The previous issue of HH suggested that a sensible and effective approach to successful (profitable) handicapping would be to familiarize one’s self with the structure of racing. The doing of this would imply that the selector is then concentrating on horses that are racing where they belong. This is certainly a good way to start one’s search for that elusive potential winner.

One might try picturing the racing set-up as approximating a human's education from kindergarten through college. Kindergarten, of course, would be represented by 2-year-old and 3-year old maiden special weights in the early part of the year; more so with the juveniles because the weeding out process hasn’t started. My guess would be that these early races would show an abnormally high winning percentage for favorites.

Why? Because by the time these young horses are ready for racing everyone on the backstretch knows who the good ones are and the consensus is reflected in the betting action when they debut. However, as the season wears on this becomes less an less true as the good ones get weeded out and "promoted." The most difficult races to handicap are late season 3-and-up maiden claimers and maiden special weights. Such events usually consist of thoroughbreds who have been tried, many times, and found wanting.

Once in a great while a horse like Stymie comes along and after 19 failures gets claimed for $1,500 by a genius like Hirsch Jacobs and goes on to win almost a million dollars in purse money at a time when a million was real money. But, such occasions are as rare as hen’s teeth. On the whole you’re dealing with the unpredictable and, in our opinion, the selector could do far worse than simply avoid late maiden races; claiming and non-claiming. The non-claimers invariably consists of horses who have shown over and over that they can’t make the grade, but their connections are still hoping.

On the other hand, maiden claimers suggest that the stable (probably the owner) finally gave up hope of having a Kentucky Derby winner and is willing now to run his charge anywhere that offers a chance to garner some share of a purse.

Put yourself psychologically in an owner or trainer’s place and you’ll find it helpful in enabling you to get away from the bettor’s or grandstand perspective. Example: Imagine you have a colt that’s run eight or nine times in maiden special weights and has done no better than snare a third or fourth purse.

Today it’s entered in a maiden claimer for the first time. You can bet a lot of thought went into whether or not the horse should have been dropped down. Anytime a status change takes place pay attention. It doesn’t require much consideration or risk to simply run a thoroughbred back in its previous bracket. Contrarily, you can bet a lot of thought goes into either raising or lowering a horse in class. The point here is that one should minimize the time spent analyzing those horses that are simply running back against the same class it previously couldn’t defeat. Concentrate on those horses which are moving either up or down, and ask yourself if you had the say is this the move you’d make?

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