If you are serious about handicapping horse races and making money, then you should know the truth about money management. The truth is that becoming a great handicapper is not enough to make a profit wagering on horse races. I don’t care if you are the greatest handicapper that ever lived, it will still be difficult to have a positive return on investment (ROI) unless you are also a good money manager.

Money management for handicappers, like compound interest, is diabolically simple, but incredibly powerful. You will have to study and practice handicapping a lot more than money management in order to make it all work and eke out your percentage at the track or OTB. But don’t let that fool you, because of the two disciplines, money management and handicapping, money management is much more important.

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Old horseplayers like me learn lessons the hard way and after fifty years around horses, we usually have a few sayings we pass along to other would-be horseplayers. Here is one of my favorites, memorize it after you ponder it for a while. “Good money management will get you through times of bad handicapping better than good handicapping will get you through times of bad money management.”

The fact of the matter is, if you aren’t…

A. adjusting your bets according to the size of your bankroll

B. writing down each bet you make and why you made it

C. setting win and loss limits for each day you play the races.

You are not going to be able to make a profit and maintain your bankroll.

Those three steps are the very basics of making a profit on races. Of course, you can get into them more deeply and there are some excellent books on the subject, but just starting with these three simple steps and a method like “Kelly Betting,” will help you to accomplish one of the hardest feats of betting on horses, namely, protecting your bankroll.