Last summer in spite of doing all the work I’ve done to get to a certain point betting on horses, the value I expected to be there still wasn’t there. And that was concerning. It should be there. If you are good at something, the value you look for should be there. It wasn’t. I couldn’t figure out why. Until one day.....
Thus, this blog. How I figured out why I couldn’t find what was lying at my feet in plain sight all these years.
Obviously, I have given away the gist of the answer in the title, but so be it. The most important part is not the answer, but the process and the reason.
In late summer, because of the pandemic, I had a couple of days where the usual race tracks I was playing weren’t running, and I didn’t feel like doing anything other than watching and betting. Old school. Old style. To me, that means the way I started way back when 37 years ago. Just watch, no prep, no data, no replays, just see what I like, and bet on it. No matter the type or class of horse or race. Just make bets on who I thought was the winner. At the end of the day, the bets I won that day were on races I always have avoided. I thought that was odd, but it happens. Being studious though, and curious, I started to think about why I didn’t really play those types of races.
When I figured out the why, it was a straight path right back to when I had begun. In this case, it was younger horses, who were not maidens, also mostly trotters, and in T breds, turf horses, large fields with all sorts of competing variables, form and intangibles.
Why had I never wanted to play those races? Because they are hard. Very hard, and most people who don’t really bet to make a profit will tell you to avoid those types of races, or, that they play them but always end up losing those bets. And that is simply because those races are hard to decipher, and it requires consistent and copious amounts of hard work on a daily basis. But what you will find, if you do the data, or just casually pay attention, is that those are the races where the value plays lie. If you can get them. Most cannot. So, they avoid them and tell others new to the game to do just the same. Which is what happened to me way back when. I was told to avoid those races, or expect to lose.
It also requires a plan to play the way most others don’t or won’t. Because they aren’t willing to, and others tell them to do it their way, the wrong way. Since they are the perceived....experts, we listen to them.
So, we play all the other races.The easier ones. With clear favorites, consistent form, shorter fields, less variables or moving parts, and while we win our share of bets, we lose money overall. No matter how good we are at actually handicapping.
As I went forward, I just looked at the data, of which I have a ridiculous amount stored and collected over the years that can be used to figure out lots of things. Like......which races consistently produce a price horse, a horse you can get, and a favorite who is likely overbet and won’t win his or her share of races favorites should win. In other words, if favorites win 35 percent of all races, what are races where they only win 15 or 20 percent, on a very consistent basis, and when that happens, what kinds of value horses win that race?
When you look at it that way, the hard part gets a lot easier. It’s still hard, there is still a lot of work involved, but at least the hard work pays off. You just have to be consistent about it and be committed to having a plan and sticking with it. That is easy to do if you know it will pay off. It is hard, near impossible to do, if you get consistent results that tell you it won’t.
A very famous speech by Denzel Washington that circulates over the internet speaks directly about this type of thing.
Without commitment, you’ll never start, but more importantly, without consistency, you’ll never finish. It’s not easy. If it was easy, there would be no........so.....keep working, keep striving, fall down 7 times, get up 8. Ease is a greater threat to progress than hardship.
All of that is very simple if you think about it. If it is easy, then the people that don’t work hard, work smart, take the hardships of finding a path and way that is difficult, will succede anyway. When that happens, what edge or advantage do you have? None. But when it’s hard, they fail, will continue to fail, and you will excel. If you are commited to that, and are consistent every day about working towards taking the hard path to the promised land. They will never get there. They will never win those bets. Those races. Most of that is because they have been told not to try. It’s too hard. Don’t bother. Take the easy road. It’s easier. You will like it better.
In the clip I posted, Will Smith talks about why people do take the easy road, and how that sends them spiralling into the abyss that never allows them to go the other way.
We tend to base our self esteem on what other people think. And that’s not really self esteem, Self esteem is supposed to be about how we feel about ourselves. How dangerous it is to allow other people to determine how you are going to feel about you. It’s kind of like looking into a broken mirror.... and then change your face to try and look good in this defiled, busted broken mirror. It’s just other peoples opinion is a really shitty way to determine how we feel about ourselves.
If you listen to others, who have opinions, but generally take the easy road, and make it seem like that is the right road, it’s the broken mirror syndrome in full blown mode. You will avoid the hard road, and never get to the point where you need to be. They will have convinced you their road is the right road, when you know it isn’t. You become helpless, and hopeless. You have conformed to a broken, loser model of any part of life you attach to it.
For me, I know how to spot it, and only have to do that to know I have to find the hard road they won’t take. Common words out of their mouth are....I took the two logical ones. Or....I dont trust the favorites, but I don’t feel like looking beyond them, so I took the next logical one and didnt bother to look at the host of hard to like ones to find one that actually presents value. Or, you can’t leave that one out, so I used him anyway, at the expense of the value horse I could have found and replaced him with.
Why do they do all that? Because it’s easy to do that. It requires no work, and it sounds logical. Horses arent logical, and in many cases, life isnt either.
In terms of Will Smith’s point, I will add a quote from Dr Tom, in the pilot episode of Being Erica.
Sure, other peoples opinions matter. They just dont matter as much as your own.
Yes, learn from others. Listen to what they have to say. I’m sure they have some wisdom. But, remember, almost all of them are taking the easy road, and that is not the road you want to be on if you want to get to your end destination. Very few get to that point, and almost none of them took the easy way there. What they did was pass others on the way who got off at Easy Street and camped there for eternity. Happily. Which is absolutely their choice, if it’s a conscious choice.
For others, like me, I want it to be hard. I don’t always like it when I’m smack in the middle of the hard way or times, but I know pushing through that is what will get me to the promised land, the top of the mountain, whatever metaphoric term or saying you want to use. Of course, that takes a lot of personal self esteem. Because just about everyone you know will tell you that you are doing it wrong, and you will fail. They are afraid of hard. Hard work. Hard times. Etc. And that’s good, because that is when you know you are on the right road, even if it’s a very hard and bumpy road. You have to believe that, completely, to stick with it. As Denzel says, be committed and be consistent. It’s not easy. That is actually very hard. The hardest part. Sticking with it when it gets really hard.
Later in the clip.
The more opinions there are of me, the less I look at them. Because I just can’t live my life based on what other people think of me.
-Denzel.
So, the answer was simple. I wasn’t finding value because while I worked hard, I was taking the easy road. No matter how hard you work, which is important, you have to be on the right road. The hard road presents challenges and challenges you to not take the easy exit off that road when things get tough. When they do get tough, that is when you know you are on the right road. The road to value. Which you will arrive at if you are consistent and stick with it. As long as that takes.
For me, that is upwards of 37 years now. But I have stuck with it and continue to do so. Because I always knew if I stuck to the hard road, I would end up at the value I seek and know is out there.
That is what did and continues to drive me.
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