yourself, you should be able to pick a quiniela often enough to be ahead of the game at your favorite track. The trick with betting quinielas is to pick them often enough so that your losses are covered by your wins. It's as simple as that.

Greyhound Dog Racing.

Winning Bets That Lose Money at the Dog Track


Greyhound Dog Racing Tips.

Have you ever picked dogs that finish in the money, cashed a ticket and lost money? If you're like most of the greyhound handicappers I know, including me, it's happened to you at least once in your life.

It's a horrible feeling to know that you picked the right dogs, bet them and still managed to come out behind the eight ball. How does this happen?

One way is when you wheel a dog that you feel strongly is going to win in the trifecta with all the other dogs. This is an $84 bet. If your dog wins, no matter which dogs come after it, you cash your ticket.

So, you may be thinking, most trifectas pay more than $84 for a one-dollar bet, so why don't I just do that and make some easy money? It's not that easy, believe me.

For one thing, it's very hard to pick a dog that's almost certain to win. Even if the dog has all the factors going for him, things happen. Dogs fall down. They stumble. Other dogs block and bump them. They fade to second right at the wire. There are no sure things in dog racing.

There's also no worse feeling than wheeling a dog to win in the trifecta and having it come in second so that the trifecta pays big bucks. That's when you realize that you would have been a lot better off if you'd picked three other dogs to put with that dog and played them in a box.

There are many other ways to pick winners and still lose money at the dog track. You can play two or three dogs to win. One wins, but pays less than $6 and you lose money. You can bet a dog to win and in a quiniela or other exotic bets. It wins, but you don't have the quiniela or trifecta and you've lost money on those tickets.

Knowing WHAT to bet, obviously, is just as important as knowing WHO to bet on in greyhound racing. That's why it's important that you have a good system going for you that makes sure that you know who to bet on and what kind of bet will give you the best return on your investment.

Greyhound Dog Racing.

Friday, June 29, 2012

Winning at the Dog Track Without Getting Disqualified


Greyhound Dog Racing Tips.

My friend,Willie and I were talking the other day about how often we've bet on a dog and had it get bumped by another dog, which is pretty discouraging. I said maybe it'd be a good idea if they disqualified dogs and changed the results of the race like they do for horse races. Willie is clearheaded, however, and he set me straight on that idea right away.

"Yeah, but then what about our dogs that come in because they bump another dog or another dog bumps a dog and they benefit? We'd lose those bets too."

As usual, Willie made a good point. Most greyhound races have one or two dogs who get into trouble or cause trouble. But, unlike at the horse track, it's not because their jockeys didn't control them properly. It's just because they're dogs and dogs bump each other. It's the nature of the beast as you'll know if you've ever thrown a tennis ball for more than one dog at a time.

People get so angry when dogs knock each other down and bump and "turn their heads" to nip each other (doesn't work with a muzzle, but they try anyhow), but that's what dogs do. It's just as much a part of a greyhound's makeup as running as fast as it can after anything that moves is.

Many years ago, at Lincoln Greyhound Park in RI, someone got the bright idea of using monkeys for jockeys on the dogs. Not only was it cruel and inhumane to both species, but it didn't work. You can't control monkeys any more than monkeys can control greyhounds. The idea was scrapped and the dogs were allowed to run as nature intended - free of all outside control.

When you think about it, in horse racing, it's not the horse that's penalized. It's the jockey. So disqualifying greyhounds wouldn't make sense, since they're not under anyone's control. And in some races, if you disqualified every dog who bumped another dog or went wide and took out the outside dogs, you wouldn't have any dogs left for Win, Place or Show.

Nope, Willie is right. Some bumping and blocking and shuffling is normal in dog racing, so we should just accept it and do the best we can to handicap around it by improving our handicapping skills.

Greyhound Dog Racing.

Winning at the Dog Track Without Dramatics


Greyhound Dog Racing Tips.

When I first started going to the dog track, I loved betting on closers. Not for me the early speed dogs that went off at low odds. Nope. I was the one who bet on the dog that hung back until the last turn, then put on the juice and passed the tiring speedballs that the crowd had bet down to nothing. My closers, on the other hand, usually paid well, because most bettors are fools for early speed and afraid to bet closers because they might get blocked or not make it in time.

My friend, Willie, who got me going to the track in the first place, used to call me Longshot Louie, because I bet on so many closers at long odds. But he had to admit that they paid off well when they came in. And nothing beats the thrill of seeing your longshot pass the frontrunners right at the wire, except the thrill of cashing a ticket on a dog at 10-1. For me, the drama was almost as important as winning.

But now, the thrill is gone. I don't bet on dogs because they're closers anymore, unless there are other good reasons to bet on them. Over the last thirty years, I've learned that dramatics don't pay the bills. The thrill I get from cashing several tickets on dogs who pay decent - but not long - odds is much better than cashing one longshot ticket and losing the other longshot bets.

Early speed and the ability to keep up with the pace are more likely to indicate a winner than pure closing ability. Even in a route race, early speed is a good thing. Although closing ability is important, go over your old programs and notice how many times the winner of a route race got out early. Maybe it wasn't first, but it was out there at the beginning of the race or at least at the 1/8th call.

Every once in awhile, a dog comes along that gets up into stakes races, even though it doesn't have early speed. When that happens it makes for some exciting races, because so many stakes dogs have early speed. Of course, the really good ones also have stamina and determination. (K's Flak's puppies come to mind. They must have been crossed with bulldogs somewhere in the past, because they never gave up.)

I love watching races where closers come off the pace to nip the frontrunners right at the wire, but I don't bet on many of those races. I don't bet on whims either, like I did when I first started going to the dog track. Nowadays, I use much better judgment and cash a lot more tickets than I did back then. I still get a thrill, but I don't have to have a cliff-hanger finish on every race to get one.

Greyhound Dog Racing.

Winning at the Dog Track With the First System


Greyhound Dog Racing Tips.

Everyone is looking for a system nowadays. Systems to beat the dog track. Systems to pick lottery numbers. Systems to get their life back together, relieve stress and find a mate. It makes sense, because life is really just a series of systems.

We either make up our own every time we do something, or we use someone else's knowledge and experience to guide us. Oftentimes, it makes sense to consult someone else who knows more about the subject than we do. After all, we don't reinvent the wheel every time we drive our car, do we?

There's one system that I'll share with you for free. I call it The First System and it's one of the best ways to make money at the track and in life. Be first. That's it. It's as simple as that. Come to think of it, that's the system that dogs use to win races, isn't it?

Let me tell you how being first can help you win at the track. Say there's a dog who's coming back from a layoff. You and your friends are discussing the dog before the races and no one really knows whether he's liable to come in or not today.

Someone says that they think they remember that he got hurt in a race a couple of months ago and that's why he's had a layoff. Someone else says, "No, he didn't get hurt. They just gave him a layoff because he was running lousy races because he was tired." And someone else says, "Well, you guys didn't notice but "he's" a "she" and I heard she had a litter of puppies, so no way can she be back in shape yet."

Someone might be right, but everyone might be wrong in this conversation. There's a really good chance that none of the people discussing this dog really knows why it had a layoff or what it did before it had the layoff. Now, what if someone - namely you - had downloaded a program the day before and looked at this dog's record in Greyhound Track Data or old programs?

That person, namely you, would have a much better idea of why the dog had that layoff and would know whether the dog was a good bet today or not. They'd be first to know and they could either keep quiet or share it with their friends. But either way, they'd have a much better chance of making money on the dog.

It's the same with dogs who win M races and have litter mates. If you see a dog who does well in M, take the time to check for litter mates and keep an eye on them. The dog doesn't have to be fantastic, just good. Chances are, at least some of the litter mates will be worth betting on also.

How about dogs who break and fade and ship in from another track where the sprint races are shorter than they are at your track? If you know this before the other bettors do, you know what they don't know. At the shorter distance, the fader may not fade after all. It may just hang on and win. How many people check the length of the track that dogs come from, compared to the track they play?

There are all kinds of situations at the dog track where you can be first to benefit from something if you're willing to put out a little more effort than most bettors are. Look around you at the track and notice how many people hardly glance at their programs - the programs they grabbed on the way in. How many people are buying lottery tickets or yakking on the phone or watching Fox News?

If you want to win at the track, you have to be better than the average bettor. I learned that the hard way a long time ago. It's the reason I write articles and sell systems. I figure if I share what I know, it might keep at least some people from making the same mistakes I made when I started out. So keep your eyes open and look for opportunities to use The First System. After all, it's free.

Greyhound Dog Racing.

Winning at the Dog Track With the Big Picture


Greyhound Dog Racing Tips.

