The Match Race

Mark Clement
2006 Horseplayer World Series Winner
 vs.
Ron Rippey
2006 DRF/NTRA NHC Winner

Interview by Noel Michaels

(Originally appeared in March/April 2006 hardcopy edition of The HorsePlayer Magazine)

MARK CLEMENT FILE

The Buffalo, NY area resident defeated 735 tournament players to capture the second Horseplayer World Series, held Jan. 19-21 at The Orleans in Las Vegas. He took home the first prize check of $367,500, after tourney officials phoned his hotel room after the contest to break the news. Clement is a retired highway foreman who now plays the races daily from his home “handicapping office” on a full-time basis. He qualified for the HPWS with a placing in The Orleans’ Fall Classic last October.

RON RIPPLEY FILE

A Wayne, N.J. resident and public handicapper for the Newark Star-Ledger, Rippey dramatically captured the seventh DRF/NTRA National Handicapping Championship Jan. 27-28 at Bally’s-Las Vegas with a 17-to-1 winner in his final wager. He bested a field that included 224 players and two past NHC champions. Rippey has been a public handicapper for 43 years, the past 28 with the Star-Ledger. He qualified for the NHC by placing in the Sports Haven OTB tournament in New Haven, CT.

HORSEPLAYER MAGAZINE: How does it feel to have collectively won the two biggest handicapping tournaments of the year? Has the enormous amount of prize money you’ve won sunk in yet?

MARK CLEMENT: I think the money is fine, but I think what really has set in is the quality of handicappers that I beat. The field I thought was really strong, and that seems to be bigger than the money. To have the recognition of your peers, that seems to take hold in my remembrance of the contest. The money’s fine, but winning it and beating all those good handicappers really sticks out.

RON RIPPEY: I feel incredibly similar to Mark. I thought it would be the money, but it’s not. It was winning the tournament, especially against some of the handicappers whom I consider the best in the country. In fact, I was a little overwhelmed (recently) when I went down the list of names of the players I finished ahead of. I thought all along it would be the money, but it’s not. It’s the prestige, and the ability to beat a field of handicappers that was that proficient.

HORSEPLAYER: How long have you been playing in tournaments?

RIPPEY: I’ve played since 1999. I’ve been playing in about six tournaments each year including the ones in New Jersey, New York and Connecticut. Now I’m starting to add the ones at the OTBs in New York, like the Race Palace and Suffolk. I’m also playing the tournaments at Freehold now. So I’m playing in quite a few and I’m planning to expand that in the future.

CLEMENT: I started playing in 1985 in the tournaments in Las Vegas. Then I went to the Penn National championship (World Series of Handicapping) because that was the big one at the time. That was really interesting because of all the great players there. I learned a lot from that tournament. I like to play in the major tournaments, and I like the ones in Las Vegas. I think they’re really set up in a most excellent way. The more racetracks, the better for me, because then I have more choices.

HP: How important was your past tournament experience in winning your respective championships?

CLEMENT: The experience really counts a lot. Starting from 1985 and playing until now, I think that experience has really helped me a lot.

RIPPEY: Experience is absolutely vital. But I also consider the fact that I’ve been handicapping for the past 28 years for the largest newspaper in New Jersey, the Star-Ledger, on a nearly daily basis critical because it really refined my skills and honed my ability.

HP: What is your preparation like for tournament play, and do you prepare any differently than you would for a normal day at the track?

RIPPEY: I prepare much longer for tournaments. I might spend two hours a day on my daily chores, but on a tournament I will spend at least five-and-a-half or six hours preparing the night before. I always do all my handicapping the night before, specifically for tournaments.

CLEMENT: I also do all my handicapping the night before, but in preparation for these tournaments, I’ll start with a gameplan about three or four months before the tournament. I try to tweak some of the things that I think I can be better at, and that’s played a large role in my success. The rules really determine what my style will be. My style of play will not be the same as I use everyday. I don’t really play to place, and a lot of these tournaments are win-and-place, so I really have to change some things around.

HP: Do you focus on any specific handicapping products in your tournament play?

RIPPEY: I use the Daily Racing Form for probably about 99 percent of my work. I do make occasional reference to BRISnet stats. I just about have the Racing Form under my arm wherever I’m going, and I like it because it’s very portable. If I’m in my car, if I’m at a diner, if I’m at home, I can continue to look at it around the clock. I carry it with me almost like I carry my wallet. I’ve toyed for the last five to 10 years with using some handicapping products, but I’ve found – in my opinion – that I don’t want to be coming up with the same horses (everyone else) is coming up with using those handicapping products, so I’ve stayed a little old school and have stuck to my guns with the Racing Form. I try to come up with horses that the other players won’t necessarily have.

CLEMENT: Ron really hit on something – not using what everybody else is using. That’s why I don’t use BRIS, because I found out that so many other people are using it, and you wouldn’t win a lot of tournaments with it. Ron is right; you can’t use what everybody else is using and expect to win. I like to use Mike Pizzolla’s Master Magician Magic Program to get the contenders. His program is really designed for the longer-priced horses and that’s what I like. I can think of no finer program for horses on the turf. I like to use Pizzolla’s methods because they’re not so well known. Then I fine-tune it with Dan Serra’s program. He’s very strong on the breeding angle, and he’s good on the turf and in the mud. I like that. Then I use some of the angles from a guy like John Worth of Tips Report, and Mark Cramer is one of my mentors who I think has some excellent ideas. I use all these people in conjunction with each other so it’s not just one angle.

