In the vernacular these days, being bad can be very good and getting a good trip in racing, can in itself be bad for future reference.

One of the reasons trip handicapping is very tricky is that when a horse has a bad trip, gets stopped or is taken up badly at a crucial part of the race, everybody knows about it.

The valet in the parking lot will be talking the horse up, the program seller will wink and nod and look for that extra tip when mentioning the horse and even grandma will make a trip to the ATM machine when a horse has obviously been bothered.

So with those kind of runners, value goes right out the window and that's why the best horse bettors go the extra yard and try to look not only for 'hidden' bad trips but for horses that got super trips and won more before of the trip than the horse's innate talent.

One of the best bets in racing is when a horse gets a lonely lead and is allowed to coax on the front end and even if that kind of a horse wins, his win can be devalued a bit especially if there was a speed bias in play.

The way to assess those kinds of runners is to look at the charts from the entire day or entire weekend to see if speed had played like king for the 48 hours.

It's not always who wins the race, but how that runner wins. If he has everything his own way, like with a lone speed, and is life and death to still hold, that kind of a race can be marked down in quality.

I had a colleague once that always referred to the 'garden trip', a journey when a horse can sit third behind a couple of dueling speed horses and basically just pick up the pieces.

My colleague was right in trying to visualize the race but by continuing to bet on horses that got garden trips and won is a quick way to the poor house.

There are a lot of ways to get beat in this game and one way is to rely on other horses killing each other off.

Another way to evaluate just how good a win was is to ascertain which parts of the track were live on any particular day.

In the last few years at Del Mar, the rally wide bias was generally in play and if a horse was stuck down inside dueling for the lead early he had little chance at winning.

Conversely, if one was evaluating a live speed horse, one that figured to be on or near the lead from the get go, but in this particular race was stuck outside on a day when the inside was the place to be in order to win, than that speed horse has to be upgraded the next time he gets a cozier inside post taking into account that the track was playing in a similar manner.

Remember, the best horse bettors don't bank on the obvious, but look several layers deeper into the equation to find that hidden gem.