I used to know a guy who would come up to me before a race, run his finger down his program and say, "You know who's gonna win this race? I'll tell you who's gonna win this race." Then he'd pause and look serious and say, "The 3 is gonna win. He's a standout. A cinch. He's so much better than the other dogs, they shouldn't even be in the same race with him." And then he'd go away and do the same thing with someone else.

I probably don't have to tell you that his dogs almost never came in. That didn't stop him from using his handicapping method, which I call "handicapping in a vacuum", because he'd focus in on one dog and ignore the other 7, like it was the only dog in the race.

Sure, there are races where one dog stands out from the rest to the point where, at first glance, it looks - like the wiseguys say - as if he's the only dog in the race. But take a second look and in most races, it's not as simple as it seems to pick one standout dog. For one thing, no matter how good a dog looks in his 6 previous races, this is a whole 'nother race.

Maybe he has great times. Maybe he always breaks first and is almost always "first to turn" (if you're lucky enough to be able to tell that from your track's program), but that doesn't mean he'll break first or get to the turn first in this race. The track might be slower or wet or just raked. He might not like the box he's in. He might get blocked or shuffled back or cut off by another dog.

In every race, it's my firm opinion that you have to handicap every dog against every other dog, not just for how good it was in its last 6 races. You have to figure out how this race is going to be run for pace, for running style of each dog and for conflicts of running style between the dogs. This is why I handicap "backwards", so to speak, and try to eliminate at least half the dogs before I look for the strongest contender.

And, even then, I hardly ever play one dog to win. I almost always box four of them in a quiniela. If I'm ahead, I may get a little crazy and play them in a ten cent superfecta. About the only time I play a win bet is on one of the dogs that I follow closely and the older I get, the fewer of them I follow. It's just too much to keep track of.

So look at the big picture in every race and don't just focus on one dog, no matter how good it looks at first glance. Look again and make sure you don't overlook the other dogs. No matter how much better one dog looks than the others, when the boxes open, every one of those eight dogs will come out determined to "catch the bunny" and none of them is out of the question until the race is official.

Greyhound Dog Racing.

Thursday, June 28, 2012

Winning at the Dog Track With Stakes Races


Greyhound Dog Racing Tips.

A lot of greyhound fans love to watch the cream of the crop race in stakes races. Track attendance usually goes up during the qualifying races that lead up to the main event and there may even be articles in the paper or on the radio about it.

But not everyone is happy when big races come around. My friend, Woody, hates them. He says it's stupid to bet on stakes races because the favorite gets bet down to nothing and usually wins. I don't have the statistics, but he's probably right that the favorite in the biggest races wins more of the time than the favorite in most races.

After all, every dog in the stakes race has raced against the best of the best dogs and beat them to make it to the final race. Of course, to me that also means that any dog in the race is capable of beating the other dogs, given the opportunity and some luck or a little extra running room or the benefit of another dog's mistake.

But even if the winner does come in at low odds, there are other reasons to go to the dog track when there are stakes races. For one thing, the track wants to attract fans to the stakes to increase the handle, so don't be surprised if the other races on the card are better than usual also. Maybe it's just my imagination, but it seems to me that the dogs in most of the races are easier to handicap when there are stakes races. Maybe because they're dogs who run truer to form than some dogs do?

For whatever reason, I always do well in the races on the same card with the stakes races. I don't bet any differently or bet more, but I seem to go home with more money than I usually do. Maybe it's the atmosphere or the fact that there are people there who don't normally come to the dog track. Remember, pari-mutuel betting is betting against the other bettors. If the other bettors don't know how to handicap, it gives people like us the edge.

For me, in addition to the bonus of winning a little extra, stakes races mean that I get to watch superb athletes doing what they do best. Winning. The dogs really enjoy it. The fans almost all like the special quality of the events surrounding the stakes and the ceremony of acknowledging the winner. It's something out of the ordinary for the dogs and the fans and it adds some spice to life. Let's face it, we all need something a little special once in awhile. Isn't that why we go to the dog track?

Greyhound Dog Racing.

Winning at the Dog Track With Spring Fever


Greyhound Dog Racing Tips.

Warning! This is one of the Oddball Methods I've found that works once in awhile in special circumstances. Don't depend on it to work every time, but then what does at the track? Or in life for that matter...

Ah spring! When a young man's fancy and a greyhound's instincts are focused on pretty much the same thing. Call it love, if you like, but we'd have to admit that it's pretty powerful stuff. Male racing greyhounds are just as likely to want to chase a likely-looking female as young men are likely to follow that pretty girl who just walked by and gave them the eye. But how can we use this to win money at the track?

I've used this method several times at every track I've been to in the spring. I look for a race with only one female in it. They happen. Not often, but every once in awhile, the "luck of the draw" sets one up. Then I look to see if there's a young male dog in the same race. If there is, I look at the oldest male in the race and see if I think he has a shot at keeping up with the other two dogs.

What usually happens is the female leads the pack, followed by the young male, who's trying like crazy to catch her, followed by the oldest male who sometimes passes one or both of them right near the wire, if he has the late kick to do it. Of course, it doesn't always work out this way. Sometimes the female stays second all the way around the track and gets passed by two male dogs at the end.

Sometimes, the young male manages to pass the female - maybe trying to impress her, I don't know - and he wins for fun. Sometimes, unfortunately, the young male just about attacks the female and knocks her and himself (and maybe a few other dogs) out of the race. Usually though, older females won't put up with a young male getting in her way. They'll do whatever they have to do to avoid them.

So, if you like oddball bets - I do once in awhile - and you see this scenario, play it. I like a quiniela with the female and the youngest male and the oldest dog, but you can play several different bets with this setup. Just playing the female to Win and Place would be a good bet.

Like I always say, Sometimes you have to make an Odd bet to Beat the Odds.

Greyhound Dog Racing.

Winning at the Dog Track With Second Class Dogs


Greyhound Dog Racing Tips.

I used to spend my summers at Hinsdale, a small greyhound track in NH. Hinsdale went bankrupt this year and closed and I was very disappointed. A lot of people thought that it was a rinky-dink track that should have closed long ago.

Hinsdale had a lot of dogs that couldn't make it at other New England tracks like Raynham, Wonderland and Lincoln. It also had puppies who were having a hard time getting their careers started because of problems they had with learning the racing ropes. Then there were the older dogs, some of them formerly very good, who just didn't have the speed to win at better tracks anymore.

Even the betting was second class at Hinsdale. You could bet dollar quinielas and ten cent superfectas, which meant that anyone could have a lot of fun for a little bit of money. I once spent a Saturday there and won enough to pay for my motel for a week, with a few dollar quinielas and ten cent superfecta bets.

The thing about so-called second-rate tracks, is that the dogs don't know that the track isn't a top track. When greyhounds run, whether they're champions or duds, they run just as fast as they can, no matter what track they're at.

So, to me, the races were just as exciting as races anywhere else. Better yet, I seem to have a knack for handicapping young dogs and not-so-great dogs, so I found it easier to make money. If you followed the dogs there, you could figure out which ones were good bets and which ones weren't, just like you can at any track.

It was interesting to watch young dogs arrive at Hinsdale and gradually get sorted out and learn how to race, until they climbed up the grades and then went to a better track to continue their careers. It was also nice to see older dogs get a chance to run, because they were obviously happy to race, even if they couldn't go as fast.

If you live near a second-rate track, give it a try. Don't assume that you can't make money unless you bet at a first-rate track. Don't assume that you'll make MORE money at a first-rate track either. Sometimes, it's actually easier to pick dogs when they're not Grade A dogs.

Greyhound Dog Racing.

Winning at the Dog Track With Other Peoples Money


Greyhound Dog Racing Tips.

To win at the dog track, you have to be smarter than the people who are betting against you. Pari-mutuel betting, which is how we bet on greyhounds, is betting against the other people at the track - not against the track itself.

So, if you win, you're cashing in with other people's money. It's as simple as that. What isn't simple is how to learn how to handicap better than the crowd. If you ask any five people how they handicap dog races, you'll probably get five different answers.

One may handicap using speed figures. The next might use the pace of the race or the post position stats or the track bias. Some people actually use dice to pick dogs or birthdays or their lucky numbers. None of this is much help in teaching you how to develop your own handicapping method, is it?

So, what you have to do is figure out, by yourself, which factors you think matter the most when it comes to predicting which dogs will run in the money. Is it speed, pace, post position, running style, days from a layoff, trainer or kennel standings or which kennel is "hot" right now?

Or, and this makes more sense, is it a combination of some or all of those factors? But which ones are more important? And do they all apply equally to ALL the grades? Does what works in Grade A work in Grade D?

That doesn't sound likely, does it? So there you are, back to Square One again and thinking that maybe you'll take up something easier like rocket science or the stock market. But it doesn't have to be this way.

