It finally happened! Caleb went bust and has become one of us! This would have been great week if it were not for all of us busting last week. $20 added to the bourbon fund brings us up to…

Mark:

After making my first Bourbon fund contribution, I decided that I would play with a more aggressive mentality and either make my second contribution or go up nicely on the night. Turfway has been very hard to get a handle on all meet, and my plays just never connected so I have now made my second Bourbon fund contribution.

I felt that I had the logical’s covered but finding 26-1 shots that make no sense on paper is not my strong suit so I was blown out of the P3 I tried to leverage up. My biggest take away from this week was that it’s really hard when you don’t have a solid opinion in a sequence but are trying to make entertaining content so you force things that just shouldn’t be forced.

Moving forward I need to spend more time on the sequence and not speed cap it. I also need to make sure I have a handle on that nights bias as it seems Turfway has been different every night if not almost race by race.

Caleb:

After going this far without contributing to the bourbon fund, Turfway finally got the better of me tonight. Turfway has been a very difficult track to get a handle on this meet. The track has notoriously favored outside runners for years, yet tonight the first 4 races were won by horses with the inside 2 posts.

I didn’t have any plays I loved on the card, so I elected to just watch the tote and bet horses who I thought were overlays. Unfortunately, most of those overlays didn’t fire. The worst moment of all came when I liked a 26-1 horse in race 5 and keyed him underneath of the two logical favorites, the 12 and the 7. Well, the 9 actually ended up winning outright with the 12 running second, and I was too dumb and cheap to play the exacta with the 9 on top.

The rest of the card was very challenging, as nobody hit the p4 and it ended up paying out 3 of 4, so I’m not taking that one too personally. Some of those winners were just very hard to have, and I’ll live with those types beating me.

Moving forward, I really need to handicap the entire sequence ahead of time so that I’ll know where my best opportunities to make money are. Had I known the last few races would be so wide open, I may have played my 26-1 more aggressively in race 5. Regardless, I’m re-upping and contributing my first $5 to the bourbon fund today.

Josh:

I’m going to be real with you. This was probably my best week so far. Sure, I missed every bet, but I had a hell of a root with my DD to a longshot. If it hit, I might be at $800-900 and sitting really pretty right now. Oh well, I took my shots and missed and will re-up with the boys next week after NHC.

Side note: Caleb and I proceeded to demolish Sam Houston the next night.

Chase:

Instead of discussing my flailing at Turfway I want to talk about the mental part of the game.

Committing yourself to being a horseplayer means you’re committing yourself to absorb and digest incredible amounts of data to make informed decisions. Don’t get me wrong, somedays everything just seems to click and you can be in tune with a track and it comes easy. However, to make a profit day in and day out it takes an extreme amount of focus.

Something that will save new (and even experienced) horseplayers a lot of grief and a lot of bankroll is being able to admit when you don’t have all of the mental tools you need to make money in this game.

I, personally, suffer from chronic back pain and it can affect my focus greatly. I’m very meticulous with how I analyze a card so I need long spans of uninterrupted and underailed train of thought. Frankly, I haven’t had the ability to hold focus for that long due to my chronic pain situation.

Pain is just my personal example. It could be work, family, kids, the McRib being back for a limited time, or many other reasons. However, no matter the reason you need to be honest with yourself and know when you’re not at your best. And when you’re honest with your self you need to have the patience to sit on your hands and not put money in the pools until you can give this fickle fucking game the attention and business like demeanor it deserves.