Mr. Trifecta

Richard A. Cromie

Handicapping books can be divided into two basic types: those that rely on solid information and those that rely on more nebulous information. 99.9% of the latter (I know if I say “all,” someone will publish one that actually works) are complete and utter bunk. The majority of the “nebulous information” books rely on one source of information: “smart money.”

The concept of “smart money” is that a horse's owner, trainer, and jockey have a better idea than most handicappers about how the horse will run. The obvious logical fallacy should be apparent: the so-called “smart money” may know everything there is to know about their horse in the race, but are likely to know just as much as the next guy about every other horse in the race.

Mr. Trifecta is just this kind of insider-money book, taking an old system (looking for horses who have more money bet on them in the daily double pool than the win pool and assuming that's “smart money”) and applying it with a new angle (Cromie uses the pick three pool instead of the daily double pool). But it's nothing we haven't seen before, and while it's not the quickest road to the poorhouse, you're far better off with books from the former camp by authors like Tom Ainslie, Dick Mitchell, Jim Quinn, William Quirin, Mark Cramer, and the like.

Two stars, because it's short, to the point, and contains some good tall tales about track life.