Take a deep breath. Get a program and start going over it slowly and without thinking about what other people have told you. Look for patterns. Look at how post position, speed, pace and running style affect each race.

Take your time and really study hundreds or even thousands of programs until you get a feel for how to pick contenders. That's how you develop YOUR system of greyhound handicapping. If you don't see anything, then maybe you need some help from someone with more experience.

Greyhound Dog Racing.

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Winning at the Dog Track With No Surprises


Greyhound Dog Racing Tips.

Greyhound handicapping is no match for reality, as my friend Willie says. I believe the first time he said it was when we were sharing a ticket on a speedball that had just won in M, J, D and C and was about to knock the competition dead in B. He was a dead cert. The only early speed in the race. As a matter of fact, the only class dog in the race, who had run in A a few races ago, was a closer who looked like he couldn't get out of his own way when he ran in his last six races, which were all in A.

So Willie and I were leaning on the fence, preparing to watch "Speedball" win for fun and wondering why he was at odds of 5-1 instead of 2-1. Well, shortly after the dogs broke out of the box, we were wondering why he wasn't at odds of 50-1 because he didn't even try. He broke out of the box okay, but then he kind of hesitated, looked to his right and left and then settled in at the back of the pack and stayed there 'til the end of the race.

The dog who had been running in A races, however, the closer, broke out of the box like he was shot from a cannon, raced to the lead and came in five lengths ahead of the second dog. Willie and I looked at our programs, thinking maybe we'd missed something in the winner's lines, but he'd never broken out of the box before in any of his last six races.

So what did they do to him to make him break this time? Did they switch dogs on us? Did they "juice him up" somehow? Did they hypnotize him into thinking he was a breaker instead of a closer? What the heck happened here, we asked ourselves, as we tore up our losing ticket.

From the perspective of thirty years at the track, I can look back on that race and tell you what probably happened. It had nothing to do with race fixing, switching greyhounds or juicing them up. It had to do with two handicappers who didn't know then what they know now. Class beats flash every time. No matter how great a young dog looks against older more classy dogs, don't ever think that the younger dog is a shoo-in.

Even a dog who almost never breaks fast out of the box, may break, if it's in with lower grade dogs, especially young ones. Dogs form a pack every time they race. If you think about it, they're in the lockup cages right next to each other. The dogs for each race are weighed together. Then they're led out to the track and often stand there with the leadouts holding them while their muzzles and blankets are checked.

During that time, they form a pecking order, because dogs always have a pecking order. The dog who has run in A knows that he's classier and faster than these losers he's running with today and he gets cocky. Maybe that's why, when the box opens, he's out of there like a shot, unlike his usual closing style. He may be tired of trying to close on A dogs who always beat him out of the box and that might be why he takes advantage of this race where he's able to take the lead for once.

Of course, that's just my theory. I base it on seeing dogs break in lower grade races when they've never broken in higher grade races. Now, when I see a dog who always closes in higher grade races, and he's in a lower grade race, I go to Greyhound Data and check to see if he's ever broken fast out of the box when he was in lower grade races. If he has, especially if it's the grade he's running in today, I consider him a contender. If I'm lucky and he's up for it, my dog just might surprise the other bettors, but not me. I've done my research.

Greyhound Dog Racing.

Winning at the Dog Track With Insider Tips


Greyhound Dog Racing Tips.

When I first started going to the track, greyhound racing was in its glory days. They still paraded the dogs to the starting boxes with a post parade and even played march music when they did it. The bettors paid attention too, because there were no simulcasts, slots or poker rooms to distract them. Greyhound handicappers watched each race carefully, made notes on their programs and some of them even kept track of First to Turn Times.

Purely by accident, the area I chose to sit in up in the grandstand was where the kennel owners and dog handlers sat. They'd talk about their dogs and I'd listen and pick up tips that you just can't get without listening to insiders. I didn't do it on purpose, but it was a lucky break and has a lot to do with my attitude toward winning at the dog track.

What insider information did I learn? Well, I don't remember all of it. I've learned so much over the last 30 some-odd years that I'm not sure where it all came from. But here are a few insider tips that I picked up from the kennel owners and dog trainers.

Young dogs need more running room than older, seasoned dogs. So if you see a young dog with good early speed in the 8 box, give him a close look. If he can outbreak the other dogs, he has a good chance of running away with the race.

If there's a lot of early speed in a race, look for a dog who can close at the end of the race. Many times, the speedballs burn each other out and the closer gets in there at the end.

If a young dog wins within 3 races of starting in M, bet it in its first race in J or D, whichever the racing secretary puts it in, at least in quinielas.

Never bet a young dog in its first race in A or AA, whichever is the top grade at the track. No matter how good it looks, it has a very small chance of running in the money in its first race.

Big, male dogs often take longer to get into their stride, as puppies, than smaller females. They mature more slowly but may still turn out to be good dogs. Because they take so long to get out of M, they may be good bets when they start running closer to the winners. Keep an eye on them.

The best distance dogs are often small females, and they very often have long careers. If you look at route races, it's interesting how many times a female wins. Keep an eye on them, especially if they have a few shorter sprint races to "freshen them up".

I can't tell you how many times knowing these few things has helped me win at the dog track. They don't always work, but they work often enough to make them worth knowing. They're something to keep in mind when you're handicapping the dogs.

Greyhound Dog Racing.

Winning at the Dog Track With Good Advice


Greyhound Dog Racing Tips.

When I started with greyhound handicapping, I was in my late twenties and as numb as a pounded thumb about dog racing. Luckily, I had several more experienced mentors to give me advice and keep me from ending up in the poorhouse. That's one of the reasons I write articles about how to win at the dog track now. I remember how it felt to want to win, way back when I was too clueless to pick a winner in a one-dog race.

Here in no particular order is some of the best advice I ever got:


  • Never bet a puppy in his first A race (or AA at some tracks, whatever the top grade is), no matter how good he looks or how fast he came up through the grades. They almost never win. (From an old-timer at Lincoln Greyhound Park, now called Twin Rivers.) He was right. You know, in 30 years of watching dog races, I've almost never seen a puppy win its first race in the top grade.

  • Never bet more than four dogs in a quiniela or trifecta box. It's almost always too costly to pay off. And if you can't narrow a race down to four or fewer real contenders, you should just lay off and wait for a better race.

  • Never bet on the basis of schooling races. Period. (And that includes Maiden races where one dog has fantastic times and has won every schooling race it was in.)

  • Never bet more when you're losing. It rarely works and you'll just end up losing even more.

  • Never blame the dogs when you lose. They have no idea you bet on them and know less about greyhound racing than you do. They're not trying to lose on purpose or do you dirt. They're just dogs doing what dogs do - chasing something with a bunch of other dogs. Truth to tell, the dogs are the only dog track fans who almost always go home happy about the races.

Greyhound Dog Racing.

Winning at the Dog Track With Dogs Who Disappoint


Greyhound Dog Racing Tips.

"Disappointed." Have you ever seen that term in a dog's lines on a racing program? Well, it doesn't mean that the dog was disappointed because it didn't win, although a lot of bettors probably were. It means that the chart writer was disappointed in the dog's performance in that race. This is one of those lines that I could do without along with a few others like: trouble (who caused the trouble - that dog or another dog?), no excuses (like dogs ever make excuses), and six lines for a dog and they never mention whether it ran inside, midtrack or outside, so you don't know where it runs without checking prior programs. But don't get me started on chart writing...

To get back to dogs who disappoint... If you've been to the dog track more than once, I'm sure you've been disappointed by a dog. Or two or three. Any greyhound handicapper who puts effort and time into learning the craft will eventually be disappointed by a dog. Unfortunately, there's not much you can do about it. After all, unless you're a lead-out, you can't very well go to the finish line, put your hand under the dog's chin, look it in the eyes and say with a quaver in your voice, "I'm very disappointed in you, Sparky. I expected you to do much better in this race."

Ah, but that's the thing about dogs who disappoint. They disappoint because we think - for whatever reason - that they should have done better than they did. We handicap for grade, class, speed, form and/or whatever other elements we use to handicap a dog race, and we decide that this dog should do well in this particular race. Then it doesn't and we're pretty dad-blamed disillusioned with the hound. But did the dog REALLY disappoint us?

Or did our handicapping leave a little to be desired? Did we overlook the fact that the dog has been running for months and is going out of form and needs a layoff, because it's getting stale? Did we neglect to notice that the dog hates the six box and has never done well from it, although it's run in the money from inside boxes and the eight box?

