Product Description

The best payoffs I've had at the track were generated by extreme pace aberrations. Those nice payoffs didn't come from pedestrians. I'm talking about thieves and carpetbaggers, opportunists who were ordinary but found themselves in extraordinary situations - the right place, the right time. When I started playing the extreme pace way, it made such a difference that I dedicated my handicapping life to it. Extreme Pace Handicapping will show you what made the difference and why. It's simple, really. I like to call it pace picture doodling. If you doodle it, they will come: The Thief, The Clever Thief, The Loner, and the Carpetbagger. Includes one FREE month of the PACEAPPRAISER PPs. Here's how: Buy the book. Go to the author's website (see About the Author at the end of the book for website address). Send a copy of your Amazon receipt along with your first and last name. You will receive your login information by return email.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #178709 in Books
• Published on: 2008-06-05
• Binding: Paperback
• 136 pages

Customer Reviews

Disappointed
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.

Pace: The Final Frontier
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.

Viewing the Race Holistically
"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.