Harness: Proper exotic ticket construction

The construction of tickets is an important aspect of how to wager on harness racing, especially when it comes to vertical and horizontal exotic wagers. By vertical, I am referring to same-race exotics races (exacta, trifecta, etc.) and by horizontal, I am referring to pick threes, pick fours, etc.
The simplest and most common approach to vertical exotics is taking the horse or horses we like the best and putting them towards the top of our tickets and then taking the horses that we think can "hit the board" and throwing them in one group on the bottom of our tickets.

That formula is too simple and inefficient.

Any ticket should begin with two questions. First, how strong of an opinion do I have in this race? Second, how strong is my opinion regarding the horse or horses I like the best? Once we answer those questions we can begin to understand how much of our budget we should be spending on the race and we can construct an outline as to what our tickets should look like.

Before anything else, I will say, the win wager is a lost art. If we have a very strong opinion about one horse in the race and we determine that the price being offered is considered to be good value, we should bet that horse to win. There are few worse feelings in racing than having a 6-1 horse that we loved win the race and we don't have a win bet, miss on the exotic wagers, and cash nothing.

I like to build vertical exotic tickets around one horse while spreading out the further down the ticket I go. Essentially key my top pick in the top two positions. If I believe a favorite is a vulnerable I do not include them out of fear that they might beat me. That is a mentality that is guaranteed to lose over the long term. If I think a favorite could be third for example, but I don't really like him or her, I leave that favorite off the trifecta ticket and I make sure I wager on my exacta combinations so I still cash tickets if he or she comes in third.

That style of wagering centers around the purpose of eliminating wasteful spending. In horse racing, wasteful spending is including combinations in your wagers that do not reflect your actual opinion of the race and by spending additional money on the ticket, you cut into your margins. I am a huge proponent of eliminating wasteful combinations and increasing the amount I wager on the combinations that I like the most. This is a confident style of wagering that may cost you some tickets here or there, but when you are right, you really get paid.

I take the same approach for multi-race exotic wagers or the "horizontal exotics." A poor approach is going through the races, writing down which horses we think can win in each race and just using all of those horses on one giant ticket. That ticket is practically guaranteed to include wasteful spending, which will include combinations that you don't particularly like or combinations that include favorites in all of the races.

In addition, there are times where television handicappers are doing a disservice to their customers, albeit unintentionally and through no fault of their own. The fault lies within television production and how simple and neat tickets just make for better television, even though they don't reflect the best approach to wagering.

Any racetrack or television production that I have ever seen features television talent tickets that resemble what I mentioned above, one large ticket that includes all the horses they think can win each race. If you listen to the analysis you will often hear the television host say "I am trying to beat the favorite and going four deep in this race," but they still include the favorite out of fear that favorite will beat them.

I was guilty of this too. When I worked at The Meadowlands and during the years I hosted the broadcast on TVG, I was asked to construct tickets that fit this style, even though it was not how I wagered on racing. If I am playing a pick four or a pick five, it is a rare occasion where it is just one ticket. If it is, it means I don't feel I have a great opinion. I go through all of the races and remove the combinations that I really don't like and I make sure as to not have favorites in all of the legs. The hosts on television would really help the customers watching if they constructed their tickets in this same fashion, but alas, it doesn't make for good television. I understand having multiple tickets on a screen may not be aesthetically pleasing.

I would argue that I would prefer the analysts just talk about the races and focus on one or two horses they think can win, as opposed to putting out tickets that include a great deal of wasteful spending.

I am someone who made these same mistakes with my own wagering for a long time. I was afraid to lose to certain favorites. I would go five-deep in a race and include the favorite. I would use "All" which is always a poor bet, because if you think anyone can beat the favorite, you should not have a ticket where a percentage of your combinations include that very same favorite. It really comes down to fear of losing. It is tough to overcome. But when you do overcome it, your tickets will be more efficient and when your opinion is correct, you will hit for a lot more money.

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