Did we not know that this dog needs to see the lure to run and it couldn't in this race, because it got blocked on the rail by a huge dog that outbroke it, like we should have known it would if we'd really gone over the program? What else didn't we take into consideration? Why were we - and the chart writer - so sure that this dog should have done better? (Outside of the fact that we both had a bet on it, that is.)

Dog racing isn't an exact science and greyhounds aren't robots. Sometimes, dogs who look like shoo-ins poop out and lose to dogs who don't look half as good as they do. When this happens, the crowd often cries "foul" and starts ranting about trainers stiffing their dogs and inside money fixing races. I'm not saying this kind of thing never happens - there's a lot of money at dog tracks. But I don't think it happens nearly as often as people think it does.

Sometimes, it just works out that dogs don't run as good a race as it seems like they should. Whether they just don't feel inspired that day. Whether they're tired or out of sorts or for whatever reason, sometimes dogs, like people, have an off-day. Unfortunately, when greyhounds have an off-day, it's in front of thousands of people, a good portion of whom has money riding on them.

So if any chart writers are reading this, maybe they could change "disappointed" to "didn't run as well as usual" or "seemed to be having an off-day". That way, the bettors will know that this is a decent dog who just didn't run as well as it usually runs, without implying that the dog let us down on purpose. One of the things I like the most about the dog track is that dogs never intentionally run a lousy race.

When greyhounds come out of the box, they run as fast and as well as they can, given the circumstances of that race. I've never been disappointed in a greyhound yet, although I have wondered why some of them ran like nuts. But that's another article.

Greyhound Dog Racing.

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Winning at the Dog Track With Consistency


Greyhound Dog Racing Tips.

Winning greyhounds are consistent greyhounds. In my opinion, if you're not handicapping for consistency, you're not going to win at the dog track. When you think about it, consistency is just another word for class. If a greyhound doesn't run in the money at a certain grade, it drops down. If it wins once in awhile, but keeps bouncing around from D to C to B and then back down again, it's very hard to predict when to bet on it.

When you're handicapping your program and you come to a dog like that, I think you should think about whether you really want to bet the race. And if there are a couple or three inconsistent dogs in the race, I say "give it a pass". One or more of them may come in, or they may not. It's impossible to tell. When I see a race with these maybe/maybe not dogs, I pass it by and look for a better race. One with more dependable dogs in it.

I like to see dogs who are in the money at least a third of the time in the same grade they're running in the current race. I like dogs who have no or few trouble lines in this grade. (If they have some at a higher grade, I look back over their record and consider whether they only have trouble when they're outclassed at too high a grade.)

Consistent dogs exist at every level, from the top A or AA races all the way down through the lowest grades. There are dogs who find a niche in C and stay there most of the time throughout their careers. They're not bad dogs. They're just "C" dogs. Put them in A and they'll probably race all over the place, trying to catch up with the faster dogs. Put them in C and they'll settle down and run a smart race, because they can handle the pace in C.

Greyhound handicappers have to be consistent too. If you're "all over the place" with your betting, for instance, you're not going to win at the dog track. If you bet quinielas in one race, tri-keys in the next race and three dogs to Win, Place and Show every once in awhile, how in the world can you handicap a program?

Over the last thirty years, I've found that finding a bet that works best for you and that you can afford makes it much easier to handicap the dog races. For me, it's 4-dog quiniela boxes. That way, when I go over a race, I already know that I want to end up with the four dogs that I think have the best chance of being in the quiniela. I start my handicapping by picking the four dogs that I DON'T think have a shot at coming in, throw them out and play the other four in a box.

If I'm ahead, I might also play those four dogs in a Ten Cent Superfecta, just to add a little spice to my day. I don't play one to Win, even if one of the four looks better than the others to me and is going off at long odds. I don't make side bets or "just in case" bets. I sit in my seat or lean on the fence until the race goes off with my quiniela box ticket in my pocket.

After the race, I cash my ticket or put it aside to add to my other losing tickets, so that I can keep track of how much I'm winning or losing. Then I mark my program, so that when I look over it at home later that night, I can tell what happened in the race, whether I won or lost. I do this consistently, even when I hit a losing streak and would rather not go over the races where I lost.

Over the years, I've made more money than I've lost at the track and I think that consistency is one of the big reasons. I'm not one of the big winners who hit trifectas and supers by betting big, expensive, complicated wheels and keys. I guess I'm more of a "C" dog, consistently picking quinielas and cashing enough tickets to make a nice little profit.

Greyhound Dog Racing.

Winning at the Dog Track With Connections


Greyhound Dog Racing Tips.

No, not those kind of connections; there's no godfather of greyhound racing, no matter what anyone tells you. I'm talking about the kind of connections that give you a lot more information than the track program. Access to information that 99% of the other people you're betting against don't know about and won't look for.

To them, it's too much trouble. Easier to buy a tip sheet, play your dog's birthday and complain when your "numbers" don't come in. When will people learn. You play numbers on your Powerball ticket. You play dogs at the greyhound track. In order to play the right dogs, you have to handicap with as much information as possible. Six races back isn't gonna make it for some races. Most races, if you're a serious handicapper.

But who wants to keep every program from every card or go over the online programs until your eyesight is blurry from trying to find what you're looking for. There's a better way and it all begins with a few links. The most important one, in my opinion, is Greyhound Data. They're the goods.

You can find out everything you'd ever want to know at this site - except whether the dog is going to win her next race, of course. Although, after you get done looking at the data here, you should certainly have a better idea if the dog can win. If the dog has raced anywhere in the world, you can see all of its statistics: where it raced, when it raced, who it raced against, who its sire and dam were and its litter mates.

You can search by dog, by track, by race. Want to find out the best times at Derby Lane between February 2008 and March 2008? You can go to "races" and search on those terms and many, many others. Want to see what a dog did at its former track? It's only a click away. So are Simple Race Statistics, Time Based Race Statistics and Advanced Race Statistics.

One word of caution. Don't get carried away and miss the first race. I've done that. I love researching. I also love keeping up with what's going on in the world of Greyhound Racing, but that isn't as easy to do as it used to be when there were magazines that followed the sport. In lieu of that, there's The Greyhound Daily News from the National Greyhound Association. It has news on stakes races and what's going on at the tracks.

The more you know, the more likely it is that you'll have the winning edge on the other bettors. I don't know how many times I've caught something in the database that made me realize something I didn't see on the program. Connections can make all the difference and these are just a click away. If you'd like these links and more, visit my site.

Greyhound Dog Racing.

Winning at the Dog Track With Class


Greyhound Dog Racing Tips.

Greyhound handicapping is all about finding the keys to winning. Class is one of the things that almost everyone says is one of those keys, but that doesn't mean that everyone agrees on what "class" really is.

To some bettors, "class" means grade. To them, a "class dog" is one who runs in the highest grade at their track. A dog who can compete with the best dogs at the track and win or at least run in the money often enough to stay in the top grade. That's one definition of class.

To other people, class just means what grade the dog is running in at the time. Is he a "Class C" dog or a "Class A"? If you tell them you're handicapping for class, they don't have a clue what you're talking about, because every dog has class. It's right on the program at the top of the race page. "See, this is a Class D race," they'll tell you. "It says Grade D on the program."

In my opinion, and I always have one, class means more than grade. When I handicap to find the "class" dogs in the race, I'm looking for qualities that depend on more than grade. For instance, in a Grade A race, there may be two dogs who have just run in AA and three dogs who have just run in B and three other dogs who run in A and stay in A. So how do I decide which dog is the class dog in the race?

I could just say that the three dogs who are dropping down from AA are the class dogs, because they've been running with a better "class" or "grade" of dog. But if I look at those dogs, I might find that one of them has been in stakes races, while another got up into AA and wasn't able to keep up with the pace, so it ran at the back of the pack in every race or got into trouble. Obviously, the dog who ran in stakes races is "classier" than the one who can't keep up with the pace in AA.

In a D race, there might be puppies coming up from M or J who have won a race by 10 lengths and with a terrific time, dogs who have been in C or even higher during this meet, and a dog who is shipping in from another track where it was winning in B. So who's the class dog here? What about the shipper? Well, that depends on the grade of the track it came from. If the track is a better track than this one, I'd have to consider it. If it's a lower grade track, I'd give it a miss.

What about the puppy, especially if its litter mates are burning up the track in B and even A? Wouldn't it be a classy dog? Well, once again, that depends on my judgment of the other dogs, although it's rare that I consider a puppy - no matter how dazzling its wins look in M and J - classier than a dog that has won at a higher grade. Sometimes, there IS no class dog in the race. These are races where the dogs' records are so similar that not one stands out above the others. These are races to watch, rather than play.

