Customer Reviews

Extreme Pace Handicapping: If You Doodle They Will Come

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

As the title would imply, I was a bit disappointed with the book. For a rather premium price I was expecting a book with a little more heft to it.

Not much of a quibble with the content of the book, but to follow the method manually would add a hours to my already slow process of handicapping a race card only to find that if I am using the author's criteria, there will be no race to play. As a largely recreational player, that is not an acceptable outcome.

Of course there is the option of subscribing to the author's website where all the grunt work will be done for you. I give the author credit for not using the book as am expensive promotion for his web site, but this methodology is only really practical for hardcore simulcast or home players who wish to monitor multiple tracks on a daily basis.

Randy has laid the groundwork for a common sense pace handicapping methodology. Properly identifying the horses' preferred running styles is the foundation of winning pace handicapping. Randy shows a lot of examples of how to do this and then guides the reader through several scenarios that will come up everyday at every track and show how to interpret each entrant matches up to the race shape. Some will be favored, others disadvantaged. Most people who bet into the pools will not know which is which, but you will.

Kudos to Randy for a very informative lesson in pace, the final frontier.

"Extreme Pace Handicapping" is an intermediary textbook on thoroughbred handicapping, specifically on the area of race pace shapes. Subtitled "If You Doodle It, They Will Come" this one is more booklet than book, weighing in at only 122 pages (of which at least twenty are just charts) but still very worthwhile, as what is there is all meat, with very little filler. The material would be a little beyond a beginner's grasp. In my opinion a reader should first be grounded in the basics of thoroughbred handicapping (class, form, speed figures, etc.) before tackling this one; call it a "next-level-up" text.

The book demonstrates how to use Quirin speed points, coupled with each horse's preferred running style (as determined by their previous in-the-money finishes) to predict how the race being handicapped will unfold with regards to pace; that is, who will be the front runner(s), who will stalk the leader(s), who will try to come from behind, etc. This pace system of handicapping is based upon the premises that:

1) A horse race is a system made up of parts

2) The system parts are interconnected

3) Complimentary patterns of relationships appear within the system.

The author gives an excellent example of this symbiotic approach. Quoting from page 4:

"Let's say you're driving your car along the freeway. You're listening to your favorite radio station. There's no traffic and you're free to move to any lane you choose. You adjust your speed as you like. You are driving your car. All of a sudden traffic increases, the car in front of you slows down, an eighteen wheeler is on your bumper, you're traveling at 55 miles per hour now, and before you know it you're back up to 70. Now the traffic is doing the driving - or you could say, sometimes a horse will run the race and sometimes the race will run the horse."

What it boils down to, then, is using General Systems Theory to handicap by viewing the race holistically. Rather than viewing each horse's qualities in isolation, one is made to appreciate that the race as a whole is more than just the sum of its parts. Or, to quote the old-time phrase that sums it up quite nicely, "Pace makes the race."

The text demonstrates how to identify into which of the five primary running styles each horse belongs (labeled by the author as E - Early; E/P - Early/Presser; P - Presser; P/C - Presser/Closer; C - Closer). An entire chapter is dedicated to providing the reader with ten examples of each of the five running styles, ranging from the easily identifiable to the most difficult to classify. Once identified, the author demonstrates how each horses' running style, combined with the frontrunners' Quirin speed points, can be used to determine which horse(s) will be most advantaged and disadvantaged by the expected shape of the race under review; that is, how the race can be expected to play out, and which horse(s) stands most to benefit. For example, a horse that is the lone front runner in the race has a huge advantage; however, if there are multiple such front runners competing, and they are of relatively equal ability, then the advantage would lie with a closer, a horse who can come from behind and run past the tiring front runners in the stretch after they have run each other into the ground. The author has cleverly named four such examples of extreme advantage as "The Thief"; "The Clever Thief"; "The Loner" and "The Carpetbagger."

Overall a very good book. One can quibble about the cost re: price vs pages, but to do so would be to argue in favor of just adding filler material to a book where none is needed. Again, not for the beginner, but highly recommended for someone already familiar with thoroughbred handicapping basics.

I have had this book for several months. Initially, I struggled to get into it because in the beginning of the book, the author does not do a great job of explaining his concepts.

