William Murray, The Right Horse (Doubleday, 1997)

availability: amazon

Murray's The Wrong Horse was one of the truly amusing
books in equine literature, a collection of anecdotes
that gives ample evidence that Murphy's Law is a live,
well, and an intimate of every person at a racetrack,
from the grooms to the president to the long-suffering
punters. The Right Horse unfortunately abandons the
jocularity for the most part and takes the tone of an
instruction manual; an odd choice for a book whose
subtitle claims, in part, that the book wants you to
have a great time at the track.

Not to say it's a bad book by any stretch of the
imagination; it's more a question of repetition. If
you've read more than two handicapping primers, it's
likely you've seen a good deal of what's here in the
past. Murray writes well, even when he's not taking
potshots at Mr. Murphy and his law's application to
racing, and the book is certainly readable. I'd just
have liked to see more that hadn't previously been
said. ** 1/2

I am a thoroughbred racing fan and the owner of many handicapping books. Although many of these books contain valuable material, others have been just a waste of money. When I first started to read this book, I thought it fell into the latter category, but the more I read, the more interesting it became. Although not all the ideas in this book are easily attainable, there are still many that can be added to a persons handicapping arsenal. The discussions about the morning line, jockey and trainer are the best I've seen. I think this book is worth the money.

In this book Scott claims to have unlocked the secret of the "Form Cycle". He puts forth conclusions from a study of 433 races which will supposedly give the reader an edge over other players at the race track. Unfortunately his advice can be put into two catagories: (1) observations that are so obvious that they are of no use as a basis for betting since other betters will also know about it and (2) conclusions that are just plain wrong. His "positive elimination factor in sprint races" is an example of the former and the whole of chapter 3 is an example of the latter.

Scott is no mathematician, much less a statistician. He will take pages and pages to describe a calculation that could be written down in one simple formula. Anyone with even a single course in statistics will realize that his conclusions are flawed. Using the results of over 1000 races I am unable to duplicate his results.

What Scott offers here is a perpetuation of the gambler's myth that there is some system that will allow him to beat the house. I doubt that such a system exists, but if it does, it is not to be found within the pages of this book.

On the other hand the book can be an entertaining read if you enjoy this sort of thing. Scott, a lawyer writing under a pen name, certainly has the gift of gab. His bio claims he has won cases before the US Supreme Court. I would not mind him representing me in court, especially if I was guilty.

While I admit the work as a whole is flawed, I disagree with the first review. First off, the 3rd chapter stands up pretty well, as horses who don't work between long hiatuses from the post parade DO tend to disappoint their first race back. This 'rule' has saved me a lot of concern about returning horses that seem "dropping and dangerous" and are getting a lot of play.

The things I didn't like about this "system" is that, compared to the initial program set forth in "Investing at the Racetrack", it was more "forgiving" in disqualifying horses, and many times failed to get rid of borderline horses whose ability times put it into contention.

And, the Scott system is abysmal on "off" tracks. If your track isn't fast/firm.. that is, muddy, sloppy, or even "good", either go home or use a different method that day. You'll find yourself tearing up ticket after ticket, with "improbable" horses coming in first time after time if you use this method on anything less than ideal track conditions.

On a fast track, the Scott system provides a decent start to understanding some of the many factors that go into good handicapping; concepts I have read in other authors' work, only not "formularized". I would not stop with just this one method, however, but augment it with some insight into track bias, trip handicapping and pace handicapping too.

I found nothing in this book that would help me, a newcomer to betting on horses, make an intelligent decision at the track. I'd prefer to give it less than a star. I will continue to search for a good book that will give me the information I need.

A fun read with little or no information about the gaming aspects of this exciting sport. Railbirds and lifetime fans will learn quite a bit about the sport and the athletes (both equine and human), while being shortchanged on the wagering aspects of the game. Look elsewhere if your interest lies in the wagering aspects of horseracing.

