Tag Archives: race
How Good Is Your Horse Racing System
If you have bet the horses for any matter of time I am sure you have your favorite horse racing system. I have been playing the nags for over 30 years and I have dozens of systems that promised me the world.
Some of these systems were complicated and some were really simple. But you want to know what is really weird? They all worked to one degree or the other. When I would start out using one of them it would fail miserably. I would get off of it and here comes the winners. Does that sound familiar?
What the problem consisted of was that I failed to give the horse racing system enough time to work.
You see picking the winners is not the problem of the horseplayer. The problem is the betting system itself was the problem. It was not the selection method that was not working. One could just bet on the number 1 horse from now on and would get a fair share of winners at a variety of payoffs.
No the problem is betting more money on the winners and less on the losers. It is as simple as that. It is a money management problem. All of the systems work. The experts have done their best at producing horse racing systems that worked. However they have failed continuously at providing the player with a money management system.
I mean after all what good is a system that produces $28 payoffs when I am flat broke and can’t place but a $2 wager on the horse?
I once had a horse pegged that the trainer had been holding him back and I was certain he was going to turn him loose in an upcoming race. I was determined to be ready for that race. The day of the race came up and he was entered in the final race on the card. I got there at the beginning of the day and since there was no advanced racing at that time, I waded through 9 races to get to the big one. I had entered the track with $100 and was sure I could get to the race with plenty of money to make a killing.
You know what happened. By the time the race came up I was trying desperately to borrow money to bet. I manage to run out to my car and scrape together $2 to bet on this sure thing. The horse sailed by the pack to win going away and paid $55.40 to win.
Bottom line for the day. I was down $45 and had a $55 dollar winner. Bad money management.
So how good is your horse racing system? I would bet it is pretty good. How good is your money management system? That may be an entirely different story.
Roy Higgins
Roy Higgins is one of Australias greatest living jockeys. At the time of his retirement in 1983 he had ridden 2,300 winners during the 1960s and 1970s including two Melbourne Cups. Higgins remains closely involved with the racing industry and is the author of the 1982 book “The Jockey Who Laughed” a humorous collection of racing stories.
Higgins was born in the country Victorian town of Koondrook in 1938. He started his racing career in Deniliquin, NSW in 1953 riding the country race circuit. He probably owes his nickname of “The Professor” to the local horse trainer Jim Watters, a comment on his incredible ability in the saddle. Higgins later moved to Melbourne and become Victorias most successful jockey of the day winning eleven Melbourne Jockey Premierships, the first in the 1964/5 season.
From the very beginning of his career Higgins battled his weight. He would use tricks such as hot baths and saunas to drop his weight to 51 kilos on race day. As races in those days were Saturdays only he would take Sunday out to indulge in a traditional Sunday roast and put on five or six kilos which he would then have to take off again before the next Saturdays races. Despite his weight issues Higgins was a leading jockey for 30 years. When asked what he would do in retirement he famously said, “Id just love to be a little fat man!”
Higgins successfully rode over 2,300 winners including two Melbourne Cups both on Bart Cummings trained, New Zealand bred horses: Light Fingers in 1965 and Red Handed in 1967. Other well-known horses associated with Higgins included the miler Gunsynd, Leilani (partly owned by Andrew Peacock) and Storm Queen. In fact Higgins could have won three Melbourne Cups, he was the jockey on another Cummings-trained horse, Big Philou, the hot betting pick, for the 1969 Melbourne Cup, which was controversially withdrawn only minutes before the start, a victim of a doping scandal.
Over his 30-year career, Higgins won every major race run in Australia, often multiple times. Notable Victorian wins were: W.S Cox Plate, Caulfield Cup, four VRC Derbies, four Blue Diamonds Stakes and five VRC Oakes. Interstate Higgins won the 1962 and 1969 Sydney Cups, two Golden Slipper Stakes (1966, 1973) and the AJC Oaks six times. Higgins final ride was at Flemington in October 1983.
In 1972 Queen Elizabeth awarded Roy Higgins an MBE for services to the horse racing industry. Since retiring as a jockey Higgins has worked extensively as a racing commentator on TV and radio, particularly on Melbournes Sport 927 station. He is also a lecturer in the jockey training program at Northern Melbourne Institute of TAFE.
Roy Higgins has certainly earned his place in Australias racing history. You wonder though if today he would have even got a start as a 14-year-old school drop out who struggled with his racing weight his entier career. The longevity and success of his career says as much about his determination of the man as it does about his skills as a jockey.