Excuses, Excuses! 100 Reasons Why Your Horse Lost the Race!

Excuses, Excuses! 100 Reasons Why Your Horse Lost the Race!

100 excuses why your horse lost and we numbered them for you and your trainer! An inside look at the world of Thoroughbred Racing with an informative and yet comical view of the so called "Sport of Kings"! Handicappers, casual bettors and horse owners can spend all sorts of time and money trying to correctly analyze the field of a horse race. They do this in order to get an edge when wagering on the races. There are currently several past performance publications and 100's of handicapping systems, computer programs, theories, calculations, tip sheets, etc, available to those looking to get the edge. The pursuit of such an edge is done for prosperity's sake as well as bragging rights in this culture of horse betters and horseracing aficionado's. So why is it then, in most cases, the horse that has been selected by the Para mutual betting public as the favorite, loses 3 out of every 4 races? Perhaps that while the general public bases their selections on past performances and certain trends, they are in fact overlooking the many obstacles a horse faces in the actual race itself. Owning racehorses gave me an inside look at the reasons why a horse may lose a race, and the reasons for the loss are left out of most handicapping equations when selecting the bettor's choice. The reasons (or as I call them excuses) I have heard over the years, of why our horses lost certainly must apply to the other horses in the races that lost when our horses made it into the winners circle. Owners will find this book entertaining and informative while handicappers and the casual better will get an inside look at what owners are told after their horse lose a race. Excuses, Excuses! James A. Vena successfully raced and bred several Graded and Ungraded Stake horses during a ten year span. While entering the world of racing thoroughbred horse started out as strictly a distraction from his work, he quickly became a passionate student of the game. This is his first writing and he now has plans to author other books in the near future. The author wrote this book with a tongue in cheek approach and added both informative and educational ideas that perhaps the average handicapper and novice owner may find both entertaining and interesting. Excuse # 1 "Needed the Race" My jockey was telling the trainer - confidentially - however loud enough for me and the `new' owner entourage to be able to overhear the excuse. It sounded perfectly reasonable. The horse was coming off a lay-off of 17 days and the jockey thought the encouraging word of "needing the race" would soothe my ego as an owner. I jumped to the conclusion that the Jockey was telling us the next time out we would be in the winners circle. The horse needed a couple of minutes to work out the kinks and that seemed to have been accomplished - today! The Jockey actually told the trainer - in a stage voice - "make sure I get to ride this horse next time, he is sitting on a win." I was excited - we were going to be in the winners circle. After what I heard from the Jockey I never looked at the facts. The horse has been in training under the best of trainers available for $85 per day. Why would I care if the horse needed to race rather then train. I was going to end up in the winners circle next week? The next race - a week later - the trainer dropped the horse for a claiming tag. The rider - who I thought was making a date in the winners circle with me had a previous commitment to ride another horse in the same race. Wow - I thought, what a guy - he would rather lose a race to keep his previous commitment to another owner to ride his horse. We ended up with a `bug boy' and the horse finished somewhere up the track. After all, everyone knew that it was a clear sign that the race the horse needed was to prove that we didn't give him enough time to heal his injury. Well almost everyone knew - I didn't. I thought we were in for a win so I invited family members and friends to come take a picture of us in the winners circle. However, to this day I wonder how the Jockey knew that he would still be in the winners circle that day. He won the race on the mount he had `previously' organized.