We live in an instant, throw away, disposable, fast, drive-through economy and that has affected almost all human endeavors, including how people want to handicap horse races. Looking for a fast horse racing system, many people turn to the numerous morning line methods that have been around for a long time.

The lure of a quick way to pick winners is nothing new and that is why the morning line is so enticing. A public handicapper who is at the track every day (it’s his or her job) looks at every horse on the program and gives what he or she thinks are the odds the public will place on the horse before post time. But just how accurate are those predictions and what other factors come into play?

First of all, a track handicapper is an employee of the race track and the track needs people to buy and race horses at the track. So keeping the owners happy is of paramount importance. Track handicappers regularly place lower odds on horses so as not to offend the owners. Now, I’m not talking about horses that have a chance to win, those horses usually get the odds they deserve, but I am talking about horses that have no chance to win and it is quite obvious. If a horse should be at 100-1, no track handicapper will put the runner at those odds.

The reason is two-fold, first of all, what if the horse does win? The handicapper is going to look pretty foolish and will never hear the end of it. Secondly, someone is paying to keep the horse at the track and race it. The last thing that the race track wants is to insult the owner or trainer or to risk them moving their horses to another venue. So horses at 10-1 or 20-1 may actually rate those odds or may be a lot worse.

A good long shot handicapping system that looks at those horses and digs deeper for other factors to turn up a few roses amongst all the thorns is great, but a quick morning line system won’t do that.

Another problem with the morning line system is that you are depending upon one person, whom you probably don’t even know, to determine odds on the runners. If the track handicapper has a bad day or week, you lose because of it. What may be even worse is that they may have several people doing that job and one may be good while the other may be a stinker. When I worked in publicity at a track, my boss and I used to take turns doing the morning line and competed against each other to see who could do the best job.

That’s good for the players, but what if the person doing it is angry at the track? He or she may give a lousy line out of spite. The point I am making is that those morning line betting systems may work now and then, but they will only be as consistent as some stranger whom you are depending upon to handicap the races. That’s the reason that for as long as those morning line systems have been around, they still don’t show a consistent profit and should only be used for a quick method, light betting, and recreation.