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Book Review

                        Tropical Downs
                               by Mark Cramer
 
                                     Reviewed by Steve Zacks
 

A Novel of Peril and Misadventures
in Search of the Elusive Automatic Bet

Have you ever been to Bolivia? Do you even know where Bolivia is?

Mark Cramer, ever and first the died-in-the-wool horseplayer and on a different level author, world traveler and jazz pianist, has been to Bolivia. Not only did he live there but he has chosen it as the site of his latest handicapping discourse-come-novel. The subtitle calls it one �of peril and misadventure in search of the elusive automatic bet.

He has effectively bridged the divide between these varied pursuits to make this latest literary venture a readable, fast-moving tale of intrigue, mystery and murder. His racing fans will not be disappointed with the direction that his handicapping exploits take them either. The fact that my spouse has quickly read most of the book with neither question nor complaint is a certain testament to a job well done.

Bolivia is a landlocked South American country bordering Brazil on its north and east, Paraguay, Argentina and Chile to its South and Peru, which lies between it and the Pacific Ocean on the west.

In the telling of his tale, Cramer details the country�s internal dispute between landed gentry and agrarian reformers. He describes the splendid panorama with its scenic mountains, glaciers and neighboring gorges. He speaks to its interesting biological diversity and its unexplored hinterland and makes it feel like a place to visit should you like to explore out of the way natural locales. To enter or depart from La Paz by air, one of Bolivia�s major cities and the site of the world�s highest commercial airport, you fly up to land and down when you take off.

Cramer tells the story in first person through Matt Bosch, the handicapper who searches out the automatic bet; he now finds himself in a country without a race track when his wife Sonia accepts a five-year stint working for the Marianelas. He was going to work as a journalist and perhaps a part-time jazz pianist; there is even a late-night club in La Paz named �Thelonius�. Any horse playing he does will have to be from afar and with the help of his friends back in America. And in the days before easy internet access to past performances, this required relatively simple approaches. Where it comes to creativity in handicapping, Mark Cramer must be close by.

Matt Bosch meets up with Panama Slim on a visit to Saratoga; he is a somewhat nefarious individual with varied and questionable interests, one of which is to develop a race track in Bolivia. In order to accomplish this, earn $100K, and perhaps a job running the new race track, Bosch must meet and secure a deal with a member of the local gentry, Manuel Arce, who owns the land where the race track is to be situated. This puts Bosch in conflict with his wife Sonia, as the Marianelas support the agrarian workers.

Arce introduces our lead character to the lovely courtesan Mu�eca, who is a central character throughout the book; she is physically beautiful, no man�s fool and schooled in getting what she wants. With an ulterior motive she constantly weaves her way through the story line. The interplay between Matt and his wife Sonia, on opposing sides of the land issue is particularly fascinating, especially when both sides might mutually benefit from certain events.

Interspersing the plot line, the interaction of the cast of characters and a little bit of handicapping we are confronted with this poser: Is the �perfect� murder more like �a bridgejumper�s certainty about a �perfect� bet� or the good fortune needed to cash a Pick 6, �the ultimate exotic�, when �877 things have to happen in synchronicity� in order to succeed? Finding out is a good read!

My handicapper self has been a reader of Cramer�s works since the early 1990s. Amongst the more serious works are Kinky Handicapping and the superlative Thoroughbred Cycles; the earlier novel Scared Money gave me much to think about. He is always in search of profitable ideas; just as or perhaps more importantly, he uses simplified research techniques which enable the handicapper with back copies of the past performances to search out his own methodologies. Repeated series of short tests usually tell the truth about the method being explored. Unless one can get �price�, one cannot survive in this game.

Nothing is static in the world of thoroughbred race handicapping, so a good idea may have its own time limitations for profitability. This lesson has been driven home countless times over the last five decades. It even happens to Matt Bosch in Tropical Downs as the returns on his winning turf angle begin to deteriorate. Matt finds out that his folder of automatic bets must constantly be tinkered with. �Automatic� does not mean �permanent� and each �system� has it own unique half life. This is a most important lesson for the player to learn.

What happened to Matt Bosch or Cramer himself has happened to all long-time players: an angle still produces winners but as the underlying information works its way into the mainstream, the returns are reduced. There is a long and varied list of once-profitable approaches: speed figures, Tomlinson or other turf pedigree data, trainer statistics, class designations, pace fractions and pace figures to name but a few. Many of these were once in the purview of only the serious players. Most have found their way into the mainstream and most of their wager value has disappeared.

Cramer has threaded his handicapping angles neatly into the story line so that readers not particularly interested in horse racing can easily glance over these sections without losing the story line. Those horseplayers who bought the book primarily to gain insight to improve their game or bottom line will find the racing discussions straightforward and easy to grasp. On several occasions he has chosen to teach non-race trackers �one his pre-teenage daughter- how to employ the ideas as she makes her race track debut.

Using the technique from the book the handicapper can begin to search out winners. The power of the �short-form method� (and many other elimination/selection methodologies) �reside(s) in the dynamics between elimination factors and selection factors. Cramer elaborates in a postscript that �more is not necessarily better� when referring to positive handicapping factors. We eliminate a group of horses, and then select a limited group of others. If there are too many in this latter group, pass the particular race. (My personal research has found that when there are too many qualifiers via the selection factor, �another logic� frequently decides the outcome.) Cramer may then apply a �filter� which is most useful when it is not one that the rest of the wagering public focuses on.

I can attest to his final thoughts that the search for winning ways is full of hard work. I also concur that the process of doing the work yourself is worth the effort, for it is in that �intimate� process that one �discovers the nuances that will help to refine the rules.

And if you bought the book for the handicapping sections and are primarily interested in what you can learn in Tropical Downs, keep a pencil or yellow marker with you and mark the pages or sections that you wish to return to. I highly recommend that you read the whole book through first. It is a good story about interesting people.

* * * * * *

Professional handicapper Steve Zacks has written handicapping features for Brisbet.com, and for many years contributed to the Closer Look race handicaps for Daily Racing Form.

Mark Cramer has authored numerous books on horse racing and international travel. An avid cyclist who is also a university professor and jazz fan, he stills find time to handicap and write. Mark lives in Paris with his wife and son.

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