When I’m watching the horse races on Fanduel TV, I find myself tempted to place a wager on one of the races that wasn’t on my radar. This usually doesn’t end well. The commentators make a case for their favorite but also try to find something positive to say about every horse in the race. It’s hard not to be influenced by their comments. Sometimes they are right, but most of the time they are not. That’s how it goes with horse racing.
Having a stake in a race makes it more fun to watch. But this often leads to me placing dumb bets. If your horse doesn’t finish in the top 3, it feels like a dumb bet. This is often because I made a quick decision just before post time based on incomplete data. When I only look at the stats that are in the wagering app, that is what I consider incomplete data. I have more success when I am able to look at data from multiple sources and organize it in a manner that makes it easy to compare each horse’s recent performance.
If I don’t have time to analyze the data properly, I always feel less confident in my selections. A recent example would be at Fairgrounds this past weekend. In the 10th race I came up with a winning trifecta using commentator analysis and process of elimination. But in the next 3 races, my pick 3 completely failed because I was only using data from the app. When good jockeys come to town for important stakes races, you have to give that some weight, even if the horse doesn’t have a stellar record.
On the same day, I put in a pick 4 at Gulfstream. I spent several hours going over the data for each race and came up with a single in two races. This allowed me to create a $6 wager that returned $55. This was good handicapping practice for the 2026 Pegasus World Cup taking place on Jan 24th at Gulfstream Park. This invitational race launched in 2017 has quickly gained recognition and has become the premier mid-winter race in the US. In 2025 more than $7 million was wagered on the Pegasus World Cup. I know what races I will be looking at in the week ahead, so I can avoid placing any dumb bets.