Here are a few thoughts about the new wager being offered at Del Mar this racing season. It is called, "Head to head." It means that it is a simple wager based on which of two specified horses will beat the other in a race. The winner of the bet doesn't have to win the race, it only has to finish ahead of the other horse in the wager.
Del Mar is trying the new wager on a limited basis. The H2H bet is only offered in the feature race on Saturdays and is being tried on a tentative basis. The way it works is that the racing secretary chooses two horses in the race that will be the choices for the bettors. If one of the entries is scratched 24 hours prior to the race, they will choose another horse to take its place.
This bet may possibly appeal to people because it requires very little handicapping. You simply choose one horse or the other. While the odds and payoffs are usually quite low, the chances of one horse besting the other, are fifty-fifty until you take into account other handicapping factors.
Why not offer this wager on all races? There may be a problem with this wager if it is offered in many races, particularly races with a small purse value. The pools for the wager were $18,816 on the 30th of July and $26,505 on the 6th of August. While those pools may not seem like much compared to the larger amounts in other pools, they may still be enough to tempt the connections of some of the runners who are less than honest to fix the race at least as far as which of the two horses in the H2H bet are concerned. That is the biggest danger that I see from this bet.
Despite the ease with which this particular bet may be manipulated by unscrupulous people, I think that it will usually be a fair and honest proposition because most of the people competing in horse racing are honest. It is good for horse racing and will help to bring more interest to the sport. As mentioned before, it doesn't take a lot of handicapping to pick a winner in this wager. It also creates a race within a race to generate even more excitement and interest.
Unfortunately, because of the nature of the wager, it usually creates a small payoff for the winner. The payoffs on the last two Saturdays mentioned above were $3.80 and $4.60. Not exactly the stuff that dreams are made of, but considering the chances of winning a two horse race are pretty good, larger betting amounts may be placed by handicappers who see an opportunity for a low risk bet to pay off.
If you want to learn how a horse owner and insider handicaps just go to http://horse-racing-handicapping.co/ and get the truth about betting on horses and winning. Bill Peterson is a former race horse owner and professional handicapper. To see all Bill's horse racing material go to Horse Racing Handicapping, Bill's handicapping store.
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