When you handicap a horse race how much attention should you pay to the morning line? The morning line is an expert handicapper’s opinion of what the odds will be on each horse when it goes to post. Of course, the higher the opinion the handicapper has of each runner, the lower the odds he or she assigns to that one. So what the expert is really doing is telling you what he or she thinks the horse’s chances are of winning the race.
While it is true that most public handicappers do not show a profit over the long run, that is because they have to pick horses in every race. If you allow them to choose a few best bets for the day, most of the good ones are pretty good at picking winners.
So shouldn’t you pay attention to the morning line? Of course, but in what way? If you try to find reasons to like the horses that the handicapper picks you will eventually come to the conclusion that you can’t make a profit from your horse racing bets because a lot of people bet the way he or she bets, or at least the crowd bets on the horses that are touted by that public picker.
If you really want to find value in your bets and beat the horse racing game, you had better find a way to dig deeper and see things that he or she didn’t catch, or to at least know why he or she picked those horses. For instance, if you have handicapped the race and think that one horse should be rated as the third or fourth best horse in the race, but the handicapper has chosen it to win and put morning line odds of 2-1 on it, you’d better dig deeper until you understand why.
This is an excellent use for the morning line. It alerts you to the obvious, which isn’t always so obvious when you are trying to handicap many horse races. It happens to all of us at one time or another. We work so hard poring over the forms and stats that we occasionally miss things. That is when a quick glance at the morning line and comparing it to our own picks can really pay off.
I am not saying that your odds should always agree with the public’s odds, but that you should know why they are betting the way they are and how and why you are trying to beat their favorite with another horse. When you are aware that is what you are trying to accomplish, checking the morning line against your own handicapping is a good way to catch mistakes.
If you want to learn how a horse owner and insider handicaps just go to http://williewins.homestead.com/truecb.html and get the truth. Bill Peterson is a former horse race owner and professional handicapper. To see all Bill’s horse racing material go to Horse Racing Handicapping, Bill’s handicapping store.
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