This is a great guide for all the new fans , as well a back to basics refresher manual for the oldtimers. It is quite comprehensive starting from first step up to including methods or systems for selection of winning horses. Just one system in the book may pay for it, with the first bet.

I agree with the earlier comment. "The Complete Book of Golf Games" by Johnston is a lot better.

This book is pretty lame, especially compared to "The Complete Book of Golf Games" by Johnston.

I found this book to be a very enjoyable and entertaining. It enhanced the pleasure of playing and wagering during my rounds with my regular foursome. The book is well written and filled with trivia and humor. The pocket size makes it convenient to take along in my golf bag and is appreciated by my golf companions while we wait for out tee time or for players ahead to move along.

If you never have been to Vegas and want to know a bit about sports betting, this is not a bad book. However, there are some superior books out there.

This book provides the basic guidlines a golfer would use to gamble during the playing of one round of golf. The explaination of the gambling games and how they are played is most instructive. This instruction teaches the beginning golf gambler how to place bets and score specific games in a manner to allow the beginer to protect himslef from cheating or being decieved by a experienced charlatan. This book lacks coverage and discription of how golf gambling would be applied to a charity event sponsored by a golf course and jointly played by all golf club members.

The research utilized in this book is faulty--at least as far as Deadwood is concerned. Gaming has absolutely saved this community and has done a fantastic job of restoring the town. The balance has shifted in this community and the authors of this book have released their findings too early. It is a shame that the innovative idea that Deadwood had is being criticized for destroying the history of the community. The authors need to return to this community and see the new emphasis of cultural tourism.

William L. Scott, Total Victory at the Track (Amicus, 1988)

The late Scott concludes his handicapping trilogy with Total Victory at the Track, a book that both builds on his two earlier works (Investing at the Racetrack and How Will Your Horse Run Today?) and introduces another concept that ties them together. While Scott's work isn't bad, and the foundations upon which it lays are solid enough, there are some blunders in here that a novice wouldn't make. Whether to blame Scott or his editors is an arguable point, but the effect is the same; a novice coming into this book is going to pick up some bad information indirectly. My advice: buy this book if you're experienced enough at horseplaying to know how to read the Daily Racing Form's past performances and result charts, and be on the lookout for the errors. They are everywhere.

That said, the methods outlined here are certainly solid ones, as the workout in the back of the book shows (I'm doing my own testing on it, since these things seem to change on an almost daily basis in the horse biz), and while Scott isn't promising rose gardens, nor enough money to buy the land and plant the roses, it would seem that what he offers is at least enough to turn losers into break-even types or winners, if they're willing to do a little work to get there. It just seems that the path might be a little easier to follow without the glaring Daily Racing Form-related errors that pepper the text. ** 1/2

This book, the third in the Scott "Investing at the Track" trilogy, is the flimsiest yet. One, it abandons much of the safe, statistically-backed theory of the first two books in favor of newer ideas that are only supported by a few hundred race samples, and are curiously not shown to be more effective based on the ORIGINAL race samples (which might be more convincing). Two, it tempts the reader to venture into much riskier plays than ever before (where admittedly, more profits can be made, but at greater risk and greater uncertainty). And three, it is rife with "judgment calls" in all facets of the computation of performance class ratings, running lines, etc. And, once you start asking the handicapper to lump almost ALL past performances into the formula, without regard to the PPs' track conditions or even surface in most cases...it's hard to make such a leap of faith.

The beauty of the original Scott system was its simplicity. This new method is a morass of "add this, subtract that, divide that but only when there's a full moon..." It also adds to the bookkeeping necessary to make it work while you're actually at the track. All the calculations and comparisons can't easily be done in the Racing Form, rather a notebook and calculator are necessary for close scrutiny of all the numbers for each rated beast.

It's very hard to get a grip on the calculations, let alone the new selection criteria.

Still, there is a bright side: in some preliminary testing against some recent races that were also handicapped using the old method, the new method seemed to do better. It took a day's racing with the old method that featured a disaster at one track and a reasonable profit at another, and turned in windfalls at both, using the new method.