Win at the Dog Track With Eb

9/12/08

There’s a lot going on at PBKC in September. There’s something for everyone, horseplayers, greyhound fans and even football fans. But before we get to the dates and events that are on tap for this month, let’s look at some stats and find out who’s leading and who’s receding in the standings.

Rader Kennel is still leading for win percentages this season with 16% and is also 2nd for win percentages for the last 133 races. B&B Kennel isn’t doing too shabby with first place in wins in the last 133 races and a 23% win percentage in those races.

Moving on to the dogs who are heating up the track with wins, how about that MrI Generation! This pup has an amazing 52% win percentage with wins in 9 out of 17 starts! Second in number of wins is Mighty Mckel with 8 wins out of 13 which translates to a win percentage of 61%. And, in third, also with 8 wins, is Cjc’s Neonlights - the winner of the recent Puppy Stakes - with a 57% win stat. When these dogs are running, you’d better throw them into your quiniela box, because they’re liable to be there at the finish.

Strangely enough, none of the dogs with the most wins are on the list of the top ten fastest dogs for the last year. Afleet Alex - no surprises there - is first with a blazing 29.26. Star Jenko is 2nd with a 29.32 and Nobooth Gary is in 3rd, 5th, 6th and 7th place with times from 29.33 to 29.41.

For the Daily Double players, the picks that won had the 8 first in 3 out of 4 combinations, so if you play doubles, you might want to think about those 8 dogs. They were 4/2, 8/2, 8/5 and 8/8.

As for Post Position, as usual in Sprints, the 1 Box was way out in front with 388 winners in the last 180 days, but the 8 Box was a pretty close second with 371. In Routes, once again it was the 1 Box with 65 winners and the 3 and 4 pretty close with 53 and 52 respectively. In Dashes, the 2 Box with 24 edged out the 1Box with 23.

Now for the events that you won’t want to miss in September:

For Horse Players:

• $750,000 Fitz Dixon Cotillion Stakes From Philadelphia Park on September 20th
• $600,000 Beldame Stakes, $600,000 Flower Bowl Invitational and $400,000 Vosburgh Stakes from Belmont on September 27th

For greyhound fans:

• The 2nd Annual Race/Walk For the Animals at Okeeheelee Park also on September 27th

For Poker Room Patrons:

• Football Frenzy runs all month with all your favorite games on Sports TV and High Hand Giveaways with some great prizes

Palm Beach is one of my favorite tracks and one of the few without slots or casino games so I can concentrate on greyhound handicapping. Of course, if you’re a poker player, you can play in the poker room and still catch the greyhound and horse betting action from the country’s best tracks. This September and all ‘year ’round, Palm Beach Kennel Club offers something for everyone, including people like me who are fans of live greyhound racing.

To pick winners at Palm Beach or any greyhound track, get The Two Key Trifecta System and The Marks Method.

You can adopt a retired racer. In return for a family of its own, your greyhound will give you lots of love. Hey, you can sit on the couch together and watch the dog races. Who knows? You might even get some inside information from your fast friend.

Have you ever thought about how one little thing can change your life? Maybe you stopped to let someone cross instead of speeding up and making them wait a minute. Maybe they were elderly and walked slowly and you sat there for five minutes, wishing you hadn’t stopped. And then, maybe you get down the road to where a bad accident has just happened and you realize that - if you hadn’t stopped to let that old man cross the street - you would have been the guy the paramedics are trying to get out of the car with the jaws of life.

Sometimes, when little things affect our lives, they aren’t as dramatic as accidents we miss or pianos falling on our heads out of 10th floor windows. Sometimes at the dog track though, little things can affect whether we go home winners or losers. The worst thing is that we might not even realize that it’s happening, so we just keep losing and wondering why.

Other people can be a big distraction at the dog track. Whether it’s friends who keep talking when you’re trying to handicap or strangers who yell and swear and carry on when they lose, people can certainly take our mind off our handicapping. I once bet the wrong track because I was so distracted by a father who was yelling his head off at his three kids, who were running around and spilling their drinks all over the floor and other people.

Friends are wonderful things to have, but even good friends can be a pain if they push you to bet a dog they like or try to discourage you from betting a dog that you like. Probably the worst distraction from people at the track are the negative vibes that some people put out. You know, the people who are always complaining that the races are rigged, that they never win and that it doesn’t do any good to handicap because they don’t have any luck anyhow.

Somehow, all that negative karma just clouds my mind and I can’t think straight until I move away from them. My feeling is that if you’re negative, you’ll attract negative luck and talk yourself right into losing. I’m not a Pollyanna, but I try to keep a positive attitude both at the track and in life in general. If you think you can’t win and are completely negative about the dog track, why in the world would you go there in the first place? And what’s more, why would anyone bet if they don’t think they can win? That just doesn’t make sense.

Outside of people, there are plenty of other distractions. Drinking and eating can get in the way of handicapping, watching the races and keeping track of your bets. I eat before I go to the track and rarely drink anything other than one or two cups of coffee while I’m there.

Carrying a bunch of stuff with you that you have to keep track of can take your mind off what’s going on and at the very least, it makes it harder to get up and bet. You either have to carry it with you or leave it where you’re sitting and most people don’t like to leave their stuff behind. I’ve seen people juggling coolers and mini-TVs, even laptops, as they tried to make a bet. Heck, they could hardly find their program, never mind handicap it.

Kids are such a distraction that I won’t even go into it, except to say that I only bring mine to the track when we’re on vacation and I want to give my spouse a break. The day that I bring them, I don’t plan any heavy betting. My feeling about kids is that - when they’re with you - they need your attention and it isn’t fair to them to ignore them while you do something else.

