standard of trainer,jockey,ground,rails moved a fot here or though etc,etc maybe the reasons of the punting snob,or no all punter,but for your everyday social punter,even in the better races ,the games up when you hear 3 or 4 times a day ,commentators ,pundits say they really fancy a horse for their life,but the price is to big,its drifted for the last few hrs et ,etc,borrocco last night another example,basicaly all racing code for in 99% of cases you,ve done your dough the minute you've passed it over

There are so many imponderables in horse racing thus a good knowledge of the subject is no guarantee to successfully picking winners.

I think Segal needs to change with the time - his present methodology of picking a prospective winner no longer is reliable and/or accurate. Also, I think to pay sole emphasis on value is a beginner's error eg on paper, a 100/1 shot could represent more value than a 16/1 but it usually is not; one might be lucky to catch it after a sequence of a long losing runs eg 30 runs, but that is not value just sheer luck, in my opinion. On the other hand an 11/10 shot could be value assuming all relevant factors had been considered.

Segal is just much of a muchness in his profession, and nothing special.

what more to say-80 long price losers and a 14/1 winner

When Seagull advises 2pts win on a 16/1 shot in a 17 runner handicap, tells you all you need to know about his betting knowledge

Rider,correct, he does this every time he has a bad run.
Every course bar Bath has artificial watering. CoC's love to use it.
Net result is grass doesn't bother putting down deep roots.
So when a load of racehorses gallop over it it knocks the top off and chews up the surface.
So when you have a meeting like the July meeting the faster strip nearer the stands rail gets chewed up so the fields move to race on fresher ground.
Seagull doesn't appear to have noticed this. Time he was 'retired' from his current duties.
He's only 47 ( today,Happy Birthday loser!) so perhaps the RP should redeploy him to answering their complaints telephone number. You know, the one that usually goes straight to answerphone

Because he's run out of points? Or does he keep a reserve bank of points under the floorboards?

Good idea for this place mouse, would certainly shut a few up!

Win market would be much less than 132% - remember he can take his pick of the mythical early prices.

The horse may not be an each way proposition though.

yeh but in most cases there genuine 16 to 1 shots,that tom thinks are 2nd,3rd ,4th favs but after 80 loss,s you have to admit that the bookies no more than tom regards prices

I do not know Segal from Adam,...does he only do handicaps for value?

The bookmakers choose the Pricewise races -- not Tom Segal, not Bruce Millington. They are the races the bookies price up for their adverts in the Racing Post.

handicap are all about cheating ... most other countries do not have  handicaps

They have cheating though.

Ramruma...

The races actually pick themselves fella as they would be the ones on the TV..

Actually I used to make a good living backing horses EACH-WAY in handicaps..

TOM SEGAL column in this week's WEEKENDER

'...I could go back to Royal Ascot I still think I would struggle to back a winner of any of the handicaps

Last week we saw the third from the Hunt Cup, Tashweeg, finish 16th in the Bunbury Cup; the winner of the Wolferton, Snoano, finish 15th in the John Smith's Cup at York; the winner of the Wokingham, Out Do, finish 8th of 11 at York; and the King Georege V Stakes winner, Atty Persse finish tailed off in the Bahrain Trophy

Meanwhile the horses who finished 14th, 27th and 29th in the Britannia were one-two-three in the big three-year-olds' handicap at Newmarket on Saturday, with those who finished in front of them at Ascot well behind

It seems to me that these big handicaps are equine bingo at the moment.
You put all the horses in a tumbler, whirl them around for a minute or two and hope yours comes out first.

Maybe it's always been like that, but you could perhaps trick in a winner by using a draw and pace bias.

The jockeys and trainers have put paid to that, though, with their muddled thinking and once again the supposed draw advantage moved from one side to the other and then to the middle in the July festival last week

======================

from TOM SEGAL column the week before - (around the time of the start of this thread)

Is it just me or are the older-horse heritage handicaps getting just too hard for punters?

Three of them at Royal Ascot -  the Hunt Cup the Wokingham and the Wolferton - and last Saturday's Old Newton Cup all went to horses who looked either out of form, badly handicapped, or on the downgrade

All were 25/1 or bigger and I reckon there were only about a handful of people who found any of them, two of them going by the name of Nostradamus and Uri Geller!

Snoano had been seventh at Ripon before winning at Ascot, Zhui Feng had bee beaten in his last seven handicaps before winning the Hunt Cup; Out Do is an eight-year-old who hadn't won a handicap for more than two years and was 17th of 18 at York two runs before Ascot; and Dylan Mouth had hardly beaten a horse in his three most recent runs

Of course they all had pieces of form that gave them a chance, but so did every other horse in the race.

In this modern era, where there are far too many horses rated between 90 and 105, you simply cannot write off anything in these valuable handicaps anymore

Some say that is good as it provides an opportunity for all horses, but if punters give up on these races it certainly won't be good for the sport as a whole

Id argue that it hasnt been a bad year for decent class 2/3 flat handicaps.

The very nature of them means that you'll get big priced winners. Percentage wise its been my best April-Now for a few years, of course that can change, but if you try and study so much instead of specialising then you're bound to hit some problems.

Yes there have been a lot of middle distance h'caps run at a slow pace, but ive found the 6-8f ones very readable this year, the Spring Cup being a goldmine.

Id argue that handicaps are the best betting medium. Most good punters that i know have around 9/10 bets in them..

As he hints at I think that Segal's success came in the main from angles like draw and pace more than form and the unpredictability of the jocks has put paid to that approach. Probably feels he has no edge left at all. Personally, I would like to see this sort of reality check given greater prominence but can you imagine him spouting that kind of stuff on ITV Racing? Cheerleaders only required.

The people who say betting in handicaps is a good idea perhaps you can provide some evidence? As I said before at least we see Segal's tips.

Do you really believe that the vast increase in the number of handicaps (including divisions) has been done to benefit punters?

didn't segal make his name by tipping that Jarvis horse at ascot 33 to 1 that won against all the evidence of previous races on the straight track at ascot that week, according to segal you back a big priced winner of a handicap these days and your pins got lucky,.but when he did it and you didn't over the last few years ,it was because he was a genius and you were bookies cannon fodder,strange code he lives under

I find it very odd that people think betting in handicaps is all about inside info, as opposed to betting in maidens/bumpers etc when there is very little public form on display.