Insight to Ed’s Brain
When Ed completed 2 years worth of stats for Layoffs and Claims he began to see enough data with a reasonable number of tries that identified potential bets.
Anyone who has had a conversation with Ed had to recognize his confidence and because of this often thought that Ed precisely knew how to bet out of the gate. Almost as if he were born with an innate understanding of how to invest and win on horseracing, however, that couldn’t be farther from the truth. His confidence came from recording statistics, and then letting the recording of these statistics guide him.
Personally I believe the secret to his success was it never mattered to him how much work was involved to find out how to win. If something lead him in a different direction even after spending a year or two recording information a certain way, he’d start over.
![](https://anyhorseplayersoutthere.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/EdOfficesmall.jpg)
He began by tracking 138 different trainer moves! He did all this manually, with a pencil and a pad. This was before we had a computer so for his birthday one year I bought him a pack of erasers. Of course as a joke but it was my way of trying to get him to accept the idea that it would be good to transition to a P C.
This was the beginning of our working together as a team that also defined our roles. Since neither of us were schooled in computers I willingly learned how to prepare spreadsheets and we went from there. Essentially we were still manually entering the data yet having this information in a spreadsheet and being able to decipher is what made Ed Bain happen.
While recording these 138 trainer moves Ed noticed Layoffs and Claims were dominant so this is when he made the first decision to start over. Initially he combined all distances, meaning he did not separate by sprint and route and to give you a real look inside Ed’s mind he once again made the decision to start completely over even after compiling 2 years worth of Layoffs and Claims because he realized distance matters. It’s this willingness to adjust, to change, to start over, that gives him his edge. It’s the reason he was able to figure out how to consistently win.
The manual recording had it’s advantages too because whether Ed realized this or not during the process he was subconsciously making note of things that surfaced at the most opportune times, when he was deciding which ones to bet. And I’m happy to say the same holds true for me because I am the one who pulls together the results so I can monitor how the Standouts are doing. I actually manually write down the results throughout the day, something I’ve done since day one because this gives me a hands on mental subconscious note of how they’re performing which also gives me direction.
It took about 3 years from the time Ed surfaced with his Layoff and Claims data to establishing a sound way to bet. All the while recording his bets and tracking his results.
We had spreadsheets for everything; just 4 + 30s (that we used to publish in monthly newsletter), then separate ones that contained all Layoffs and Claims stats, then spreadsheets for his bets and these grew as he moved along.
He was not an out of the gate win bettor nor did he strictly bet 4 + 30s which meant a trainer had 4 wins or more plus a 30% win rate or higher on this Layoff or Claim trainer move and he bet small during this process of growth.
It was during this analysis that he came to understand a 30% win rate also equates to a 70% loss rate and that in order to be profitable it was necessary to eliminate races which is how he came up with what he used to refer to as filters.
As an example he began with using the horse’s race record to eliminate. If the horse had zero wins for 4 at this track and/or distance, he’d pass. Then he noticed often if a horse won their last race that unless they won in an Allowance grade or better that the runner rarely repeat. So this was added to his list of filters. Another filter came about when one or more of his 4 + 30 stats showed up in the same race because whenever he selected one over the other, the other always won. Always 🙂
Thus began “the more often than not” rule. What this essentially means is that no matter what routine you establish, there are always going to be times when what you threw out or went against beats you. It’s part of being a horse player. No one wins every race though I do think we’re on track to eventually win 60% or more. So in order to know what to do, you track results and you see where the profit is and then you bet accordingly.
I’ll give a personal example of one of my more often than not rules. Whenever I make a serial race wager, usually one that includes 4 or more races, I make a bet I refer to as the either or.
What this means is I look for a trainer that happens to have 2 entries within my serial race wager (though not in the same race) and this trainer has to have a fairly high overall hit rate. Let’s say 20%. More than likely I am in this serial race wager because there is one race within the sequence that has a Stand out for me. It could be for any reason but there is one particular horse I really like that I want to stand alone with. So from here I scope the surrounding races to see what high profile trainer might have multiple entries within the wager I want to make and often times I find several which is great because I actually look at each of their runners and sometimes there is a good reason not to like one or the other so I decide not to use that trainer. Long story shorter once I decide who to use, I single them in each race on two separate tickets with my single that lead me to this race in the first place and then do all and all in the legs where I don’t have a stat.
To define, lets say we have a Pick 4 and in leg 1 I really like the 2 horse and trainer Brad Cox has two entries, one in leg 2 which we’ll label the 1 horse and one in leg 4 which we’ll label the 4 horse. My two tickets would look like this:
2/1/ALL/ALL and 2/ALL/ALL/4
So if my single hits and Brad Cox wins either of these two legs I win more often than not by betting this way. Sounds simple but it took quite a few tries for me to establish this bet because I didn’t always use All in the middle and learned the hard way to do so. However sometimes in the All slot the favorite hits even though I perceived that race wide open and thus the pick 4 wager payout isn’t big. But, More Often Than Not, it is. It pays great. And the other deciding factor before even deciding this bet is the fact that my single has decent odds and I perceive the serial race wager wide open and worth the bet OR I pass.
The reason I share all this is because I have figured out one way so far for us to consistently win. And I am applying this each day I bet so we can grow our betting pool. Though there are so many more opportunities awaiting and the only way we discover what these are is by deciphering the results which I continue to do.
In other words because we have this understanding we’re already turning a profit and we don’t have to wait 3 years to know what to do. So we’re moving forward betting this one way, continuing to bet small until I get down the routine and our pool is consistently growing like Ed, I will then increase the increments.
In addition I’m trying and will continue to try various things that we’ve discovered and because of this sometimes you will see days where we haven’t won, though because when doing so we bet small so we’re not experiencing a big loss. When something doesn’t work or requires an adjustment, I’ll pull back, meaning I don’t bet, instead analyze some more and then try again.
For now it looks like the weekends (Fri-Sat-Sun) will get the majority of our wagers.
You can follow our progress which includes our betting balance sheet at the following link: https://anyhorseplayersoutthere.com/version-2-wagers/
and in case you’re not aware each night we publish a full card for you to view that identifies the Standouts (the programs top rated selection with a big advantage over the next best runner) in bold that you can access each evening usually by 7 PM EST at the following link:
https://anyhorseplayersoutthere.com/potential-bets-all/
Lastly we also publish the Standout results for each day so everyone can follow along with how these are performing. The other day we hit 80%+ in the money with a lot of winners though if we bet all would have lost about $10 cause of so many low price payouts and on that day there were a lot of scratches so many no payouts for show. That’s part of this too.
These are posted at the following link:
https://anyhorseplayersoutthere.com/results-2022-may/
That is the list that I choose our wagers from.
In closing I did get some rest this week, and am rejuvenated. I will continue to be engrossed in our venture, betting, building our bank and adding to things as we move along. For the most part I will remain quiet unless of course we have an exceptional day I will be certain to let you know 🙂
Looking forward to tomorrow’s races.
![](https://anyhorseplayersoutthere.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Susan.jpg)