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Shipping in to win
By Doug Parry Where do winners come from? When this year's Emerald Downs meet starts April 24, handicappers will be confronted with horses from all over the map. Their past performance lines will show their most recent start was at Portland Meadows, Turf Paradise, Bay Meadows or any of a dozen other tracks. If their most recent start was at Emerald Downs, there will be a long layoff involved. Weighing which make the best bets will be key to getting a good start. One way to determine which shippers make the best bets is to look at last year's stats. If any of the tendencies remain the same this year, it could be an important handicapping angle. Coming from CaliforniaSome tendencies from last year's shippers were clear. Without getting too deep into the numbers, horses that made their most recent start in Southern California showed the best return on investment for bettors last year. In fact, if you had bet $2 across the board on every Southern California shipper at the meet, you would have turned a slight profit. The next best return came on the Bay Area shippers, followed by those from Hastings Park. Shippers from both places showed above-average returns. Losing propositionsRounding out the list of "feeder" tracks with below-average returns were Yakima Meadows shippers (with its early closure, you won't see many from there this year), Turf Paradise shippers, and horses from Portland Meadows. Horses whose latest start was at Emerald Downs fared worse, dollar for dollar, than those from every major feeder track. And horses whose last start was at a track other than those listed here (mostly smaller outfits) fared even worse than the Emerald Downs layoff horses. The tendencies varied for each gender and age level, but knowing the basic tendencies of shippers can give a handicapper a good starting point. |