ADDING PHYSICALITY TO YOUR DAILY HANDICAPPING VIA THE RACETRACK FEED-----Part 3 by Joe Takach

Energy levels and pre-race attitudes are very easy to spot over any racetrack feed.
Even if you only get the minimal “5 second glimpse” of every horse in the post parade via your racetrack feed, runners simply can’t hide their individual energy levels. They aren’t stage actors who can feign either high or low intensity. What you see is usually what you get.
Understanding these energy levels and pre-race attitudes and applying their interpretation properly, will allow you to concentrate on runners with a positive mental outlook towards their upcoming race and the energy to be competitive. Those that don’t measure up can usually be dismissed from a win standpoint.
I’ve always classified energy levels and pre-race attitudes into 4 major areas. We’ll now take a brief gander at each.
1---THE WALKING DEAD
These runners are very easy to spot in the post parade even if you’re offered no more than that short 5 second glimpse. The postures of the walking dead suggest total lethargy. Each and every step seems to be an enormous effort for them as the lead pony appears to be almost dragging them forward in the post parade.
The runner’s ears could be flopped over, his head could be low and bobbing, and his tail could be flat against his rump. He hardly looks “ready” to put in any effort whatsoever in the upcoming race, let alone a winning one.
Horses display negative energy levels and poor pre-race attitudes for different reasons.
Not every runner devoid of energy and a positive pre-race attitude is hurt, lame, or muscle sore. Some are, some aren’t.
If physically “racing sound”, perhaps they got a bad night’s sleep for any number of reasons. Just think back to the last time you failed to get your needed nightly rest. The last thing on your mind the next day was running as fast as you possibly could, and if not moving fast enough, feel the constant sting of somebody cracking a whip across both the sides of your rear end.
For the most part, the “walking dead” would rather be back in their barns taking a nap. This afternoon’s race is the last thing on their minds.
Waste no time dismissing these highly unlikely specimens. If they have no energy in the post parade, they’ll offer little resistance in the upcoming race.
2---THE PACIFIST
The energy level or posture of “the pacifist” isn’t hard to spot, but it is frequently very difficult to interpret. Some “pacifists” win races and some don’t. Like a lot of things in handicapping, “it all depends”.
Pacifists offer a few signs of readiness, but fail to display a level of aggressiveness that would indicate a forthcoming winning effort. While the pacifists are usually more animated that the walking dead, they are a far cry from a totally “ready horse” whose energy level is nearly impossible to miss----even with the brief 5 second glimpse offered in the post parade.
What’s more, pacifists display little willingness or unwillingness to fully participate in the upcoming race. You wish that they would show either more characteristics of a winner or a loser. At least then you could include or exclude them from your list of contenders.
You’ll find that older claiming horses dominate this pacifist group. They’ve run a lot of career races and have been “down the road” many more times then they would have personally chosen. While sometimes willing to race and offer everything, they don’t always “telegraph” it as do more aggressive younger horses.
Many older pacifists just go out and do their jobs day in and day out----win or lose.
Using energy levels alone on your race contenders won’t always offer you a completed picture of “readiness” or “unreadiness”. But when you couple energy levels of the pacifists with their other physicality traits, both good and bad, your betting decisions will most often come easily and without hesitation.
My advice to you with pacifists is to wait until you see a pacifist win under the same exact circumstances with their overall “physicality” looking precisely the same. If they’ve won in the past, there’s no reason why they can’t do it again this afternoon or sometime in the future. This is doubly true in bottom-feeding claiming races where almost all of the participants are members of the walking dead. A pacifist could actually “stand out like a sore thumb” in a field of many misfits.
If the pacifists are the only horses walking well with good flesh and color, they won’t have a problem beating multi-problematic half-dead runners. I’m cautiously hesitant to bet any pacifist, but I’ll admit to doing so in the past when every other runner in the field was a toss out for any number of valid reasons.
The pacifist is usually ready enough to beat “nothing”.

PART 4-----Energy levels continued

© Joe Takach 2007