Thoughts from a Novice Handicapper, Volume 2

[GenuineRisk]

Beautiful weather, frustrating day at Belmont on the 8th.

What I learned:

1) Know what wagers you are best at and stick to them. I brought a small amount of money to wager, as husband and I are pretty broke right now, and had lost it all by race 7 because I tried some trifectas. I need to stick to wins and exactas at this point. I'm better at those.

2)Always box your exacta. Because if you don't, that horse that has been an "also-ran" for the first 8 races of his career will choose to step it up and become a "ran."

3)Leave enough money for the last races. After losing what I was willing to lose, I sat out the last three races, with some money still in pocket, because I decided I wasn't going to make a bad day worse. And then watched as the horses I'd mentally boxed for an exacta won in the 8th race, the winner I'd picked for the 9th won (I tossed the Capote horse after the jockey switch) and, most heartbreaking, the exacta I'd picked came in in the 10th race, with the horse that won coming in at 17-1.

4)It is not at all satisfying to think, "I found a 17-1 long shot" when you didn't bet on said 17-1 long shot.

5) I'm becoming an okay handicapper; it's my betting strategies that suck. And a successful day at the races seems to depend on being good at betting as much as handicapping.

6) The ride home on the train can be full of quotable quotes. My favorite I overheard, from a grizzled old bettor, "When that horse reached the sixteenth pole, I knew I was beat. So that one didn't hurt at all because I knew I was beat by the sixteenth. When they lose right at the finish, that's when it hurts." And that's good distraction from brooding about not betting the 17-1.

7) Whatever you do, don't make eye contact with the crazy man gibbering next to you. He may assume that his monologue is, in fact, part of a conversation the two of you are having. And continue gibbering, but now in your direction.

8) The best way to wash the taste of a bad racing day out of your mouth is by having dinner and drinks with your best friend and then having a sleepover where the two of you, even though you are both over 30, stay up until 1AM watching VH-1's countdown of the top 40 Heavy Metal songs of all time. Because it's much better to go to sleep with "Iron Man" stuck in your head than with a chant of "17-1 and you didn't bet it!"

9) "Iron Man" is a very deserving number one heavy metal song of all time.

10) Tell yourself there will be other 17-1s. Even though you don't believe it right now.

11) And most of all, I think it's a truism that when you really could use the money is when you're least likely to win it! So don't go to the track when you're feeling poor.

Volume One was after Belmont Day. Volume Three will come after I finish licking my wounds and go back out. Which will be sometime after I purchase "Iron Man" from iTunes so I can listen to it and get it out my head.