Winning At the Dog Track With Consistency

Winning greyhounds are consistent greyhounds. In my opinion, if you’re not handicapping for consistency, you’re not going to win at the dog track. When you think about it, consistency is just another word for class. If a greyhound doesn’t run in the money at a certain grade, it drops down. If it wins once in awhile, but keeps bouncing around from D to C to B and then back down again, it’s very hard to predict when to bet on it.

When you’re handicapping your program and you come to a dog like that, I think you should think about whether you really want to bet the race. And if there are a couple or three inconsistent dogs in the race, I say “give it a pass”. One or more of them may come in, or they may not. It’s impossible to tell. When I see a race with these maybe/maybe not dogs, I pass it by and look for a better race. One with more dependable dogs in it.

I like to see dogs who are in the money at least a third of the time in the same grade they’re running in the current race. I like dogs who have no or few trouble lines in this grade. (If they have some at a higher grade, I look back over their record and consider whether they only have trouble when they’re outclassed at too high a grade.)

Consistent dogs exist at every level, from the top A or AA races all the way down through the lowest grades. There are dogs who find a niche in C and stay there most of the time throughout their careers. They’re not bad dogs. They’re just “C” dogs. Put them in A and they’ll probably race all over the place, trying to catch up with the faster dogs. Put them in C and they’ll settle down and run a smart race, because they can handle the pace in C.

Greyhound handicappers have to be consistent too. If you’re “all over the place” with your betting, for instance, you’re not going to win at the dog track. If you bet quinielas in one race, tri-keys in the next race and three dogs to Win, Place and Show every once in awhile, how in the world can you handicap a program?

Over the last thirty years, I’ve found that finding a bet that works best for you and that you can afford makes it much easier to handicap the dog races. For me, it’s 4-dog quiniela boxes. That way, when I go over a race, I already know that I want to end up with the four dogs that I think have the best chance of being in the quiniela. I start my handicapping by picking the four dogs that I DON’T think have a shot at coming in, throw them out and play the other four in a box.

If I’m ahead, I might also play those four dogs in a Ten Cent Superfecta, just to add a little spice to my day. I don’t play one to Win, even if one of the four looks better than the others to me and is going off at long odds. I don’t make side bets or “just in case” bets. I sit in my seat or lean on the fence until the race goes off with my quiniela box ticket in my pocket.

After the race, I cash my ticket or put it aside to add to my other losing tickets, so that I can keep track of how much I’m winning or losing. Then I mark my program, so that when I look over it at home later that night, I can tell what happened in the race, whether I won or lost. I do this consistently, even when I hit a losing streak and would rather not go over the races where I lost.

Over the years, I’ve made more money than I’ve lost at the track and I think that consistency is one of the big reasons. I’m not one of the big winners who hit trifectas and supers by betting big, expensive, complicated wheels and keys. I guess I’m more of a “C” dog, consistently picking quinielas and cashing enough tickets to make a nice little profit. If you’re not consistently making a profit at the dog track, you need to invest in The Marks Method or the Two Key Trifecta System and turn your luck around.