Help me make more sense of Run Styles, save for E runners...

[Robert Fischer]

I like looking at how I projected the flow & setup.

[mountainman]

Everybody bets the flow. These days if I don't differ with the apparent public take on how a race will unfold, I rarely wager.

On a (somewhat) related note. There just IS no substitute for watching races. Points of call are static snapshots that tell just snippets of the story-and, btw, prove woefully inadequate for purposes of profiling a surface.

[bisket]

Originally Posted by Robert Fischer

I like looking at how I projected the flow & setup.

This doesn’t usually happen in stakes, but some of my best hits are when the pace is really slow. It gives a plodder a look at the lead when they hit the stretch. Sometimes they’ll get to feeling like a million bucks and win, but you hope for second in a trifecta or super. Holding an unusual ticket pays vertically too. When the horse everyone adds to the end of a tri and super makes first or second that’s when it pays. I’ll have it boxed, so it’ll pay either way, but it’s really nice when they reach the front of the ticket. You need a field of ten or so. Big race days fields will fill in the Starter Allowances early in the card.

[BarchCapper]

Originally Posted by mountainman

Points of call are static snapshots that tell just snippets of the story-and, btw, prove woefully inadequate for purposes of profiling a surface.

This is something I have not appreciated as well as I should have in all my years of handicapping/playing. Being a better race watcher/replay watcher is one of my goals for 2024.

I think about a mile race - we get 4 calls of the second half of the race, and essentially NONE of the first half (consider the run-up before the timer starts as part of that first half). A lot goes on there, and of course much goes on between calls.

[mountainman]

Originally Posted by BarchCapper

This is something I have not appreciated as well as I should have in all my years of handicapping/playing. Being a better race watcher/replay watcher is one of my goals for 2024.

I think about a mile race - we get 4 calls of the second half of the race, and essentially NONE of the first half (consider the run-up before the timer starts as part of that first half). A lot goes on there, and of course much goes on between calls.

Hi, Tom. Your point is roughly analogous to my making a cross-country trek decades ago and then concluding I had "seen America." How ridiculous. What I'd seen was one thin sliver of latitude.

Upend those slivers, make them longitudinal, and you've got my Greyhound bus trip "points of call." (And please believe me, good sir: My extremely eventful trip was ALL about what happened between stops. LOL)

[classhandicapper]

The one thing I've grown to appreciate more about race watching is that you can visually see how hard a horse is being used and that can be more important than the time. In years past I focused more on the fractions and where horses raced relative to a fast/slow/average pace. Now I focus more on the individual horses and how hard they were being used. What's comfortable for one can be way too fast for another within the same race and you can see it.

[bisket]

Originally Posted by classhandicapper

The one thing I've grown to appreciate more about race watching is that you can visually see how hard a horse is being used and that can be more important than the time. In years past I focused more on the fractions and where horses raced relative to a fast/slow/average pace. Now I focus more on the individual horses and how hard they were being used. What's comfortable for one can be way too fast for another within the same race and you can see it.

Always watch the jocks. That will tell you everything about the natural ability of a horse. If you want to go a little deeper than that, watch how horses react to each other.

[equusvates]

Personally I early on in my journey, I struggled with running styles especially trying to use Quirin speed points. I am a pace handipper and speed and running style is everything. My struggle came to an end with reading Klein’s Handicapping Speed. With that book I created, don’t laugh, 11 running styles.

Need to lead
Front runners
Pressers
Stalker, big closer
Stalker small closer
Stalker
Trailer, big closer
Trailer, small closer
Trailer
First time starter
Unknown

Simply stated, it works enough. The worst of these styles are stalkers and trailers. Some call theses types merry go round horses. They absolutely need the race to melt down.

As stated above and in Klein’s book, you must adjust for race structure. He states how to do it. It has been many years since I read the book, so the details are built into my program. As I tell people at the track when questioned why the program made that I call, I honestly tell them “I don’t know “.

[equusvates]

Originally Posted by equusvates

Personally I early on in my journey, I struggled with running styles especially trying to use Quirin speed points. I am a pace handipper and speed and running style is everything. My struggle came to an end with reading Klein’s Handicapping Speed. With that book I created, don’t laugh, 11 running styles.

Need to lead
Front runners
Pressers
Stalker, big closer
Stalker small closer
Stalker
Trailer, big closer
Trailer, small closer
Trailer
First time starter
Unknown

Simply stated, it works enough. The worst of these styles are stalkers and trailers. Some call theses types merry go round horses. They absolutely need the race to melt down.

As stated above and in Klein’s book, you must adjust for race structure. He states how to do it. It has been many years since I read the book, so the details are built into my program. As I tell people at the track when questioned why the program made that I call, I honestly tell them “I don’t know “.

The author of the book is Steve klein but the title is the power of early speed. Confused the title with I believe is Charles carrol book. I have over 30 books on handicapping and hundreds of articles downloaded off the internet.