One of the more outrageous entertainments out here in the rural voting districts is the annual summer pig scramble at the local fair. I know what you're thinking, Peterson's cheese has finally slipped off his cracker and he's lost it, but if you hang in there and read the whole horse racing article, I'll tell you what a chaotic romp after a greased porker has to do with picking winners at the track. It'll just take a few more convoluted moves of my somewhat twisted gray matter.
Anyway, the pig scramble, for those of you who may not as yet had the pleasure of viewing same, involves a bunch of little kids trying to catch one greased pig. Of course, they don't use a very big pig, not your full grown Yorkshire, but something smaller, along the lines of a piglet who is old enough to know that when a horde of screaming five year olds is headed his way, it's best to head in the other direction, wherever that may lead.
Since these agrarian-ish entertainments are usually held in the show ring at the fair after certain other entertainments have already taken place, there is usually a certain amount of mud and sometimes an occasional cow pie or horse bun to be encountered. If you know anything about kids, though, I'm sure you'll realize that once they get excited and have a goal in mind, such as catching a pig, the prospect of wearing a little manure isn't going to stop most of them.
As the adults stand on the outside of the fence watching the spectacle, the kids and pig, all squealing their heads off, go wheeling from one end of the ring to the other as the oldsters offer shouts of encouragement. From a distance, if you couldn't see the actual participants inside the ring, you might think the crowd was watching a horse race and now, as your reward for staying with me, I'm going to tell you what lessons a horse racing handicapper can learn from a pig scramble.
First of all, a pig scramble is a lot like a maiden horse race. While you may know your own kid or one or two of the others, you probably wouldn't want to put a bet on which kid is going to catch that prize pig. How can you handicap form when most of the participants haven't chased a pig before? It may be true that some folks are born pig catchers, but spotting them from their outward appearance is often impossible.
Maybe you know that a particular kid's parent brought home the bacon years ago and won several of these porcine competitions. That is what we call the pedigree edge. It works the same in a horse race. If you must play a maiden race and you can't tell much about the runners because they haven't raced, the next best thing is to know that one has a sire that produces winners at first go and that they have won at the distance and on this surface before.
Another angle is the been there done that before slant. Maybe one kid has competed in several other competitions and almost caught the pig. That kind of experience, though it may not mean much on his or her resume twenty years from now, certainly is a strong indication that he or she will at least know what to expect and may have learned a few tricks of the trade. Once again, the same is true of horses. If one or two have had a race or two, then those runners should get special attention if they showed a lick of run.
If you ever get a chance to see a gang of youngsters trying to catch a greased pig, by all means give it a look and if you want to handicap horse races, especially maidens, then by all means bear these thoughts in mind.
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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