256 pages
List Price: $24.95
Buy new: $16.47
Save: $8.48 (34%) |
Handicapping 101 : Finding the Right Horses and Making the Right Bets
by Brad Free
Customer Reviews
Handicapping 101 a primer for beginning players, July 14, 2004
Reviewer: A reader
Brad Free put out a nice piece with this little book. It is written concisely and does not overwhelm the reader with data and charts.
While it is selective in the information included the overall result serves a purpose. It provides a basic set for recreational handicappers that can if studied thoroughly can result in more enjoyable trips to the race track.
His discussion of Class, the most often poorly described or discussed area of the art of predicting outcome of races was one of the better that i have read. His emphasis on the inseparable link between horses overall speed and their true ability level was especially helpful. From his narative about personal experiences with handicapping, two things are made clear. His strength is in his writing and in communicating ideas to the reader. His weakness, I suspect, is in his personal handicapping. Don't know this to be true, but I suspect he gets undisciplined and goes overboard at the wrong times reducing his personal effectiveness. Or has so in the past and now is grown. Been there; done that. I think everyone who plays this game does that. Was refreshing to hear an admission of just how much pain there is in the process of learning to consistantly perform well at the track.
Final comment. I suspect that should the recreational handicapper study this work well, more will come away with a little profit regularily and leave a somewhat smaller piece of the pie for the pros to eat.
|
