Kevin Ward's Expanded Selections at Tri-State for Wednesday

Tri-State Selections for Wedneday Night August 31

Tri-State Race 1 – Two schools of thought here 368 - 827. $2 DD 38 – 3 for $4 bucks.

Race 2 – 374 367. Rico’s Crosby #3 to WPS…

Race 3 – 857 758. Make up your own mind about #1…Recent time off, great box, but weak school.

Race 4 – 814 413. Really don’t expect the 4 here…but being objective. Like the 8 a lot. 1 looks strong from the post. Probably play 8 – 1 – 3467, 8 – 3467 – 1, 1 – 8 – 3467. Can we beat the 2,5?!

Race 5 – Fast Annie’s early speed earns her a place at the top of one of my TRI’s…8 7 4 - you never know when she’ll break the recent slump and against this field of recent under achievers…..all is possible. Still I see this next Trifecta as the one to beat…615. Only time will tell. #6 Rico’s Top Shelf may pay a nice price for a grade dropper with a pair of solid runs from the middle posts recently. It should be a nice battle between 6&7&8 for a spot at the front of the pack going into the first turn. 

Beating The Competition

Winning With Eb Netr...

To win at the dog track, you have to be better than the average bettor. Because pari-mutuel betting is betting against the other bettors, not the track, it's the guy or gal next to you that you have to beat, not the announcer or the track owner or managers. (Unless they're betting too, which shouldn't be allowed, but that's another article.)

Obviously, most of the crowd is wrong most of the time. I think I read somewhere once that bettors pick the winner about 1 out of 4 times. Since the favorite doesn't pay very well, that wouldn't give you a profit, that's for sure. So if you want to win money at the dog track, you're going to have to think and bet differently from how the crowd thinks and bets.

Betting On Quitters

Winning With Eb Netr....

People hate a quitter, whether it's a human athlete or a dog who quits and loses. If you want to see a bunch of agitated bettors, look around at the crowd - or just listen to their indignant yowling - when a favorite slows down and lets the other dogs pass him at the finish line. Why in the world would a dog do that?

Well, I can tell you one thing: They don't do it to annoy the bettors. As I've said before, dogs don't know that anyone is betting on them and they don't know that they're running a race. As far as they're concerned, they're chasing prey in a pack. They'll run their hearts out to be first to get the prey, but they can only run as fast and as far as their physical limits will let them.

The Action Heads to Wheeling.

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Orange Park Has The Action

Orange Park Has The Action

How Important is Time?

Winning With Eb Netr..........

As the song goes, "Fast horses win races" and so do fast dogs. So maybe we're all over-complicating this handicapping thing. Maybe we should just go to the dog track, pick the fastest dog in each race and play it to win. Many people do just that, but I don't think you'll find them cashing a whole lot of winning tickets.

And the ones they do cash probably won't pay diddly, because time is pretty obvious. Even greyhound handicapping newbies know how to find the time of the last race for each dog. It's right there in the program next to their final position in their last race.

Winning With Dogs Who Disappoint

Eb Netr on Handicapping...

"Disappointed." Have you ever seen that term in a dog's lines on a racing program? Well, it doesn't mean that the dog was disappointed because it didn't win, although a lot of bettors probably were. It means that the chart writer was disappointed in the dog's performance in that race. This is one of those lines that I could do without along with a few others like: trouble (who caused the trouble - that dog or another dog?), no excuses (like dogs ever make excuses), and six lines for a dog and they never mention whether it ran inside, midtrack or outside, so you don't know where it runs without checking prior programs. But don't get me started on chart writing...

Statistics and Information Are Two Different Things

Winning at the Track with Eb Netr..........

I've written before about how statistics can help us handicap. The more we know about a dog, the better we can evaluate its chances of hitting the board in any given race. Thanks to the internet, statistics are easy to find nowadays. Programs are free and most tracks publish kennel, post position and other helpful statistics.

But where this all breaks down is when handicappers mistake statistics for information that can help them pick winners. Statistics are facts. Data. Raw figures that tell us, for instance, that the #1 dog's kennel has a 12% win average, which is good. It might even tell us, when we compare kennels stats, that the #1's kennel has the top win percentage at that track. This is good to know, but it's not really information until we use it.

Live Broadcast From Tri-State

Randy Birch and Mike Staats Set Up For Live Broadcasting from Tri-State Greyhound Park. New broadcast tower was built in the back of the grandstand area and BigJackpot Betting was the first live broadcast from the new tower.

From The Old Taunton Dog Track

Marathon Racing Returns to Tri-State

Get With The Program

Winning With Eb Netr....

Let's say you go to the track a couple or a few times a week. You usually meet some friends there and you all have a good time, drinking coffee, sitting together, going over your programs and talking about the dogs. It's a pleasant way to while away an afternoon or evening, but it's not the best way to handicap greyhounds. Here's one reason why.

Usually, the conversation goes something like this:

Jimmy: So what do you think of the four dog in the first race?

Al: He's a fighter. He gets to the front and as soon as another dog gets near him, he turns his head and fights. I wouldn't bet him if he was the only dog in the race.

Bruce: I don't see any lines here where he fights. Where do you see that?