The Turf Investor
By Frank Cotolo
There is a strange irony in learning how to play pari-mutuels for profit. The more you learn what to do, the less you do it. Once I learned how to truly handicap and became hooked on strict money-management behavior, the “action” disappeared. I found that there was not many races I could play and that most of the time I spent handicapping was used finding situations I could not possibly wager upon. So, the more I learned, the more I knew, the farther I moved from doing a lot of wagering. Nonetheless, this was back in the days when even if there were one race in nine that appeared playable, I had to go to the track, be on the scene, to find out.
The races I found meeting my requirements were attacked with confidence and sometimes with a big wager. But there were days at the track when barely one race out of five handicapped would present an opportunity like that. I would go to the track knowing full well that I had dismissed more than 50 percent of the program because I could not get a grasp on that many races. And then, the few where I felt I had a decent odds line still needed to meet “real” requirements of value. So, a lot of my time at the track was spent watching races I couldn’t play, taking notes that might or might not be valuable, talking with friends, drinking coffee and pondering, pacing and puttering.
It was a grind, all right, and many times I questioned why in the heck I did any of it. Especially on days when not one bet surfaced. Friends of mine could not believe my loyalty to the methods I employed. Most of them appeared to be having so much more fun than I was having. At times I felt like a clerk for the investment machine I built. I was just a runner for that guy who, the night before, did all the work on paper.
And then, to wait and wait and then bet and lose is a trial in itself.
Worthy Waiting
However, when a bet surfaced and resulted in a winning ticket, all was right with the world. A $100 win ticket on a 9–2 shot gave me a feeling that made every minute of waiting worth it. The elation of collecting that much money on one race and being able to write the return figures directly into my money log, seeing again that I was in the black, was as rewarding as anything I had ever felt in my life. Anything.
One of the best points to make in all of this is how savage a handicapper I became when, after each win, I realized that if you don’t pick the choice plays and bet the appropriate amounts, you lose in the long run. Even though that “long run” is sometimes seemingly endless, being able to objectively toss out races is one of the primary functions of a pari-mutuel hero.
There is no room for self-deception here, so you must be brutally honest with yourself about what you really know about a particular race and what you don’t know. I was always honest to a fault when it came to handicapping. Even after I assigned odds to horses in a race, I was apt to toss the race out if I felt I was being too generous or too conservative, given the contenders. This led to less playing, true, but it also led to far fewer losses. It forced me to play for value and that is what a player must do, since the seduction to play, play and play again is, after all, human nature’s call.
Profitable Passing
There is no guarantee that picking your spots, playing for value or passing races you don’t understand, will mean you will win in the long run. However, there is evidence that playing too much can burn a bankroll to cinders. This game demands more than most humans are willing to attempt to handle. In one of his books, Andrew Beyer wrote about having a separate “action” bankroll to keep himself busy between important plays and to satisfy that natural urge to play rather than pass. So even Mr. Beyer has always been aware that the betting beast within needs to be handled, else it will eat your bankroll alive.
I found it difficult but obviously not impossible to put long and tedious hours between plays, and I don’t feel I am gifted with any great measure of tolerance. The feelings of victory resulting from the waits, for me, were long lasting and memorable; they helped me continue to seek races that would result in more of those victorious emotions.
And, there were exciting times when a few playable races came in the same program, no less successive. To win one of three and still have made a profit was terrific. I do recall, also, there were times when I won two and three of three closely spaced races. It can happen.
So, the contrary concepts rule. More can happen when there is less to do. You will not be able to handicap races effectively in bulk. The more races there are, the less you will honestly be able to comprehend with accuracy. You can win more money mostly by playing less. More races will offer underlays than overlays. And on and on, until you realize it may be a long time between playable races, but when that time equals profits, it really isn’t much time at all.
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