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by Len Ragozine; Richard Steier; Len Friedman
(Hardcover)
Beating the Races with the Man Who Revolutionized Handicapping
Hailed as the man who revolutionized handicapping, Len Ragozin is renowned in the world of horse racing not only for his maverick style but for his consistent success in picking winners. Every day, savvy horseplayers purchase his handicapping charts - The Sheets - for their precision ratings. A graduate of Harvard University and a lifelong communist, Ragozin has perfected a brilliant and iconoclastic speed-handicapping system that works. Throwing out what he describes as the "snowstorm" of Daily Racing Form data that overwhelm most fans, Ragozin considers only objective physical factors - the horse's true time, wind speed, the weight carried, and track resiliency - and mathematically boils them down to one simple figure. The lower the number, the better the horse. Just as important, The Sheets track each horse's individual race patterns, not only revealing the ebbs and flows of past performances but also indicating when the horse is about to run the race of its life. After forty years in the business, Ragozin has honed his handicapping methods to a high art - and made himself a millionaire in the process. Now, for the first time, Ragozin details the system that made him famous. With his trademark humor and brash irreverence, he explains the nuts and bolts of speed handicapping - his way. Covering everything from betting strategies to the bounce theory, he shows readers how to read The Sheets and apply the numbers effectively. In the process he debunks a lot of myths about racing: a horse's ranking by "class", the value of inside information, and "hot" jockeys. Along the way he shares his own underdog success story, from devoted young Marxist to gambling king. Starting with his first big win at the Kentucky Derby in 1953, Ragozin has just about seen it all, from FBI witch-hunts to run-ins with shady New York bookies. Whether you're a first-time bettor or a lifelong racetrack fan, The Odds Must be Crazy is an unbeatable way to analyze winners. The proof is in the results, including his 14 percent win profits in a two-month public casino trial in 1996.
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