Handicapping Trainers: In Search of the Longshot Winner

John Whitaker

The problem, sometimes, with reading old handicapping books is that the information has since been revised and updated by someone else in the interim. In this case, trainer handicapping has had much light shed on it in the past fifteen years. At the time of this book's publication, though, it was definitely a worthwhile read, something new and interesting. (And even now, much of the strongest work to be found on trainer handicapping is restricted, having never been published except in obscure articles in even more obscure magazines. So there should still be a market for this book.)

The basics here will be familiar with anyone who's handicapped more than a couple of races since the last time the Daily Racing Form changed its format; Whitaker talks about keeping trainer stats. (For the record, the ones kept by the Daily Racing Form are always suspect and never to be trusted.) It seems obvious now, but no one was doing it back then. Whitaker gives an easy, if time-consuming, approach for doing this that allows for very quick lookup of any given trainer whose record you may happen to need quickly.

All in all good stuff, but for most it will be outdated. Worth having in your handicapping bookshelf as a collector's item, though.