Thoroughbred Cycles

Mark Cramer is at his happiest in the dim light of the off-track betting parlor, where the flickering glow of the racetrack monitors dances to the low, steady rumble of the race caller's voice. You'd feel the same if you knew what Cramer knows about thoroughbred handicapping!

After years of research, observation, and ups and downs at the track, Mark Cramer has devised the most reliable system for tracking and predicting a horse's performance cycles in the history of the sport. In fact, Thoroughbred Cycles is the definitive work on the subject of thoroughbred form, a volume unrivaled in scope, clarity, and precision. By framing a given horse's performance as a group of histories-histories of the horse, jockey, trainer, and handicapper-the form-cycle approach to handicapping allows the horseplayer to take advantage of fluctuations in performance. In stark contrast to the other inconsistently-successful systems of projection for racehorse performance cycles, Cramer's method draws on specific aspects of a horse's performance history to yield statistically probable projections about their future performance fluctuations.

Studded with engaging anecdotes that punctuate Cramer's clear and illuminating explanations of method, Thoroughbred Cycles is an entertaining, appealing, and educational read. We're happy to say that Mark's years of hard work and number crunching have paid off big time! For in the pages of this book you'll find the solution to the mysteries of form that have stumped horseplayers and fans for decades.

Cramer eschews systems, referring readers to books by Tom Ainslie, James Quinn, William L. Quirin, et al. for speed, pace, and trip handicapping. He espouses, instead, a form-cycle approach to handicapping horse races. Believing that horses and their trainers win in cycles, Cramer attempts to illustrate this hypothesis with examples from the Racing Form . He deduces that a bettor can make a profit from analyzing past performance charts, spotting a pattern, and predicting the next win based on similar circumstances. While form cycles are something to consider when handicapping, the effort required to locate a pattern for several different horses among thousands and retain potentially helpful observations is a time-consuming full-time job. Recommended for public libraries with strong horse racing collections.
- Susan Hamburger, Virginia State Lib. & Archives, Richmond
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.