Beginning handicappers who make a serious effort to understand the game are quick to learn the differences between the types of races--maidens, claiming, allowance, handicap, stakes, etc.-and to appreciate the racing differences between three-year-olds and older horses. But these same players, as well as even experienced players, are often stymied when  it comes to two-year-old racing. I've been there and done that myself. 

With the seasons changing and plenty of races slated for the "babies" coming up, this is a good time to review the handicapping nuances that mark two-year-old races. 

The most important handicapping factor in two- year-old handicapping is simply an understanding of the nature of this type of race. 

Two-year-old races are races of experimentation. These are races in which owners, trainers, and jockeys literally find out whether or not a horse is a race horse, and if it is, how much work will be needed to train him into a useful horse if not a champion. Bottom line: until the animal shows what it can or might do under actual racing conditions, everyone can guess but no one really KNOWS. It's important to remember that breeding is not a 100% guarantee of how a horse will run. Breeding is more of  a history-based barometer to suggest the possibility of certain types of performance. Lauren Stich, HDC Handicapper and pedigree expert, can offer plenty of examples of offspring that not only did not only not inherit their family's preference for running on turf, but went on to become winners on dirt and also-rans on grass---and vice-versa. 

Handicappers have little or no traditional past performance data on many two-year-olds, especially in the spring, but also later in the year, and are forced to consider other types of information if they play these races. 

BREEDING: Perhaps the most obvious starting point. The Daily Racing Formoccasionally prints a separate listing of leading two-year-old sires, and there are certainly many sources of information in print and on the Internet about them. In more narrowly-defined sources, such as the Blood-Horse and Thoroughbred Times (online as well as printed editions),  a little digging will turn up lists of breeders who are very good with young horses. The logic of using breeding in addition to other types of other-than-pp data cannot be denied in races for two-year-olds. 

WORKOUTS: I list this because it has been and will continue to be used as one of the most important factors in handicapping a horse which is making its first start. My hesitation is based on the possibility for inherent human error or downright fraud. If you had a horse which, in a regimen of workouts, turned in excellent times and an obvious love for racing from the get-go, would you want that information made freely available, knowing that your opportunity to make real money at first crack would be seriously watered down by the public? The temptation is strong, if not for you, then for the clocker and other at the track who have access to such information to find a way to hide it to protect a perceived great investment. 

I prefer to look broadly at the workout regimen itself - how many workouts the unraced horse has, the time off between each and one, the distance pattern used for workouts. I like to see regular works without huge gaps in training. If a horse has been working out every seven to ten days but there are a couple of gaps in the overall list of workouts of three weeks or so,  I become suspicious. I also like to see at least one workout that is the same distance as today's race. (Speaking of distance, I almost always just ignore first races over a mile for two-year-olds. These races are just plain tough on a handicapper, and on a horse. The exceptions are extremely well-bred horses in high-purse races, in which the best horses are usually so obvious that their usual ultra-low odds make them not worth betting anyway.) 

Naturally, this type of data is cumulative and maybe that's why I take two-year-old races more seriously in the fall than in the spring. There's simply more of the type of information available unless a horse works out during the winter months in a warm climate. By concentrating on fall races, I know that they've had time to be trained regardless of where they are stabled or taken. And since they all turn two years old as of the first of the year, I know they have had time to fill out a bit physically, to start to get more of the "hang" of what racing is all about. 

THE CIRCUIT:  If you're playing a smaller track, the chances are good that your two-year-olds will not be the offspring of Big Name horses, or to put it more bluntly, they'll very likely be cheap horses coming from cheap horses. Breeding and workouts may be of little value. One of the best ways I've found to help handicap these races is to look at trainer-owner stats, or just owner stats specifically as they relate to two-year-olds. This type of information is not readily available and that's why it's valuable. The drawbacks are that you usually have to compile it yourself for smaller tracks and that your database needs to come from several years worth of meets, or it won't be meaningful. For one specific type of race in a category where there aren't that many races carded in that category, the effort may simply not be worth the rewards. 

TRAINERS: Trainer stats revealing trainers who win with first-time starters, first time on grass, etc., can be powerful points in making a decision to bet or not to bet on races for two-year-olds. The general public has not had convenience access to such information, although over the last few years it has become affordable enough so that using it to help handicap baby races is much more common than it used to be. It almost goes without saying that if a trainer thinks he has a good or a very good shot at winning with a baby, especially if that two-year-old has shown some traditional signs of improvement in its last race or two, that he will opt for a regular or a leading rider to boot the horse home. I place more weight on a change of rider from "ordinary" to "good," in these races than in other types. Again, however, this is a factor that everyone can see and it can make the race a poor wagering proposition when decent odds plummet to even money or less. 

The breeding factor and the trainer factor may be about to be transformed into less valuable information overall, and perhaps with particular impact on handicapping two-year-old races. As of today, Oct, 2, 2000, the Daily Racing Form will offer trainer performance stats (and breeding stats, too)  that match the category of today's race.  Everyone will know more about how well or poorly a trainer handles certain racing situations, at Big Time tracks and on the so-called leaky roof circuits alike. It'll take some time before we have any definite idea of how strong an impact this new, relatively free information will have on mutuels and on the art of handicapping itself. 

What happens when two-year-olds change distance after they have shown competitiveness at a shorter distance? In routes, can a horse improve going around two turns, and if so, when? 

I'll address these situations and more about two-year-old racing in Part 2 of this two-part series.