Recently I decided that I need to put forth the time to try to understand what Randy was saying. With a little diligence I got past the early stumbling blocks and found a really excellent piece of work.

Randy breaks races down using a relatively simple approach once you understand it. He uses a combination of Quirin Early Speed Points, the horse's running styles (E, EP, P, P/C) and what he calls the "pace pressure gauge" to create a "pace picture" of the race.

This is very good stuff. I highly recommend this book.

Can't wait to add some of the features to my software. <G>


David E. Schwartz
author of:
The HorseStreet Handicapper (software)
ThoroBrain II, III and IV (software)
HorseMarket Investing
The Opponent Method
The HorseStreet Par Times

Takes the quirin speed points and tries to make some type of system out of it. Could sum the whole thing up in a nutshell, look for how many speed horses there are and guess the scenario of when a frontrunner should be favored or a stalker, or closer. His "optimal pace model"is so convaluted and or complicated I almost defy anyone to use it, and I have been handicapping for 40 years. Wish I had my money back.

First, I am a fan of Randy Giles. I believe he is an excellent handicapper with a sterling reputation, but I guess I expected a bit more from this book. His reasoning is sound but I had trouble following some of it. He just seems to lay the information "out there" without going deeper. The beginning of the book is clouded with examples which are not labeled. You don't know which races he's referencing in assigning speed points. Quirin speed points is not a new concept but I'm sure there are people, not familiar with them, who would have difficulty with the examples presented in the book. Overall there is substance here, I just feel it could have been presented in a clearer fashion.

Randy Giles, Extreme Pace Handicapping: If You Doodle, They Will Come (CreateSpace, 2008)

I'm always kind of wary of handicapping books. Some really, really bad ones have been published by major (well, major for handicapping, anyway) presses. So when you combine vanity publishing and handicapping, things can sometimes reach depths to which no sane man should ever stoop. (Case in point: Richard Cromie's Mr. Trifecta.) But I actually found a copy of this at my local Half-Price Books for something akin to a reasonable price a couple of days after I added it to the TBR list. Seemed like providence to me, so I picked it up. I've had a recent run of bad handicapping books, and I realize that may be clouding my judgment, but I'll tell you what--despite the seeming silliness of the subtitle (which really doesn't have much to do with anything) and the fact that you can get most of this from reading between the lines in back issues of the Cramer-Olmsted Report published in the nineties (which you can't get anymore unless you subscribed back then anyway), this ain't a bad little book. In fact, I was pretty impressed with it, given what it is.

The basic idea here will be familiar to readers of authors like Mitchell, Olmsted, and of course Sartin and his crowd: that pace makes the race. Giles separates out four different kinds of pace profiles into which winning horses often fit. If you're a student of pace handicapping, you've probably seen this a number of times, but Giles tweaks the parameters somewhat and focuses on specific horses once you've done some initial analysis, tossing the rest of the field into the hopper. I haven't gotten out to the track much this year, so I haven't had a chance to test any of this out, but the premise is sound, the book is well-put-together (if a little slim; a good chunk of it has to do with track profiles that were out of date long before you started reading this review, which always irks me) and, for a vanity pub, astonishingly well proofread. A pleasant surprise all around. ***

The Author takes sevaral concepts that are have been around for quite a while and gives them a new twist. Quirin speed points and running style analysis have been around forever, but the pace graphs and pace pressure guage put a new spin on them that I found really helpful in my handicapping. Definitely worth the price.

Just got the book on Friday and could not put it down. Giles really breaks new ground and gives you many idea's on how to approach the game with methods to have a chance to make money.

No guarantees of course, but even though this guy is from Tennesee (the original home of horse racing, not Kentucky!) don't sell him short.

This book blows away the clap-trap from the DRF press. I call Giles an, "unknown genius". Unlike like Mozart who was discovered 100 years after his death, hopefully Giles will get his props sooner than that.

This is one of the most confusing books I ever read, stike that, I ever tried to read. You be reading along and BANG, there a footnote, and the footnote is only 3 words long, oh it gets better. Some footnotes are only 3 letters long.

Good luck trying to figure out whatever system this guy is trying to tell you about, I gave up.