DRF Past Performances Tutorial Final

Understanding Daily Racing FormPast PerformancesMarch 29, 2008Thoroughbred Ink www.thoroughbredink.comUsing DRF Past PerformancesWhen I was at the National Handicapping Contest this year in Las Vegas (no I wasn’t a contestant, just a supporter) I was handi-capping the races at Santa Anita when a gentleman behind me said, “Excuse me, this is embarrassing, I have been playing horsesfor 30 years and I don’t know what the dot in a square symbol means”. I told him that it was an inner dirt track, and more than like-ly was an Aqueduct (a New York race track) race (which it was). This is a regular occurrence when I am at an OTB (Off TrackBetting) or at the track. I then thought about the fact that it was only a couple of years ago that I figured out what the “lollipop”symbol meant - a dead heat.It is not surprising that there is an awful lot of hit or miss on anything that has as much data as the DRF Past Performances. It iscrammed full of critical data, and there is only so much room, making symbols and abbreviations a necessity. If horseplayers with30 years of experience don’t know what certain symbols or abbreviations mean, how is a new player supposed to be able to under-stand the data? In many ways it is like using a computer software program like Microsoft Word - you can get along ok, but youknow there are many things that the software will do but you just haven’t learned those features. As a computer trainer I routinelysee people using what they know to ...