What does "class" mean to you? Do you look for "class" when you handicap the program? Do you ignore it and go with other factors? We all have our own handicapping systems and what works for me might not work for you and vice versa. However, I consider "class" an important factor in greyhound handicapping, and think that it's impossible to handicap successfully without taking "class" into consideration. How's the "class" of your handicapping?

Greyhound Dog Racing.

Winning at the Dog Track With a Clue


Greyhound Dog Racing Tips.

This week at the track, I was standing in line ready to place a bet. The guy in front of me, who'd been reading his program while we stood there waiting, plunked his program down on the counter, ran his fingers over the dogs' lines and said to the clerk,

"So who do you like to win this?"

The tote just said, "I'm sorry, sir, I can't advise you."

"That's too bad," the guy said, "Because I don't have a clue."

And he stood there reading his program until the tote told him he had to bet because there were other people behind him. He moved his head up and down, his eyes scanning the page and then he made three or four tri-key and tri-wheel bets. By that time, I think he'd raised the blood pressure of everyone in line and the tote's too. But I didn't mind.

I always feel better when I know that I'm betting against people who don't have a clue and won't do anything about getting one. These are the people who don't get a program until they get to the track, about ten minutes before the first race goes off or even after it's gone off.

They're the people who don't make up their mind what they're going to bet until they're standing in line or even up at the window. Then they make a spur of the moment decision based on a quick look for the dog with the early speed or the one who has the most First To Turns or one who is "due" because it hasn't won for a few races.

Some of them could probably be good handicappers if they settled down and got there early and went over the program in more depth. Sometimes they remind me of one of my kids who has ADHD. When he's doing his homework, he skims right over it, missing half the facts, because he wants to get it over with quickly so he can do something fun. He doesn't do very well on tests, even though he's a smart kid who would like to get better grades. Sometimes, he even asks me for answers so he won't have to look them up. (I don't give them to him, but he keeps trying.)

The bettors who skim their programs really fast, so they can get to the fun part - winning - are like my kid. They want the prize without the fight. They want someone to give them the answers. They want to skip right over the boring handicapping part and get to the winning part. And that's why they never get there. It's like thinking you can get to college without getting good grades in high school.

Don't be clueless. Get your program early. Go over it in as much depth as you can. Keep records so you'll know whether what you're doing is working or not. Don't ask other people for picks. That's as bad as using the tip sheets that everyone and his brother is using.

Most of all, please, please don't get in line while you're still deciding what to bet. If you can't decide in time to bet without handicapping in line, you should lay off the race and spend the time handicapping the rest of the program so that you do better on those races.

Greyhound Dog Racing.

Monday, June 25, 2012

Winning at the Dog Track From Memory


Greyhound Dog Racing Tips.

I hate losing, don't you? I don't know anyone who enjoys being wrong and that's what losing is in greyhound handicapping. You use every skill you have, you make your best picks and you bet them. If they win, you probably watch all the replays on the monitor, write the amounts of what you won on the program page and look at them again a few times when you get home. But what do you do if you lose?

I used to hate to look at the replays when I lost. Bad enough seeing my dog get picked off by another dog on the first turn once, never mind watching it twice or three times. And even though I knew I should look at the program again to see if I could see what I'd missed when I handicapped it, I'd put it off. Maybe the next morning, after a few cups of coffee and a donut or two to give me strength, I'd haul out the program and go over the race where I'd lost. Big mistake.

By the time I did that, the race was kind of hazy in my mind. After all, unless it was the last race, there were races after it and several hours afterward for me to forget some of what happened. Worse yet, since I'd probably handicapped the race for the first time a day ago, I no longer remembered why I picked what I picked, especially if I hadn't marked the program in great detail.

Do you ever look at your program and see something that looks like it might be something you'd written and wonder what the heck it is? I used to do that. In the heat of handicapping, I'd write a little note to myself in shorthand, figuring that I'd remember what it meant. Then I'd go back a few hours or days later and read, "2 D4 inside or out?" and it might as well have been in another language.

Now, I've learned that no matter how painful it is, I need to go over all the losing races as well as the winning ones. If I don't catch my mistakes right away, I'll just keep making the same ones. (Hey, if you're going to make mistakes, at least make different ones, I say. It keeps life from being boring.) So after every program, as soon as possible, I go over my program.

Ideally, I do it once right after the race ends and I've watched the replays on the monitor. That way, I can compare what I thought would happen to what actually happened and maybe figure out why it worked out that way. Then I make a note to myself in plain English, so that I can go over it again when I get home.

Going over your programs right away and making notes for future reference is one good way to increase your odds of winning at the dog track.

Greyhound Dog Racing.

Winning at the Dog Track For a Living


Greyhound Dog Racing Tips.

Is it possible to make a living at the track? Well, I'd have to say, yes, because I know several people who do just that. How do they do it? That's the downside to making a living at the track. They work at it - harder than they'd work at a 9-5 job.

One of them, a young woman who started playing the dogs when she worked as a lead-out to help put herself through college, is very successful. She's also very disciplined. She gets up early in the morning to get the programs for the four tracks she plays and often doesn't go to bed until after the track closes in the wee hours of the morning.

She pores over the programs and all the other data she needs to handicap. Then she picks her bets, but is prepared to be flexible if things change. That's why she doesn't just put her bets down and go off to the mall for the day. She calls her system The Gestalt System. Hey, I told you she was going to college.

What she means is that she considers the whole "gestalt" or pattern of events that's taking place at the track at the time that she makes her bets. Her theory is that every race program is unique and has a pattern and if you can find that pattern, you can make money. All I know is that it works for her and someday when she writes it up maybe I can figure out how it works and share it with you. But, for now, all I can tell you is that she works her patoot off to make money. The dog track is her life and she has no time for a social life or friends or anything else, except handicapping.

That's not for me, although I've lived off my track winnings in the past and they certainly supplement my living now. What you have to do to make a living at the track is too much like work, if you ask me. It takes all the fun out of it to my mind. Nope, I'd rather enjoy myself at the track without the pressure of having to earn my daily bread by picking the right dogs.

That doesn't mean that I don't intend to make money when I go to the dog track. But it does mean that I make sure there's money in the bank to pay my bills before I take off for the track. It also means that I get to spend what I win on fun stuff instead of bills and groceries. I guess I'm just a loafer when it comes to making bread at the track.

Greyhound Dog Racing.

Winning at the Dog Track Fashionably


Greyhound Dog Racing Tips.

Not that I think that dog tracks should have dress codes, but I can tell you that fashion can have a big effect on handicapping the greyhounds. What you wear and your accessories can mean the difference between winning at the dog track and losing your (alligator festooned) shirt.

Now, no one could accuse me of being a snappy dresser. My wardrobe consists of jeans, t-shirts and flannel shirts. For winter I have this heavy wool sweater with pockets and a hood. My shoes are sneakers.

I don't carry anything when I go to the dog track, except for a paperback book that fits into my back pocket, a pen and a very small notebook that both fit into my shirt pocket. My car keys clip onto my belt loop. My cell phone stays in the car. I don't need a laptop because the track is no place to be handicapping with a laptop as far as I'm concerned. (It's too noisy, too busy and too late.)

I'm not saying everyone should dress like me, but I can tell you that it's a lot easier for me to operate at the track than it is for some of the people I see there all the time. There are the women with big handbags, who have to dig around in them to find their wallet every time they go up to bet. Then they stand there, counting out dollar bills as if they had no idea that they'd need that money to bet with until they got to the window.

"Oh! I need to give you money? Oh dear, it's at the bottom of my purse in my wallet. Let me get it out."

So the line waits and fumes until Madam comes up with her money and goes away until the next race when she'll do the same thing all over again. Of course, her hubby is probably at another window, trying to get his oversized wallet out of his tight jeans pocket while the announcer says it's last call and the line is a mile long. Why don't they get it?

Then there are the cell phone addicts who stand there yakking with only half their minds on the bets they're making. (Probably for someone else, which is illegal, but that's another story.) There are people who have so many pockets that they don't know where their money is, so they look like Captain Kangaroo looking for a carrot for Bunny Rabbit every time they bet.

There are people in halter tops and short shorts who have absolutely no place to put anything - including their betting slips - so they put them down all over the place and forget to pick them up. Or like one woman I saw, they put them down the neckline of their top and then have to do the shimmy shake to get them out to see if they won. Good entertainment for the rest of us, but not a good way to keep your mind on handicapping.

You see people with backpacks and fanny packs, who can't sit on anything with a back because they can't lean back. They hunch over their programs on the benches and make me wish I'd become a chiropractor instead of a greyhound handicapper. I don't know how they can concentrate on the races when they're obviously so uncomfortable, but what do I know?

There are women - and some men - with such high-heeled shoes or boots that by the end of the program, their feet are killing them and they can't think about anything except getting home and soaking them in epsom salts. (If anyone still does that.)

