This is the second edition in which I will critically discuss some more commonly used, misused and misunderstood angles that seem to be prevalent in the world of handicapping.

The first edition of this series, Shape Angles, was a review of various angles, which are designed to spot in-shape horses, which might be ready to win. In this edition, I'll cover the angles, which are designed to determine which horse is the fastest or who is the best horse in the race.

I'll start off by stating flatly that I really don't give a shit who the best horse in the race is anyway, so therefore, as a group, I find almost all of these to be utterly useless as angles. However, it is good to understand them and discuss them, as you can learn a lot from that exercise, and I've hidden some other good information in here so as to make you read.

Why do I find these less than useful? Primarily because there is no one best horse in any race, usually. Every horse has at least some chance of winning. Therefore, while there is a horse who has the best chance, it would be wrong to call him the 'best' horse, because on most nights, he will lose. Furthermore, in those races where there truly is ONE BEST HORSE, it is usually so obvious to everyone that it becomes a "Bob Farrell Best Bet" and pays $3.00. So who really cares. But let's take a look at them, in no particular order.

1. FASTEST MARK LAST SEASON - Many people use these as some kind of indicator of how fast a horse is capable of going. They see a mark of 1:52 last year, look at the final times of the competition in recent races, and decide that the horse has some sort of advantage over the field tonight. I know I am going to get hate letters on this, but in most cases, this is of absolutely no relevance. I'll grant you that a horse with a mark of 1:52 last year probably has more potential then a horse with a mark of 1:58 on the same track, but that's about all you can say. There are a whole bunch of reasons why this so. There are many horses that chalk up one winning time during a season which is substantially faster than its other winning times is. It is not unusual for a horse to win one race in, say, 1:52, but win his 3 others in 1:54 and change. Much depends on when during the year he took the mark. Needless to say, the horses which race predominantly in the winter months will not have the types of marks that a horse who ran strongly in the heat of the late spring and summer. You do not necessarily know "how" the mark was taken - the fast mark could have been taken with a pocket trip behind a speed duel. In general, it is of no handicapping value, so you can ignore it. The only time it can be helpful is in the case of a young horse - a 3-year old or early 4-year old. In this type of case, as a horse seems to be improving and working his way into better shape, you can get an idea of the type of talent which he showed when he was less mature.

2. FASTEST MARK THIS SEASON - Again, who cares? Unless the horse's current shape indicates that he is capable of winning that fast now, what good does it do you to know that he won in 1:54 - 20 races ago?

3. FASTEST FINAL TIMES IN RECENT RACES - When you look at a program, and see a particular horse who, race after race, seems to be recording final times which are consistently 2 seconds faster than everyone else in the race, it does not take a brain surgeon to guess that perhaps he is a faster horse. Though this is usually a fool's gambit. Unless the horse is winning these races, or at very least, is a major factor in the making of the pace in these races, such an advantage of final times is often an illusion. Sometimes, with a horse shipping in, you can get a basic idea as to whether or not he "fits" but even that is very tricky. However, where you do have a horse who is racing on the lead or moving aggressively, and his times seem manifestly superior to the others, you probably have located the fastest horse. You can get on the teller line behind Bob Farrell of the Bergen Record to place your wager.

4. FINAL TIMES OF THE RACE WINNERS - this can be slightly more useful, but once again, is usually misused. The way it works is: you look at the final times of the race winners in a horse's recent races, and you see all kinds of fast times, and you go, "Ooooooooo, look how fast the races are that he has been in - he never had a chance." Again, the horse trailing at a distance in the pack has nothing to do with that time, so who really cares? You CAN however, look at certain fractions of the prior races for an indication. While a horse may indeed have been racing in events which were just plain too fast for him, a reasonable showing during a fast final half might give you the indication that, with softer fractions expected in tonight's race, if he can stay in striking distance, he should be able to strongly outperform the field late in the mile.

Here's a recent example of where a superior final time lead to a huge overlay, but only after referring to the chart could one understand this mile as the giant effort that it was. This is this past Saturday's 10th race at Balmoral Park, and the horse in question is #9, FOX VALLEY ARSENIC who went off at odds of nearly 4-1. (You can right click on this image and print it out seperately if you would like it bigger)

At first glance, one might be attracted to the final time of 1:53.2. which is the fastest of all the competitors in this event. But it certainly seems like he didn't do one hell of a lot in that race, did he? Had the 2 hole and sat. Used no energy at all sitting on the rail, and just held on as the leader sped off. In most cases, looking at the final time of the race or the horse like this will be a big mistake. It's not until you look at the chart of that last race that his effort stands out like a SORE THUMB. Sorry folks - the scanner was having kinipshuns!

The chart shows that the #9 Dun Got Lucky left hard, along with #10 Austen John. FOX VALLEY ARSENIC in fact left hard from the 2-hole and parked #9 past the quarter. Not having seen the race, I do not know when he yielded. #10 took over before the half and went on with it, opening up 5 lengths by the headstretch marker and winning by 5¼. While on the program, it appeared that FVA never left, sat along the rail and merely held evenly, when we look at the chart, we see a different story. We see a horse that left hard and while it is true that he was, indeed, even with the winner, but look how he drew away from the remainder of the field - he put nearly 4 lengths between himself and #1, and gained substantially on everyone else. As for the fractions, the final half was 56 flat; the fastest portion of the race, and it was in this portion that he raced so effectively - in the stretch.

As a further indication of the power of this particular performance, the winner AUSTEN JOHN raced in the 5th race on this evening against quasi-open pacers, went off at 5-2, was 8th turning for home behind dead cover and passed them like they were standing still, in 1:51.2. FOX VALLEY ARSENIC, in this race, left hard from the 9-hole and got a spot 4th on the rail approaching the quarter, came out from 5th after the 3/8 pole and brushed to the lead, and was the easiest kind of winner from there.

