This is the second in my Golden Rules of Horse Racing series. I realize that each person has to make their own rules on how to handicap in horse racing, but I am sharing what I have learned after many years of experience and you may be able to get some pearls out of what I have learned. Obviously, the old saying applies, rules are meant to be broken. But before you start breaking the rules, it’s a good idea to learn the rules and why they’re important, and also the price of breaking them at the wrong time. It can literally mean the difference between a winning or losing track day and if you break them often enough it can mean the difference between a losing or winning season or year. Oh!

Hehe, okay, I can hear some of you know, “Tell us, oh great Guru, what is rule number two?”

Rule number two of the golden rules of horse racing is “Keep old racing records and programs.” Any document you have that you have taken notes on or done calculations is worth a lot to you, even if you have been losing.

Picture this scenario, you just had a losing and particularly frustrating day on the track. Nothing seemed to go your way, no matter how hard you tried. You have no idea what went wrong. Angry, you throw away your show and lose tickets and walk or run off the track. I don’t know what mistakes you made before that caused you to lose the day, but I can tell you that the biggest mistake you made that day, you threw away the only evidence that will help you solve the riddle of why. you lost. Now, I’m not saying you should take that program and wear yourself out poring over what went wrong while you’re sitting in your car in the parking lot.

I’m saying this. Take a deep breath when you have one of those days and let it out slowly. If you have any way to relieve tension or pressure that is legal and not self-destructive, now would be a good time to do it. It could be a round of golf, yoga, sitting on the beach, or watching a sitcom, but whatever it is, stay away from the track and everything that happened, but don’t throw away that show and any other written evidence you may have. . .

When you are rested and have had time to calm down, take that program and go through it slowly and methodically. Remember what you thought and felt when you made each decision and bet. That’s right, I said thinking and feeling, because whether we admit it or not, our emotions play a role in our disability and decision-making in life. Once you’ve figured out a few things about what you felt and thought, look for a pattern. Now here is another important key and one that should not be overlooked. We all have wasted days despite making the right decisions. The right decisions are the ones that lead to long-term gains, although they can also result in some lost days. Did you just have a day where, even though you made the right decisions, it was the other guy or girl’s turn to win? If so, smile and relax. Your turn is coming up and you’ll be fine in the long run. If, on the other hand, you made some bad decisions and you see a pattern, you have just bought valuable information. However, I could have thrown it away and wasted day after day if I hadn’t saved that program.

But even a stack of programs with a lot of notes is not enough sometimes. There has to be a way to accurately take notes and compare each handicap factor to weigh their relative value. Visual aids are the best, but not all of us are fluent in Excel spreadsheets. Even a simple method like ladder handicapping can help. It takes a little time and more effort, but just think of the advantage you’ll have over the competition, when they ditch their old programs and move off the track or OTB.

When you follow rule number two, what you are really doing is hurting yourself and your performance. In the end, that’s the hardest, but most rewarding part of this game.