Longshot Repeaters for Savvy Fans

By: By Ray Taulbot

The following is a lead by Ray Taulbot, if you would like to order his articles please call 1-800-645-220.

 

Fall racing provides more opportunities for the angle player than any other season of the year. We suppose this is because many trainers get the feeling they are running out of time.

We have personal classifications for angles. Some we call “hidden form,” and others we call “obvious but overlooked.” The first is self-explanatory, while the second categorizes a horse that is in obvious winning form but will be overlooked by the betting public.

Most players are aware that the trainer that is interested in turf speculation dislikes nothing more than having one of his fit horses go postward at a short price. From his point of view, such a situation represents a waste of time and effort since it deprives him of the opportunity to collect what he considers his just reward.

Once the player grasps an understanding of the conditioner’s attitude regarding price, it’s easy to understand why so many trainers devise ways to deceive the public regarding the true condition of their horses. They want a price, but to get it, they must mislead those players that are students of form. Fortunately, the devices available to the trainer are few, and the experienced racing fan can soon learn to spot the maneuvers that are designed to deceive him.

Almost every month, this magazine calls your attention to one or more of these angles. The reader that studies these angles will soon become highly proficient at spotting these price-getting devices. The angle we are highlighting is a common one, though thousands of racing fans know nothing about it.

The best bet is a fresh, fit horse. You may have heard your family physician remark that rest is the best medicine known to medical science. This applies to the horse as well as the man. Constant racing wears down an animal’s physical condition, and eventually, its reserve strength drops to a level where the horse is no longer fit racing material.

When this occurs, the horse must be given the rest cure. If its reserve strength has been wholly depleted, it may require several months of rest to restore the animal back to normal. However, if the trainer has used sound judgment and rested the horse before it’s entirely exhausted, four or five weeks of idleness is sufficient to restore it to normal. The trainer understands these points, so we can leave the length of the rest period up to him. But remember that the food and care the horse received during this period costs money. The trainer is understandably anxious to overcome that overhead as soon as possible.

For this reason, horses coming off a rest will be carefully prepared for their return to competition. Many such horses turn in a winning race their first time out. The trainer has brought it back fresh and fit, and he’s won at first asking. All these points make up an obvious angle, but they are so obvious that many fans skip right by such an entry, especially if the horse is being moved up in class today.

We have done a lot of research on repeaters, especially on horses that have been freshened. It developed that many of them failed the next time out except in cases where the trainer moved his horse up in class or when some astute horseman reached in and claimed the animal.

There is sound logic to bolster our findings. If a trainer wins with a fresh horse and moves it up in class, it is because he feels the horse has improved enough to defeat superior company and will hold less risk of being claimed away. Additionally, when a horse is claimed first out after a freshening, you can bet your bottom dollar that the claiming trainer has seen something in the morning workouts that inspired him to lay his money on the line.

Our angle is reduced to very simple terms: look for a horse that has been rested 30 days or more, wins first out after the rest and is moved up in class the next time out. For horses up to a claiming price of $5,000, we ask for an increase of $1,500; up to $10,000, an increase of $2,500; up to $20,000, an increase of $5,000. Claimers at a value of more than $20,000 should move into allowance company next time out. Allowance winners should move to feature stakes or handicap races.

You will occasionally find a horse of this type whose post-time odds are on the short side. When you do, simply pass the race. It never pays to back a fresh, fit horse at less than 4–1. The trainer might set that as his minimum price.

For best results the repeater should have won its most recent race within the past 21 days, following a gap of more than 30 days between its top two races.

Try out this effective repeater angle on some more races.