All of this is not to say that there's anything wrong with looking good or wearing what pleases you. It's to make the point that you need to be comfortable to concentrate on winning at the dog track. It's really hard to handicap when your feet hurt or you can't find a pen in your purse or you're carrying so much stuff that you can't hold a cup of coffee or a hot dog and you're starving.

I'm comfortable in t-shirts and jeans with a flannel shirt with pockets. Maybe you're a woman who's comfortable in a skirt and blouse with a small purse where you can stash your pen in an outside pocket and your money in an inside pocket that you can get to easily. Maybe you're a guy who likes to wear the suit you wear to work and carry your briefcase for your old programs, your calculator and your colored markers.

It doesn't matter, as long as you can move around freely, hold your program comfortably, eat and drink without a big hassle and make your bets without holding up the line. I may not be fashionable, but I'm comfortable and I can keep my mind on what I'm doing well enough to win. Whatever you wear, winning is always in fashion.

Greyhound Dog Racing.

Winning at the Dog Track by Getting With the Program


Greyhound Dog Racing Tips.

Let's say you go to the track a couple or a few times a week. You usually meet some friends there and you all have a good time, drinking coffee, sitting together, going over your programs and talking about the dogs. It's a pleasant way to while away an afternoon or evening, but it's not the best way to handicap greyhounds. Here's one reason why.

Usually, the conversation goes something like this:

Jimmy: So what do you think of the four dog in the first race?

Al: He's a fighter. He gets to the front and as soon as another dog gets near him, he turns his head and fights. I wouldn't bet him if he was the only dog in the race.

Bruce: I don't see any lines here where he fights. Where do you see that?

Al: I've seen him do it a million times. The chart writer just doesn't write it up that way. Trust me, I know my dogs and this dog is a fighter.

So even if they have doubts about how well Al knows his dogs, everyone in that group now has some doubts of their own about the four dog. No matter which track you go to, there are always people who claim that they "know the dogs" better than the chart writers or the other bettors.

Some of these people don't even use their programs to handicap. A few of them don't even BUY a program. They just look at other people's programs for the dogs' names and then tell you how they ran in the past. They'll tell you that they "follow the dogs" and "keep track in their heads". They probably even believe that they do, but they don't.

Dogs go in and out of form. Even the best dogs change over the course of their careers. And the bottom line is that no one - not even Einstein in his prime or Jimmy the Greek - could remember hundreds of dogs' histories and predict how they're going to run in any given race. It's impossible.

Not only that, we all remember things the way we want to remember them. We have selective memory at the best of times and when emotions are running high as our dogs carry our hopes for winning around the oval, our memory isn't working at full capacity. If we bet on a dog that usually closes and it doesn't close well, we may notice and remember that it was cut off by another dog, or we may get the impression that it just didn't close for no reason at all and decide that it's a quitter.

If we see a dog go wide on the turns in a sprint race, we may call it a wide-runner for the rest of its life, when it was really only wide in that one race, because the dog next to it, a fighter, kept forcing it out. Or it may only run wide in sprints and we don't remember that and it wins for fun in a route race and we wonder why it didn't go wide this time. We see what we want to see.

What we should be looking at when we handicap the dog races is the dogs' lines for its last six races. At least. I go back a lot farther than that with online data, especially if I'm at a track I haven't been to in a while. I look at these "past performance" lines to get an idea of whether the dog is going into or out of form, whether it's going to be happy with its box and whether it's done well at this grade in the past.

I use facts and figures, not my own faulty memory, to tell me if the dog has a chance at beating the competition today. It doesn't matter what it did three months ago or - more importantly - what I think I remember that it did three months ago. What matters is what always matters in greyhound handicapping. Class, Consistency and Competition.

You'll never be successful at winning at the dog track if you listen to people who don't look at the program. The best greyhound handicappers I know spend at least a couple of hours going over their program alone, before they ever join their friends at the track. And good handicappers never let themselves be swayed by what someone else thinks. They have faith in their own judgment, because they know they've done everything they can to put the odds in their favor.

Greyhound Dog Racing.

Sunday, June 24, 2012

Winning at the Dog Track Against the Competition


Greyhound Dog Racing Tips.

To win at the dog track, you have to be better than the average bettor. Because pari-mutuel betting is betting against the other bettors, not the track, it's the guy or gal next to you that you have to beat, not the announcer or the track owner or managers. (Unless they're betting too, which shouldn't be allowed, but that's another article.)

Obviously, most of the crowd is wrong most of the time. I think I read somewhere once that bettors pick the winner about 1 out of 4 times. Since the favorite doesn't pay very well, that wouldn't give you a profit, that's for sure. So if you want to win money at the dog track, you're going to have to think and bet differently from how the crowd thinks and bets.

A lot of people in the crowd play numbers - the 1/2 quiniela, their kids' birthdates, their house number or their car's plate number. This is not handicapping. This is like playing the lottery, which is probably what they should do with their numbers, if they really have to bet on them.

Another segment of the crowd plays the numbers at the bottom of the program. These predictions come from the track's designated handicapper, who may or may not have a clue as to who's likely to come in. Depending on someone else to pick dogs for you, especially when the picks are shared with everyone else at the track, isn't handicapping. It's a lazy way to lose money. Same thing with getting tips from friends, trainers and anyone else who tells you about a sure thing or some set-up that they heard is happening in a race.

Einstein, who was certainly smart enough to win at the track although I don't know if he ever went, said this: Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. That's what most of the crowd is doing when they try to win money at races. If you want to beat them, you have to figure out something different.

Handicap your program. Keep records. Pay attention to Class, Consistency and Competition when you pick dogs to bet. Don't look at the toteboard when you make your bets, because the toteboard only tells you what the crowd thinks the odds should be. It doesn't tell you what the odds should really be, based on sound handicapping.

Greyhound Dog Racing.

Winning at the Dog Track - Who Gets the Money


Greyhound Dog Racing Tips.

At the dog track, there's a winner in every race. There's also a dog who places and one who comes in third for show. Even if there are no exotic bets allowed in a race - and few races don't have some kind of exotic bet - someone wins money on one, two or three dogs.

You might be saying, "Well, duh! That's certainly stating the obvious!", but bear with me. There's a point I'm trying to make here and it may be one that you've never thought of before, even if you've been going to the dog track for years.

The point is that tickets are cashed on every race. There's no such thing as a race where no one has a winning ticket, at least not that I've heard of. Even when the winner is a long shot at incredibly long odds, someone has him. You can see the people walking up to the windows after every race, with their tickets out, ready to give them to the tote and get their money back.

So, if someone wins every race, why don't you win more races? What do those people know that you don't? Are they all dog owners, trainers and kennel staff? Do they all have someone planted inside the track to tell them which dog is going to win? Do they just pick lucky numbers?

My guess is that it's none of the above. True, some people do win because they have inside information and it happens more often than you know. But there are other people who win because they've figured out how to tell when dogs are good bets and when they're not.

With only basic handicapping skills, they use a method of picking winners based on key factors that most bettors know little or nothing about. And that's why, even though there are winners in every race, so few people figure out which dog will cross the finish line first. Even if they do, many times they have the winner, but miss one or two of the other trifecta dogs.

With these two key factors, the smart bettor can do better than just pick winners. He can also figure out how to bet so as to maximize his odds and minimize his risks. Just picking winners isn't enough to hit trifectas, because keying on one dog doesn't pay off over the long run. You have to have both keys to win at trifectas and some people just never find them or, worse yet, know enough to look for them.

Oddly enough, these key factors are right in the program, but almost no one knows what to look for or how to use the factors to bet and hit trifectas. While the key factors stare them in the face, most of the bettors are looking at other factors that have nothing to do with whether a dog is ready to win, place or show. And they do it over and over again, missing trifecta after trifecta, even when they have the winner. Even when they have two of the dogs in the trifecta!

There's an easy way to find dogs that are good trifecta bets - dogs who have a very good chance of hitting the board. Often these dogs aren't favorites or dogs that you'd normally put in your trifecta bets, but they're the dogs who are going to BE the trifecta. These are the Key Dogs and these are the dogs you have to have to win.

Greyhound Dog Racing.

Winning at the Dog Track - Should You Cover Your Bets


Greyhound Dog Racing Tips.

Every once in awhile, it happens to every greyhound handicapper. We make our bets, walk back to our seat and realize that we've left out a dog who looks really good. That's when a lot of people walk back up to the window and put a "side bet" on the dog, just to cover their bets.

I used to do that and, truth to tell, it probably cost me hundreds of dollars before I wised up. Rather than covering my bets, I realized over the years, that side bets are just betting against myself. But back in the days when I'd actually bet two dogs to win in one race, I just thought that I was covering all the angles.

