Greyhound handicap: focus on winning

I am married to someone who has ADD. My two sons have it too. Everyone has trouble paying attention and concentrating on one thing at a time, because they are easily distracted by what is going on around them. I love them all, but I am the exact opposite. I am a worker, a hub. My mind stays with one thing at a time until it processes it and then I can think of the next thing.

What does this have to do with winning at the racetrack? Much. When I take my family to the track with me, they are everywhere. Literally and figuratively. They go to the cafeteria or go back to the car for something they forgot. They’re texting their friends, getting their hair braided (in my daughter’s case), writing a shopping list for tomorrow (in my spouse’s case), or reading a newspaper they found on a table.

I am the only one who is watching the school races before the program or reviewing my program to mark the scratches and remind me what my handicap was to bet before coming. Of course my family will choose dogs because of their looks or because they like their names, so what’s the point of them being handicapped anyway?

But the point is that they notice everything, but they don’t notice anything that helps them choose dogs. Me, I don’t text my friends while I’m disabled. I don’t read the newspaper between races. I do nothing but pay attention to the dogs and the state of the track and my bets.

Every once in a while, they pick a dog by name or appearance and it will come in and they’ll be very happy that they “disadvantaged” a better race than me, if my dog ​​loses. I do not say anything, but what they do is not harm. Focusing on the program, the dogs, the odds, that’s a disadvantage. And that’s enough to pay attention if, like me, you don’t have ADD.

I’m not saying everyone should be industrious or ignore what’s going on around them at the dog track. However, I think if you get distracted easily, you might want to try to focus more on the important things on the track. For me, this is the key to picking winners. Keep your mind on what you’re doing, what the dogs are doing, and what the odds board is doing as much as you can from the time you walk in until you leave, and you can walk away with more money than you walked on. with.