HP: What angles do you look for in your personal handicapping? Is there anything specific that you keyed on that helped you win your contest?

RIPPEY: There are a slew of angles. One I use is with winter racing – particularly in New York and the northeast. I go more for form in the winter and more for class in the summer. I think the form horses will beat the class horses in the winter. I won my contest on a two-year-old maiden race, and the key to my maiden victories – which has been very successful – is not looking at the workout times, but instead looking at the spacing between the workouts. If I see seven or eight days, or six or five days between workouts, I’m much more inclined to go for that horse over a horse with workouts that are not evenly spaced. I also want to see that they worked from the gate, and I also want to see something longer than a three-furlong work to build the stamina of the horse. Secondarily, if a horse is bred for a certain amount of money like $10,000, such as the horse I won the contest with, Alluring Bel, but is sold at auction for $30,000, that’s a back-up thing I’ll look at – when a horse is sold at auction for considerably higher than its breeding price.

CLEMENT: My favorite angle is what I call a “tandem-race” angle, where horses are coming out of the same race. Let’s say the winner is coming out of that race and there are a couple other horses in the race who lost to that horse. There’s usually a reversal that happens, but people overbet the winner of the last race. I’ve been very successful with that angle with very large prices. Another angle I like is a horse that’s been freshened. I look for the third and fourth races back. These are two angles that stand up all the time and it doesn’t matter what track you’re at. They seem to work consistently, and I’ve had great success with them. Another good one is in a race full of early speed horses. I’ll look for closers in that race. People overemphasize early speed and you can almost always get a price with the closers.

HP: Can you think of a specific horse or horses that put you over the top and helped you win your championship?

CLEMENT: There were two horses on the third day when everyone was pressing to try to get their longshots in to try to catch up. The shorter prices were coming in that day, so that kept the scores down. There were two horses on the turf at Gulfstream that helped me win the contest. In the sixth, there was a horse called Tropical Snow running at five furlongs on the turf. This horse was laid up and had a lot of route races at a long distance, but I noticed that the workouts were very snappy and I figured that this horse would run down the speed. It was a race like I mentioned that was full of early speed horses. This horse came off the layoff, came up the rail, and won by a whisker and paid $26.80 to win. The other was the eighth at Gulfstream, also on the turf. This horse was stuck way on the outside in the 15 post position. It was a horse named Sitcom. Here was a horse with the highest Beyer number and also a perfect running style that’s been winning on the turf at Gulfstream. He came out of that bad post position and paid $17.80. Those helped, especially on a day where there weren’t too many long-priced horses.

RIPPEY: I won the contest with Alluring Bel – the first-time starter in the 10th at Santa Anita – but I never would have gotten into that position if I did not hit a 20-to-1 shot in the eighth at Oaklawn named Total Command. For me, it was a relatively easy pick. I got enthusiastic when it started to rain because I consider myself a superior slop handicapper – a mudder if you will. This was a D. Wayne Lukas horse who had raced his last two races on the Polytrack, and I had recently started just completely throwing out horses’ Polytrack races. He came back off those races, dropped in class to $15,000 from $30,000, and won his last. And now we get a 398 Tomlinson number with the rain coming down! He had early speed, which I just love in the slop, and he was stepping just barely up in class to $17,500. The horse was three-for-six when you throw out the Polytrack races, and I just thought it was a shock that the horse was 20-to-1. He won his last race at 9-to-5 and then went off at 20-to-1, so it was an overwhelmingly easy pick.

HP: Contests seem to be on everyone’s mind this time of year in the wake of the two big championship tournaments; but there are still a lot of people who don’t like contests. The detractors say that there’s too much luck involved. What’s your personal opinion of the role luck plays in contests?

RIPPEY: None of it is luck. I think it’s about recognizing opportunities. If luck was involved, why do so many players repeat wins in contests, and why have Mark and I had so much success in the past? Why have I won four tournaments in the last three years? I don’t think you can just be lucky and be able to do that.

CLEMENT: Well, there is some element of luck, but not as much as people think. I think you are still responsible for your own picks and you create your own luck by being prepared, by having the experience, by having the knowledge, and by having the guts to play horses that maybe don’t look as good as the favorite. In the long run, I firmly believe you can make money at the races. All you have to do is go after value. The main question that people ask me is, ‘Why do people lose at the races?’ The answer is that people simply play too many races. People should be spot bettors. They should let the races come to them and not force bets. People who think it is all luck shouldn’t even bother playing the races because they’re coming at it from the wrong direction.

HP: Do you have any plans for what you’re going to do with your prize money? Will it change your life significantly?

CLEMENT: No. It’s not going to change my lifestyle. The thing is, my condo was destroyed from a hurricane in Florida, and I’m rebuilding it. It’s quite costly, so this will help an awful lot.

RIPPEY: Actually, it’s not going to immediately change my lifestyle. I’m going to make a large contribution to my Uncle Sam in Washington. After that, I’m going to put some money in my five grandchildren’s college funds, and we’re going to continue to support the charity Healing the Children that me and my wife have been active in over the last 15 years. We’re also going to put some money away for retirement.

HP: Will you take the money and run, or will you continue playing in contests?

RIPPEY: I’ll be playing contests more than ever before.

CLEMENT: Well, I’ve been cashing on a regular basis, and I think that success breeds success. Once you’ve been there, you gain the confidence that you can do it again.

Interviewer Noel Michaels is the author of “The Handicapping Contest Handbook”  and director of player development for the Nassau County (NY) OTB.