It’s happened to all of us. We handicap a race and find a horse we like. But we are so busy looking at the center and right-hand segments of the program page we pay no attention to the left-hand side. Eventually we take a look and this horse we like is listed at 12-1 on the morning line. What do we do? Trust our own judgment? Trust the morning-line maker’s judgment? Or just get totally confused and punt? Then race time comes and our 12-1 morning line horse goes off at 9-5. Obviously many other handicappers saw the same positive elements we saw when we handicapped the horse. So was that “smart money,” a bad morning line, or something else?  It depends, and before you decide, it probably makes sense to consider what a morning line actually is. Or at least what it is supposed to be. A morning line is not supposed to be the linesmaker’s projection of how the race will play out. If he is good at what he does, he does not handicap the race at all. The morning line is supposed to be a prediction of what the odds of the horse will be at off-time. Nothing more, nothing less. Some old-timers will tell you that it is even less than that. That it is simply a prediction of the relationship of the odds of the horses. In other words, if the morning line favorite is listed at 3-1 but goes off as a 1-5 favorite, then it is a “good” line. That sounds like excuse-making to me, but it does have historical precedent. Years ago, at most tracks, the morning line was made by the race secretary. Many of those folks did not want the public to think they had put together a bad race, so there was never a morning line below 5-2 or 3-1, or a longshot above 10- or 12-1. Often the longshot was 8-1. At least these days, we often see 3-2 or even 1-1 morning-line favorites and 20-1 longshots as the oddsmaker tries to give the early line more relevance. And yet, it seems like more and more, these oddsmakers miss the boat. Why? For one thing, at many tracks the morning-line oddsmaker is also the trackman, or a track handicapper. The two processes are very different. It takes a dispassionate eye to make a morning line. It takes a passionate eye to handicap the race. Having done both, I can tell you separating the two is tough. Often, finding the favorite and the longest shot is pretty easy. It’s the middle horses that are hard to figure. As Jimmy Eat World tells us, “It just takes some time… in the middle.” And that is time that the morning-line maker doesn’t always have. At many, if not most tracks the task falls very low on the priority list. Whether it is the race secretary, the clerk of course, a publicity guy or the track announcer making the line, he is often juggling multiple responsibilities. Personally, I want to see a morning line that closely duplicates a real odds board. At Northfield Park, this may mean a 4-5 early favorite and a 60-1 longest shot. At the Meadowlands, it may mean the more traditional 5-2 favorite with a longest shot in the 20-1 range. I will probably never see that, but it is what I would like to see. As a result, I am paying more and more attention to handicappers who say making your own morning line is the way to go. I don’t necessarily agree, but I am paying more attention to them. These handicappers literally establish their own morning line for each race. To me this is a bit of overkill when done as a formal process. Let’s face it, most handicappers, at least win bettors, set a price limit on a horse, anyhow. We say “This horse is worth a play at 7-2, but he is no value at 2-1.” I find this informal process to be a far more effective way to go than actually going through the entire race card and assigning those odds to every horse. I don’t remember saying, “This horse is worth a play at 30-1, but not at 12-1,” very often. So here is what I normally do with the morning line as a handicapping tool. I pretty much ignore it. I have no idea who did the line. When I was at Northfield, there were as many as four different people who might do it depending on who was on vacation, what day of the week it was or who had an early tee time. So there was no consistency. I go ahead and handicap the card, paying little or no attention to the morning line in my actual handicapping of the race.  I do make note of a morning line that seems off. I draw just a little circle around it on the program, and an arrow up or down. That cues me in to watch the odds board especially at the first click. Then, I watch the progression. Is the board matching my evaluation of the race? In other words, are people betting (handicapping) the race the same way I am? Or does that (apparent) bad morning line, in either direction, have some credibility? This may affect my play, because it could mean I missed something while handicapping. It won’t change my play significantly, but a 12-1 that I don’t like who is bet down to 9-5 will probably get some consideration, especially if I am betting exotics, or structuring a multi-race ticket. If the 12-1 that I do like is bet down to 9-5, I need to decide if he is worth a play at that price.  But if I have assigned him my own “value,” it doesn’t matter. I think we often have a tendency to jump on these kinds of horses and end up betting them when they are big underlays, because everyone else is doing it. It’s group-think and all psychological. But the psychology of gambling is another topic for another column. So until we get some consistency and relevance from the morning line, trust your judgment and go cash. See you next month.