True, once in awhile, you can bet two dogs, have one of them win and make money. (I cover that in my Marks Method System.) But, except for these special situations, if you pick the right dog in the first place and then bet it to win, you'll make out better. Those side bets can add up. I've had nights when I've made so many side bets that I didn't have enough money to bet what I'd intended to bet - dogs that I'd handicapped. Dogs that came in while I stood there with empty pockets.

Side bets are a drain on your bankroll and a distraction. If you look at any race for long enough, you can talk yourself into thinking that almost any dog has a chance to come in. That's why I think it's best to go over your program, make your choices and stick with them.

If you let someone talk you into betting on a dog, or you look at the odds board and see a dog going off at long odds, or you second-guess yourself all the time, you can go broke with side bets. True you might miss a good thing once in awhile, but over the long run, they don't pay off.

Of course, we tend to notice the ones that come in, and forget all the other ones that didn't come in. That's why it's important to keep records. I'm just like anyone else. I can convince myself of almost anything, but the records I keep don't lie. Best of all, they don't let me lie to myself about side bets or anything else that I've handicapped.

Greyhound Dog Racing.

Winning at the Dog Track - How to Handicap Route Races


Greyhound Dog Racing Tips.

There are far more sprint races - shorter races usually at 5/16ths of a mile or 550 yds - than route races at most tracks. Route races are around 610-660 yds. Marathons are a type of route race that is even longer, but there aren't many marathons at any track, so we'll stick with 660 yd routes for this discussion.

I like route races, though many don't. One of the things I like about routes is that they last longer than sprints and the dogs have more time to jockey for position and actually use some finesse to work their way up to the lead. The finish of a route is often exciting also, because dogs that close sometimes come charging up and nip the leaders at the wire. Routes are more like horse races to my mind.

That said, handicapping routes is a little different from picking winners in sprints. For one thing, contrary to most people's opinion, early speed IS important in routes. If you ask 20 track goers what the most important quality of a route dog is, 19 of them would say late speed. While that is also important in routes, early speed is more of a factor than you'd think.

One way to check is by looking at the results of some routes at your favorite track. Look at how the winners got out in most of the route races. Very few of them get out worse than 4th and the majority of them get out better than that. Too many bettors are looking only for late speed in route races and thinking that early speed dogs will get burnt out and fade at the end of the race, so they don't bet on them.

I like to bet quinielas, so I look for a good solid early speed dog who doesn't fade and then I look for a couple of closers who also get out pretty well and I box them. Of course, in addition to that I use my usual handicapping tools to eliminate as many contenders as I can. It's much easier to handicap a race when you've narrowed it down to four dogs than when you're looking at 8 dogs.

Another thing about routes is that so many people think that dogs are either route dogs or sprint dogs, not both. While it's true that there are dogs who prefer one distance or the other, many dogs can run sprints and routes and even go back and forth between them with no problem. Actually, sometimes a sprint race will "freshen" a dog who usually runs routes and vice versa.

It may take it a couple of races to get back into its stride, but if it's done well at routes in the past, switching to sprints for a few races won't make it forget how to run distances. I think dogs get bored with the same routine just like we do, so anything that gives them a change can have a good effect. That's why so many dogs do well after they come back from a layoff.

So in handicapping routes, look for the same thing that works in sprints, but remember that the dogs come out of the box on a curve rather than a straightaway and then have another curve almost right away, which affects their running style. Negotiating two curves before they get to the first real straightaway can result in dogs getting pinched back if they're not good at getting around curves even in sprint races.

This is why I'm leery of betting very young dogs in routes until they've had a couple of route races under their belts, or until they get a good box position. In routes, the best boxes are the inside boxes, especially for dogs who run the rail, because they have a big advantage coming out on that turn the way the route boxes do.

Wide runners don't do as well, because it's harder for them to make up the time they lose going wide on the first two turns in a route. Where in a sprint, they might go wide on the straightaway but still keep up with or pass the other dogs, if they go wide on the first two turns of a route, the other dogs who are running the rail have had two turns where they've gotten around a lot faster than the wide running dogs. It makes a big difference.

One other thing about route races that makes them attractive to me is that there aren't as many of them. This makes it a lot easier to follow a group of dogs that I consider likely contenders in route races at their grade. Keeping track of them is easy with Greyhound Track Data and I keep notes on my programs when they run so that I can bet on them in their next race if I think they'll be likely to run in the money.

Routes can pay off nicely if you learn to handicap them, because most people don't handicap them the right way. If you remember that they start on a turn and go into another turn almost right away, and look for early speed that doesn't fade, then look for a good closer or two, you'll go the distance and win at the track with route races.

Greyhound Dog Racing.

Saturday, June 23, 2012

Winning at the Dog Track - Does Age Matter


Greyhound Dog Racing Tips.

The general rule is that greyhounds run until they reach their 5th birthday. At least, that's what most "experts" have written over the years. However, if you look at a program, you'll find that there are dogs who are more than 5 at almost all the tracks.

As a matter of fact, if you check the dogs' ages at smaller tracks like Hinsdale and Ebro, you'll find many dogs who are older than 5. I once bet on a seven year old dog who won and paid $32, but that was back in my wilder and crazier days. The dog was a little female who got out pretty good, but not first, and closed at the end of the race.

It was beautiful to watch, the way she threaded her way through the pack and nipped the leader at the wire. But then, she'd been doing that for at least 6 years, so it was old hat for her. She was an exception. Most greyhounds are ready to hang up their muzzles by the time they're 5.

If a dog doesn't have any serious injuries, and it's a strong, healthy dog, it can still race when it's over 5, as long as it's legal in the state where it runs. Different states - and different tracks - have different rules. When you're handicapping the races and trying to decide whether an older dog is a contender, there are some things you have to take into consideration.

While older dogs can still run, no matter how good they are, over time they slow down. If they're breakers, they may not be able to outbreak the younger dogs. They'll start getting out second instead of first, and then third and fourth as they slow down. If they're closers, they may not have the same reserve of strength at the end of the race, so they'll close to second, then third, then fourth.

They'll be less consistent. Their win percentage will do down and their place and show percentages may go up. They may need more days between races to recover, but whether they get that or not depends on the racing secretary, their trainers and owners. This is something you can look for on the program when you see an older dog. Notice whether it's had more days off than other dogs.

Of course, there are some outstanding dogs - the dogs who win stakes races with very fast times - who manage to stay competitive longer than most dogs. These are the Mickey Mantles and Babe Ruths of dog racing. They're so much better than most of the other dogs that their decline isn't as noticeable. However, even super dogs reach a point where they either just can't make it in the lowest grade or go to the stud farm before they're too old for that kind of performance.

If you're concerned about age when you handicap, my advice is not to consider it a major factor like post position, running style, pace of the race etc. However, if it comes down to two dogs who are almost exactly alike for other factors, I'd take a close look at the older dog's in-the-money percentages. If they're low, it could indicate that the dog is slipping and not as likely to come in.

We all get old. I'm sure I was sharper when I was younger. But on the other hand, other factors compensate for sharpness as we age. I know I'm a better handicapper now than I was when I was younger. I may not be as fast, but I'm more thorough. Old dogs may not be as fast, but if they're still managing to avoid being graded off, you have to admit that they probably know their way around the track better than some of the younger dogs.

Greyhound Dog Racing.

Winning at the Dog Track - Are You a Real Handicapper


Greyhound Dog Racing Tips.

Not everyone who goes to the dog track is a handicapper. I've mentioned before that, in my opinion, most people who bet on the dogs are NOT handicappers. They're bettors, but there's a big difference between being a handicapper and betting on the dogs on hunches, with numbers or names or because someone gave you a tip.

If you bet your house number or on dogs named "Ryan" because that's your son's name, you're a bettor, but you're not a handicapper. If you always bet the 1/2 double because the 1 and 2 boxes are the best boxes at the track, you're still not a handicapper. "Best" doesn't mean that the 1 dog or 2 dog will be in the quiniela in this particular race.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not dissing anyone who enjoys a night out at the track and has fun betting on numbers or names or anything else they think is lucky. Heck, I know a couple of people who seem to have luck at this and one guy who is obviously cashing tickets who says he uses Numerology to pick dogs. Whatever floats your boat, I guess, and if you have the money to spend, I guess it's no worse than dinner and a movie. Possibly cheaper considering the price of popcorn at theaters these days.

But back to handicapping. I think what separates real handicappers from wannabe handicappers is that real handicappers are determined to master the mysteries of picking winners and they put a lot of effort into doing just that. They search out information wherever they can find it: on the Net, in books, from other more experienced handicappers and from owners and trainers if they can manage to find any that will talk to them.

