A pro-handicapper’s guide to betting at Del Mar

At the Del Mar track, there is a way to lose your money scientifically, rather than the way most of us do. So says Frank Scatoni, every day. Scatoni is a handicapper for the Thoroughbred Club and offers the public a free seminar, one hour before each day’s first race.

Scatoni starts with the basics — win, place, and show, and what to say at the teller’s window. A lady sitting next to me said she had been to the track twice before, but only ended up watching because she felt she didn’t know what to correctly say at the ticket window.

Tips are also given for how to read the fine print — such as the type of horse — in the race program. It has to be noted in the program if there has been any change in equipment (blinders off), condition of the horse (gilded, etc.), since the horse last raced.

Scatoni advises, “It’s easy to have fun at a race track, but winning large amounts of money is difficult.” He states, “Para-mutual wagering is a financial marketplace. Just like people investing in stocks, they’re betting a stock will win for them.”

To up one’s betting game, Scatoni’s number-one tip is to go to the paddock when the horses are brought in and mounted by the jockeys. Look at the horses and how they are reacting.

“Avoid sweating horse;, the horse is too warm and wasting energy. A horse with its tail swiftly moving back and forth means its agitated. And ears back means the horse is annoyed,” Scatoni advises.

For bigger payouts, Scatoni suggests boxing exacta bets, meaning picking three horses in one race. Exacta bettors win when two of the three horses picked come in first and second. A $1 exacta box will cost $6 — six different possible win combinations. Like the lady sitting next to me, I had never understood what a boxed bet meant.

Also watch the posted odds. Found in the race program, handicappers such as Scatoni have predicted the opening odds — chances of winning — prior to the program’s publication.

Additionally, a few minutes after the previous race, the track’s big electronic tote board starts posting the actual odds, known as “first flash” — prewagered money. (Race tickets can be purchased weeks in advance.) The first flash “early money” is based on the actual amount of money wagered, not the handicappers prerace predictions.

Scatoni suggests waiting until about five minutes before post time to place bets, noting any major changes in odds between the handicappers’ prediction, the first flash, and any just-before-post time “bet downs” — the lowering of a horse’s odds. This means bettors have put more money into a horse, believing it has a better chance of winning from earlier predictions.

Scatoni says of his knowledge on horses, he had never been to a racetrack until the 1990s, when his friends from a publication he edited in New York took him to the Belmont racetrack. “There was horse named Editor’s Pick. I had to bet on that,” he said. He won hundreds of dollars, and was hooked on racing ever since.

So how did Scatoni do on a recent race day? As Scatoni cautioned to his seminar’s attendees, use this new knowledge to make your own picks. Of Scatoni’s shared 10-race boxed exacta picks, unfortunately only one race paid off: $21.10 for his $6 bet.

Footnote: Scatoni was correct in the Del Mar track being a “financial marketplace.” On opening day, July 16, $15,211,558 was wagered by the 46,250 fans in attendance — averaging $328.90 per person.

Racing continues until Labor Day, September 7. The track is dark on Mondays and Tuesdays.