Newcomer’s #5 — Understanding Bias:

Unfortunately, you will not walk away from this discussion with perfect understanding.  However, you can read the daily Bias Report and you can review the charts to learn.  And once again, this is one of that parts of handicapping that is as much an art form as anything.  If you are good at understanding bias, you will unlock some terrific secrets to form, if you are not, horse racing will be both more difficult and less interesting!  I was fortunate, the friend I had who were teaching my handicapping – back in the day — were tuned into bias.  When they explained to me that a particular track was Early Speed favoring or was a “holding track” which meant it was more favorable to come-from-behinders suddenly reading the past performance became much more interesting.  And more work.  But for instance, if I new a track was heavily favoring closers and there was a horse that tried to wire a field and just fell short — I naturally concluded this horse would be a good wager next time out, especially if it was a speed favoring surface…

Here is the real clue to understanding…. Don’t use the horse you just bet, all you will do is make an excuse for why that horse failed you…  Or applaud yourself for why you won and how smart you are.  You will just give yourself a bunch of “False Positives”!

Look at the horses that finished 3rd, 4th and 5th… see if they were making up ground or just going to the wire in the order they arrived at.  That’s a good place to start…along with getting a notebook and writing down my bias notation every single day!  Then when you look at my speed figs and your past performance material, you can look at the running lines of each horse and add something really interesting – our bias notations… The Past Performances will come alive…