Us writer Mark Cramer made a u lot of money by writing a book called Kinky Handicapping. It was so successful that he wrote a second one, Kinkier Handicapping. Maybe there's a third one on the way, Even Kinkier Handicapping?

What was Cramer on about? What is kinky handicapping? Basically, it is what you do when you don't want to be like everyone else when it comes to selecting your bets.

While others can back the favourites, you'll go for the longshots; while others play the horses who are well drawn, you'll back those drawn poorly; while others take the media tips, you'll ignore them.

And so it goes on. Being kinky is doing something at odds with the norm. Which prompts the next question: Does it pay? To which the answer, as the late Bert Bryant used to say, is a pineapple.

All depends on how good you are at going against the crowd. If your alternative handicapping has a sound base, you might well stand a big chance of making more money than you've ever dreamed about. If you go loopy, and your kinky approach is among the sillier ideas in your life, then you'll be losing just as you probably did being conventional.

Recently, I read of an approach that might well be considered alternative. It's this: Throw out any horses trained by John Hawkes, and make your selections from the other runners.

Here's another one: Pick your FAVOURITE tipster, then IGNORE all his three picks in a race, and consider only the remaining runners.

Here's yet another: Ignore all runners except the first three TAB numbers; that is No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3. Check out their formlines, and make your selection from the trio. That's it. If you don't fancy any of them, ignore the race.

I guess there's some sense to the latter idea. Numbers 1, 2 and 3 win some 35 per cent of all races. Come to that, you might even just look at horse No. 1 because it has a grand record at all tracks, and will generally win some 13 to 15 per cent of all races. It could be more in some years.

Mark Cramer, who specialises in searching out those kinky approaches, did a study a few years back in which he came to the following conclusions:

  1. Research proves that hit rate, picking winners, is LESS important than the average price.
  2. Asking a horse to REPEAT a win without it moving up in class is a bad bet.
  3. It's more feasible, financially, to search out redeeming characteristics for horses that finished in the BACK HALF of the pack, than to eliminate non-redeeming characteristics for horses that finished close up. In other words, horses that have finished 5th or worse in their previous race have an average price that more than compensates for their lower hit rate. This is true in part because the betting public has a psychological aversion to horses that did not finish close up in their last race.
  4. Finish position is NOT a primary factor in handicapping because it is over-emphasised by the public.
  5. Those of us who previously suspected that finish position is an insignificant factor may now handicap freely without our subconscious intervening to tell us that finish position is important.

So there we have a few thoughts from Mark Cramer. Don't worry about where a horse finishes at its last start, or any previous starts. Don't be put off if it didn't run a place.

Check out the KEY positive factors of the horses that finished in the second half of the field. In other words, go against the crowd, and the general accepted conventions, and look for LOSERS to improve and WIN.

It may well pay to discard any runner in a race that ran 1st, 2nd or 3rd last start. Then, look at the form of the runners that ran 4th or worse last start. What are their claims for the race? Do they figure as likely to be a contender?

The same reasoning might be applied to the favourite. Why not ignore it. After all, 7 out of 10 favourites LOSE.

Once you've got rid of the favourite, you're in a position to find a horse that may well be at VALUE odds. Remember that the money will for the most part be thrown on the ruling favourite.

Seven times out of 10 you will be ON that part of the field that provides the winner. Sure, you have to find the winner but this is where your alternative handicapping approach can kick in.

Follow Mark Cramer's advice: Look for the best features of any runner that came 5th or worse last start. Comb the form, check out the best points, and make a personal determination about which of these 5th-or-worse runners will be the one to back.

In essence, then, you are taking a different route to everyone else. For example tipsters.

You'd be surprised at how many times some of our best-known media scribes fail to get a winner in FIVE selections per race. Yes, that's FIVE selections.

There were some recent examples using the tips of a popular formguide. There were 10 runners in the first race at Moonee Valley and of the five picked by the selector not one of them won.

Had you IGNORED the tips you would have been left with a 5-horse race. The winner paid $23. In the very next race the same selector gave 5 selections in a 9-horse race and failed to nab the winner.

Had you ignored his tips, you would have been left with a 4-horse race. The winner paid $5 and was backed in from a much bigger overnight price.

The seventh race on the card was a 12-horse race and the tips failed to name the winner in five. The race went to a $20 winner. To find it you would have needed to examine only 7 runners.

Get the drift of what I'm saying? Three races out of seven the tipster fails to nab the winner in 5 selections, paving the way for the kinky handicapper to analyse the field WITHOUT the tips, thus making his task so much easier.

nd the eighth race that day? Again the tipster had 5 tries and missed the winner. It was an 11 horse race, so without the 5 tips it was just a 6-horse race. The winner paid 5/1.

There are many other avenues to explore if you want to go along the kinky handicapping route. General convention has it that you should concentrate on the best-class races on the card, but why not ignore this and go for the races of the lowest class?

Convention has it we should follow top jockeys and trainers ... so why not turn this on its head and go for those riders and trainers considered to be lower down the ladder?

When the winners arrive you will find they are at odds much, much bigger than you'd ever get following the conventional way of selecting.

Much the same can be said about the handicap weights. We know the horses high in the handicap are considered the best ones in a race, but why not go against that and look only at the runners on the Limit or a kilo above it?

Many longshot winners lurk at the foot of the handicap.

I hope these ideas give you inspiration to have a go yourself at alternative handicapping. Kick around some ideas, test them out and see how you go. You might well surprise yourself and bring home some delicious winners.

By Richard Hartley Jnr

PRACTICAL PUNTING - OCTOBER 2003