There’s so much going on at the track. There are TV screens everywhere with replays, odds, horse races, other sports events and even news and weather. When I started going to dog tracks, the only screens showed replays. There were no simulcasts. No betting on horse races at dog tracks. No card rooms, slot machines or electronic machines of any kind.

We went to the dog track to bet on ten live races and we paid attention to those races. In some ways, it was a lot easier in those days. Nowadays, it’s hard to find a quiet place to go over your program or even think in peace. So far, I’ve been able to find a place like that at most tracks, but as the live races diminish in importance and electronics and screens take over, they’re becoming harder to find.

If you really want to avoid distractions at the dog track, I suggest that you go alone or with a friend who is as serious about winning at the track as you are. Someone with a positive attitude who doesn’t have to talk every minute. Then, especially if there are no live races that day, go outside and sit.

I do that all the time and sometimes people stop me at the door to tell me that there’s no live racing that day. They always look confused when I tell them that I know there’s no live racing, but I want to sit outside anyhow. Apparently, I’m in the minority when it comes to wanting a quiet place to think. I often wonder if this is why 90% of the people who go to the track lose. Interesting question, isn’t it?

The systems I use to pick winners at the dog track are The Two Key Trifecta System and The Marks Method.

You can adopt a retired racer. In return for a family of its own, your greyhound will give you lots of love. Hey, you can sit on the couch together and watch the dog races. Who knows? You might even get some inside information from your fast friend.

Quick! How wide is your favorite track? Don’t know? Well, if it’s Twin River (formerly Lincoln in Rhode Island) it’s only 17 feet wide, the narrowest track in the US. So, I hear you say, what difference does it make how wide the track is? The dogs don’t race across the track; they race around it.

True, but on a narrow track, those turns can be much harder to get around without bumping and getting in each other’s way. This is why there seem to be more accidents on the turns at Twin River, something I noticed when I went there last time. Can you imagine what a dog coming from Southland, where the track width is an amazingly wide 34′, would think as it got jammed on the first turn at Twin River?

This is a good reason to find out how wide your track is. And while you’re at it, why not find out how long the track is, how long the stretch and the straightaway are too. Each of these figures varies widely from track to track. While many tracks have a length of 1,320 ft, some have much longer tracks - all the way up to 1,485 at Southland, which may account for that 34′ width.

So, when a dog ships into Southland from Twin River say, then schools and gets put into a race, I’m definitely going to give it a good look. If it has any class at all, but maybe had trouble on the turns at Twin River, it might be able to do much better at Southland, due to the wider track. Southland is also a good place for dogs who take a little longer to get going, due to the longer track, stretch and straightaway.

If you’re a serious handicapper, I think you have to give these factors strong consideration. While I know some of the track statistics from memory, I have a little chart that I can take with me, so that I can check on the track a dog ships in from. I don’t know how many times this has helped me see that a dog is a contender because moving to this particular track has given it an advantage it didn’t have at its former track.

Some of the advantages:

• Moving from a track with a longer stretch can give an early speed dog an advantage
• Moving to a wider track can give dogs who have trouble on turns an advantage
• Moving from a shorter track to a longer track can give dogs who close an advantage
• Moving from a longer track to a shorter track can give breakers who fade an advantage

I’m sure there are other things you can figure out for yourself, so I won’t go into any more detail. Suffice it to say that the more you know, the more of an advantage you have and the more you win at the dog track.

Another thing you should know is that you can improve your handicapping skills by investing in The Marks Method or the Two Key Trifecta System

You can adopt a retired racer. In return for a family of its own, your greyhound will give you lots of love. Hey, you can sit on the couch together and watch the dog races. Who knows? You might even get some inside information from your fast friend.

When T.L. Weaver sold a piece of scrub land to local businessmen in 1925, he had no idea that he’d be getting into the greyhound racing business. When the businessmen couldn’t pay their mortgage, he got the land back, but now it had a dog track on it: Derby Lane, the oldest track in the US. The Weaver family is still running it and it’s going strong.

With ponds and greenery surrounding it, Derby Lane is where I sometimes have trouble keeping my mind on the races, because I get distracted watching the wildlife. However, the racing is well worth watching, because they have some of - if not the best - dogs in the country.

This is the track where the legendary Keefer won the first 4 stakes races of the 1986 season in front of 12,779 fans.

It’s also the track where business was so slow in the early years that Weaver staged all kinds of other sporting events including an exhibition football game with the also-legendary Jim Thorpe. He even tried auto races! It wasn’t long though, as greyhound racing gained in popularity, before people like Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig were coming to watch the dogs run.

Admission is free and kids are admitted with adult supervision. There’s a good restaurant, a couple of lounges and a sports bar. Lots of large-screen TVs make it easy to watch the races or replays. Of course, it’s air conditioned, but you can sit out on the terrace during the cooler months if you like. I really enjoy sitting there and going over my program or writing postcards to my New England friends who are freezing their patoots off.

Don’t miss Vera’s News a really nice blog authored by Vera Filipelli, who has been involved with greyhound racing for thirty years in several states including WV, WI and now Florida. Not only does Vera write, but she’s also participated in film and video projects, contributed to the National Greyhound Review and co-hosted major events in the greyhound world. Her blog will let you know what’s happening at Derby Lane.

And here’s something to note for future reference: Her last post mentioned a certain winning greyhound’s pups who are going to be making their debut soon at Derby Lane. I’ll give you a hint… Their daddy is one of the “Dream” dogs and their momma is a “Doll”. They should be fun to watch and, who knows, maybe one or more will be a champion like their famous dad.