Why haven't I posted in more than nine years?
As Luther said to the garage attendant in 48 Hrs.: I've been BUSY!
What inspired me to return to the blogosphere?
Couple things.
One, I sat with a trio of thinking men's horseplayers at NHC in Vegas a couple months ago: NJ Horseplayer Bill Holobowski; NHC Players Committee member, 2025 NHC 61st-place finisher and onetwo-time qualifier Mike Langthorne; and a Wise Owl from upstate New York (who needs to stay anonymous for national security reasons). We talked about various things over the three days, including past and present racing writing and ideas for future ventures, and that planted the seed for me to dust off the ol' blog. (And dusty it was -- I needed a half a can of Pledge to get it going again.)
Two, I have something that I think is at least halfway interesting to write about: my system of race-replay watching.
I'll cover the ground in this exclusive Q&A with myself.
What's the backstory here?
One time early in the pandemic while driving to the beach I listened to a Racing with Bruno podcast in which Bruno spoke with a handicapper who had recently won a contest on a last-race longshot. The guy (I think it was Roger Cettina, but I can't seem to find the specific pod) talked about how the horse's form looked pretty crummy but he knew the horse was capable of closing at the right level and distance, and if there was early pace -- and that was exactly how the contest race played out.
That got me thinking. I had some success with kinda 'accidental' replay watching back in the early 2010s when I noticed a few interesting trips and entered the horses in DRF Horse Watch. But really, I hardly watched replays at all save for an occasional quick watch on my phone a few minutes before a contest race. Why not try it systematically?
What is your "system" exactly?
I pick horses, kind of at random, who make their first start at an NYRA track. I watch the replay of the horse's debut, making sure to watch the head-on of the start, and add it to my spreadsheet with about 40 words of trip notes which includes a conclusion about whether anything interesting took place.
Then I add the horse to DRF Watch List, and if/when the horse races again I watch and note. And then again and again. The idea is to "know" my horses in a way that isn't possible just by looking at PPs
I highlight especially interesting trips for horses I think are worth a close watch, maybe even a bet, next time. In previous iterations I found that I highlight about 5-8% of trips.
Currently, as of June 2025, I'm following all two-year olds that have made debuts at NYRA tracks. Being that I just started this up again fairly recently (and it's still early in the season for 2 yos), I have only 30 horses in my universe. I'm aiming to get up to the 100-125 range which should be a decent critical mass of horses and still be manageable.
I drop horses who don't run for 6 months, or who show up at tracks that aren't included in contests at Monmouth Park, which is mostly what I play.
What have been the results?
This is my third iteration of systematic replay watching -- tried it once for a year and a half or so between 2020 and 2022, and then a much smaller/shorter program in 2024.
I don't have empirical results or any ROI numbers, but I can say anecdotally, I'm convinced it works, ie it's better than the 'show up and throw up' handicapping system of grabbing a DRF when signing up for a contest and just scanning the pages for insights.
Safalow's Mission was an all-in score for me at a Monmouth contest; I had Wow in a decent little a la carte bet; Frosted Wild Ride had me (very briefly) on the top of the 2022 NHC leaderboard; Midtown Lights got me to the 2025 NHC.
Of course, like any handicapping process or system, it doesn't always work. A couple flops were What's Up Bro, who I loved a couple summers ago, Our Rosie Diamonds, who I chased more than once without success.
Again, while I have no hard data, I'm convinced it works, however it's much easier said than done. Which brings me to the next section...
What are the challenges?
One, it's a time sponge. It's tough to strike the right balance between having enough horses in the universe, and not having too many that it's just too damn much. Back around 2022 at one point I would sometimes get as many as 15-20 DRF Watch Mails on a single day, each of which I had to add to my Google doc, and then watch a whole bunch of race replays. After a while it started to feel like annoying homework, I got behind, and the whole thing (which at its peak got to be about 150-180 horses on a 1,000 line spreadsheet) just collapsed under its own weight. My second try at systematic replay watching was much smaller and shorter in duration but that too got to be too much. We'll see how this one goes, but I need to stay mindful about not trying to do too much. I want to keep the work to about 45 minutes, thrice per week.
Two, it can be frustrating, in that I'd estimate 80-90% of replay watches yield no real value. (Note, I don't mean 80-90% of races yield no value; I mean that 80-90% of replays when only watching one horse yield no value.) A horse runs a game, competitive second? That's nice, but most likely the odds will bake in that exact performance next time. A slow break that's cited on the chart? Same thing, no real value. A dull 7th place finish with no excuse? Yawn. I use a lot of shorthand in writing up replay notes and WYS is my acronym for "what you see," meaning that I don't expect the replay I just watched to produce any meaningful information beyond what will appear in the PP line.
What I'm looking for is some sort of subtlety that's not going to be captured on the PP chart that the betting public will see. Stuff like: breaking ok but quickly losing a lane and having to settle for a poor position; chasing wide in a no-chance trip that won't look that bad in the PPs; and when a rider doesn't try hard in the lane and an 8th-place finish isn't as bad as it looks. Replay watching is an art, not a science.
A third challenge is that when it comes to a race I'm interested in betting, replay watching will in all likelihood going to give me only a partial picture. Meaning, an eight-horse race may have three my horses running, one of whom I like, but what about the other five horses whose "stories" I don't know? For all I know one of them might be more compelling than the one I like. I can watch their replays too, but adding work to this project can be a slippery slope.
So, systematic replay watching ain't easy. But if it were easy everyone would do it right?
What's the future of this godforsaken blog?
I plan to post occasional updates of select watchlist horses with my rationale for why I think they're worth a look.
I expect posts will be quick hits, certainly nothing like this tome.
Any final words?
It's great to be back.
No comments:
Post a Comment