Real handicappers aren't the guys who loudly proclaim that they had every winner right after the race or the guy who never looks at his program until five minutes before the race goes off. Real handicappers spend a lot of time going over their programs and researching until they begin to understand how to tell if a dog is ready to win. After all, that's the secret to winning at the track.

There are indications and real handicappers learn to spot them. That's why the guy next to you who's been going to the track for 20 years had that 6 dog that you thought looked so bad when it won. He knew that it had run against much better dogs and - even though it hadn't run in the money in its last two races in the next grade up - it had made an effort and had closed against good dogs in a fast race.

He also knew from researching the dog's record that it loves the 6 box and had won twice in this grade from that box. This is the kind of thing that real handicappers know. They may or may not buy systems, which is a way of learning from more experienced handicappers, but they're always looking for anything that will help them get an edge on the other bettors.

They know that the other bettors - not the dogs or the track - are who they're betting against. All they have to do is be smarter and better at handicapping than the crowd that's betting their birthdays and they can make money. Some people read books. Some people buy systems. Some people talk to longtime handicappers and pick their brains for free. Some very intelligent people manage to figure it out all by themselves, but I haven't met many of those in my lifetime.

Handicapping is part science and part art. It takes a special kind of person to get good at it, because of the effort it takes to learn the ropes. It's not easy, but it's very rewarding if you get good enough at it to actually make money at the dog track. And that, of course, is a big reason for being a real handicapper.

Greyhound Dog Racing.

Win With Greyhounds by Using Hunches to Pick Dogs


Greyhound Dog Racing Tips.

Have you ever had a hunch that something was going to happen and it did? It's a strange feeling, isn't it? It's almost like you can see the future. It's like you're psychic or something. Many people will tell you you're nuts if you tell them about hunches that come true. I used to be one of them, but I'm not anymore.

I read an article recently that said that hunches have nothing to do with whether you're psychic or not. They also have nothing to do with anything supernatural or paranormal. Nope. Scientists have studied hunches and have discovered that they're nothing more than very rapid judgments based on information that we don't even know we have.

It seems that our brains process information subconsciously and file it away for future reference. Then, when a situation comes up - like a race where you can't decide between two similar dogs - your brain uses that information to make a realistic prediction. We experience it as a hunch, but it's really nothing more than a well thought out decision.

It's just that we don't consciously know why we're making that decision, so we call it a hunch. And when it comes true, we figure that we had no control over making the decision, so we don't give ourselves credit for coming up with it.

Next time you have a hunch, look at the situation very closely and try to see if there's information that you're using without realizing it. Maybe you've seen this same situation before and that gives you a good idea of what's going to happen. Maybe it's handicapping knowledge that's so automatic that you don't even notice that you use it.

Keep track of your hunches. If they turn out to be right most of the time, use them. If not, maybe they're not hunches at all. Maybe you're picking up on something someone told you or information that's not helpful to the race you're handicapping. Hunches can work, but you have to separate the real hunches from the wishful thinking.

Greyhound Dog Racing.

Win More at the Dog Track With This Amazing One-Cent System


Greyhound Dog Racing Tips.

One of the hardest handicapping lessons is the one that deals with percentages and their effect on making money at the dog track. It's not just that math is involved. It's that most people don't know how to use percentage statistics when they're handicapping the races.

For instance, if a dog has had 100 races and has won 50, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that the dog has a 50% win percentage. Nor is it difficult to understand that the dog wins 1 out of 2 races that it runs. (By the way, I'd like to see more dogs with this kind of percentage, wouldn't you?)

So if this dog was running and had come in second in its last race, you'd be a fool not to bet it, right? Wrong. Take out that penny and I'll show you why.

Throw the penny up and catch it on your forearm - in other words, flip it - 100 times. Write down how many times the penny comes up heads and how many times it comes up tails. If it was perfectly balanced and you flipped it the same way every time, the penny would come up heads half the time and tails half the time.

It doesn't, because it isn't perfectly balanced and you don't throw it the same way every time. But it should be close to half heads and half tails. Now, look at where you wrote that down.

Does it look like this: heads, tails, heads, tails... alternating fifty times until you have a list of 100 penny tosses? Probably not. It's more likely that it's something like this: heads, heads, tails, tails, heads, tails, heads, tails, tails, tails... etc.

In other words, while the overALL percentage of times the penny came up heads is around 50%, it wasn't heads every other time or tails every other time. It was much more random, although it all added up to roughly 50% for heads and 50% for tails.

It's the same with greyhounds. They can have a percentage that shows that they win half the time, but they could have lost twenty races in a row and then won twenty, lost five, won five and so on. Just because a dog has won half its races, doesn't mean that it's more likely to win the next race after it loses a race.

It may go on to lose four more races before it wins again. Or it might lose this race and then win the next six. There's just no way to predict whether a dog is more likely to win or lose by using statistics. Statistics can only tell us what a dog has done in the past.

Unfortunately, we can't bet on past races. (Don't you wish we could?) So when you look at percentages, just use them as a guide, not a sure thing. It's more important that a dog has recently been running in the money, not that he was a few weeks ago, even if that's when he won the races that give him a good percentage.

Greyhound Dog Racing.

Friday, June 22, 2012

Win More at the Dog Track With the Trick That the Smart Money Wont Tell You About


Greyhound Dog Racing Tips.

You can't make money betting on longshots. They come in so infrequently that it just doesn't pay to bet them. Longshots are at long odds for a reason. Right?

I'm sure you've heard all that many times at the dog track. Everyone knows that longshots are a sucker bet. Well, everyone SAYS that they are, but is it really true? Think about it.

Now I'm not saying that you won't lose money if you only bet longshots. You will. But you'll also lose money if you only bet favorites too. Betting on anything that you haven't handicapped is a sure way to lose. But sometimes, longshots are better bets than favorites and you can make more money on them. That's for sure.

You see, the smart money at the track knows that the odds on a dog have nothing to do with whether it's a good bet or not. The only thing that matters is whether the dog has a chance to be in at the finish of the race. If the bettors think the dog can't win and bet it at 50-1, that doesn't stop it from coming in if it's a contender.

The trick is to know when a longshot is under-bet. How do you know if it is? Well, the same way you know that any dog isn't getting the betting action it should be getting. If you're halfway decent at greyhound handicapping or have a good system to pick dogs, you know whether a dog is likely to come in. If it is, you should be paying no attention to what the crowd thinks of it.

This is the secret that can make you big money at the dog track. Look for dogs who have something going for them that makes them better contenders than they look like they are. This happens a lot in races where there are one or two dogs that the bettors love to the point where they don't pay enough attention to the other dogs in the race.

Don't let yourself be dazzled by dogs that look like they can't lose. Any dog can lose, so it's important to look at all the dogs in the race, not just the best-looking one at first glance.

If you can find longshots that don't deserve to be longshots, you can cash in at the windows with the insiders who use this trick to make a living at the dog track.

Greyhound Dog Racing.

Win at the Dog Track Without Being Under the Influence


Greyhound Dog Racing Tips.

If you're a pretty good handicapper, you've probably got a handicapping system that works for you. You may not get rich, but you probably pick quite a few winners. You may bet quiniela boxes like I do and make enough to take your spouse out to dinner without spending your social security check.

But how many times have you picked a winner or a quiniela, but haven't won anything? Of course, you hate it when that happens. We all do. Sometimes, you're not even sure WHY it happened.

You marked the dog in the program. You walked up to place your bet. You stood in line and when you got up to the window, you didn't bet what you wrote down. Why did it happen?

Well, maybe you were going to bet the 6 dog and overheard a trainer telling another bettor that the dog was wormed yesterday and wasn't going to come in. That got you looking at the 6 and you decided that it didn't look that hot on second thought, so you bet on your second choice, the 8.

When the 6 romped home three lengths ahead of the other dogs and the 8 trailed the field, you were pretty disillusioned. But that didn't keep you from doing the same thing when you were in line three days alter and heard someone say that he had a tip that the 1 dog was juiced up and couldn't lose.

You looked at your program and saw where the 1 had won another race from the 1 box, so you changed your bet from the 3 to the 1. Too bad the 3 hit the board at 10-1 and the 1 was fourth.

Letting other people influence your betting is a really bad habit. Whether it's a tout, a tip sheet, the program picks or a friend, don't do it. Now, I'm not saying that you shouldn't pay attention to these things - although I never take tips from friends or touts. What I am saying is that you should have the confidence to stick with your picks, rather than trusting someone else's judgment.

Use a good handicapping system. Do your homework. Make your picks and bet them. That's the best way to win at the dog track.

Greyhound Dog Racing.