So in this particular case, the horse with the fastest time did, in fact, have a huge edge over the field, but that is because he had a story - he had a hand in the making of the fractions in that race, even though the program doesn't show it. Unless this is so, the final times are often deceiving.

5. DROP IN RACE CLASSIFICATION - if you need to see what I think about the whole class issue, revisit THE CLASS OF THE RACE. But now is a particularly deceiving time to use this with conditioned racing. I'm using the Meadowlands conditions as my guideline here. In the beginning of the year, the basic condition of n/w7500 last 6 starts contains another condition: winners over 95,000 in 1997-1998 are ineligible. Makes sense - they want to keep horses who were big winners the previous year out of the mix. Take a look at that same nw7500 condition in mid-May and the condition is that winners over 25000 in 1998 are ineligible. If you look starting about now, you will find (this might not be exact - just a guess) nw7500L6 winners over 28000 ineligible. Also eligible: non-winners of 35000 in 1998, Now I know this sounds confusing, but a very high-caliber animal who is capable of racing way above this level when in anything even remotely close to decent shape can meet these conditions if he hasn't raced much yet this year. In fact, a horse could have won for a $40,000 purse last week and still qualify for this! What you find is that many of the marginal horses that were excluded from this class earlier in the year now qualify. So they were running in non-winners of 19000 3 weeks ago, and now they are in non-winners of 7500. Looks like a big class drop, right? Wrong! Why? Because all the other horses who were marginally competitive at that spot are also qualifying for this class (which, by the way, is the 2nd lowest on the condition ladder at the Meadowlands). Hence, as you move past the halfway mark of the season, it becomes even more imperative that you NOT rely on the little "+ and -" signs as indicators of class drop - save the programs so you know WHO they were in against and what the SHAPE of the field was.

6. DROP IN CLAIMING PRICE - again, the prior edition on class talks about me feelings here. Most of the time, horses drop because they are not in good enough shape and are struggling against the higher-valued horses. And since there is often little to choose from between successive claiming classes, dropping one notch is a poor angle.

In fact, at smaller tracks where they may have trouble filling races, a very common occurrence is for a racing secretary to ask the trainer if they can put a horse in for a certain amount so that they can fill the class and card a race. So, you may have a $5,000 claimer to drops down to $4,000, and the crowd thinks there is some kind of angle here, then, he goes back to $5,000 off a loss and they say "Ooooooo, their raising him off a loss - important angle!" Baloney! The horse may be a 5 claimer all along, who raced in 4's because the racing secretary needed horses in 4's. I don't like to read too much into raises or drops of one notch from week to week as any sort of angle - just judge the shape and the other factors.

7. BUMP UP IN CLAIMING PRICE OFF OF A LOSS - you figure, why would someone do this? Besides the situation that I talked about above, the obvious thing that comes to mind is: the connections think the horse is sharp and ready to win. But let's think about it. True, that is one reason. But perhaps they've gotten word that someone is interested in taking the horse - so they bump him up to discourage it. Sometimes, the trainer doesn't want to lose the horse and the training fee, so they take any opportunity to move the horse up. Sometimes, the owners are in love with the animal and move him up. In short, it is often just poor stable management. Sometimes, it is good shrewd stable management. The horse may be in a claimer, but be one lousy effort away from qualifying for some really soft conditions for a few weeks. Why lose the horse, especially in a race where you aren't going with him? So they bump the horse up (to discourage takers - who cares, they have no intention of winning anyway), throw in a clunker and then milk the conditions for a few weeks.Either way, if you are thinking of betting him tonight, there ain't no live angle.

8. LIFETIME OR PRIOR YEARS' EARNINGS - again, I won't say much about this. You see and hear lots of people making reference to how much this and that horse earned. Particularly in these days of the high-priced stakes race and all these series that they run all over the place. They've got racing series for cheap claimers that have some kind of ridiculous $20000 purse or something. Forget it. There are just too many ways for a horse to earn money and can get artificially inflated - with no bearing on the "speed" or "class" of the horse that it is poor even for these poor purposes anyway.

9. WHO HE RACED AGAINST - the way this works is you look on the program, and you see names you recognize. "Wow … look back here…. Cheeseater Lobell raced against Fools Goal, and you know how good a young trotter he is" … very common mistake with 3-year olds. With the overnight events, it is often used as some kind of substitute for knowing the shape of the field.. you see the names of the first 3 horses in that race. But 3 horses does not a field make, and while it may remind you of the race (which is good), just knowing the names of the top 3 finishers is not a good substitute for knowing who was in the field, and what shape they were in. And certainly, this has nothing to do with your horse's chances tonight.

10. SPEED RATINGS - this may come as a surprise to nobody, but I don't believe in them. I don't think that they are capable of telling you anything that cannot be seen or sensed with the naked eye with a cursory glance at the program, hence I find them worthless. I have seen all kinds of systems. I have heard all kinds of claims that such and such system picks this percent winners and that percent winners. I saw one system bragging that its top 3 picks win over 50% of the races. Boy, that's a good percentage! My cat can do better than that! You can take any system, and there will inevitably be periods of time when it will work.

But with all of the claims that I have heard and all of the mathematical "speed" oriented shortcuts I have seen, nothing - absolutely nothing - can shake a stick at the ability to make good, solid shape determinations, translate these into a horse's chances and combing this with good, disciplined betting. This formula has worked as long as I have been around, and I've been going to the track pretty regularly for the last 26 years. It has worked consistently at all sized tracks everywhere. There never has been, isn't, and never will be a system that can compete with these.