Since it is a slow horse and work day, I thought I would bring up what could be an interesting topic to kick around. How did we get into betting the horses. I was introduced to racing in the early 1970\'s by a friend in high school and went to college in Long Island close to Belmont Park. I used to be a terrible handicapper, just guessing on favorites, or listening to punters, and finally read the Form. Took me a while to figure out the numbers, but when Beyer and the speed figures came out with some success, I was hooked. Won a 500 dollar exacta with the back figures. It also didn\'t hurt that the 70\"s may have been the best time for racing in the last fifty years with three triple crown winners and Forego as a handicap horse. I also used a device which is no longer around called the Kelco Class Calculator which was a small computer which helped you to determine class vs purse. I had some good luck with it in combination with figures. Did some nice class analysis and came up with longshots also. It took a long time to use for a nine race card though. Below is the link to some of the early devices used for handicapping.
http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~hl/g.btech.html