Face it, anybody that tells you that they win a ridiculous high percentage of their bets or that they never hit a losing streak are flat-out lying. From Pittsburgh Phil to even the most devious race fixers in the world, everything doesn’t always go according to plan.

The thing that handicappers have to overcome is to do something that very few in our world do, and that’s take responsibility for what has happened.

You rarely see an athlete who has been caught doing steroids or a politician who has been caught cheating on his wife of stealing, really own up to the problem-- themselves.

They say the first part about solving a problem is identifying it, and handicappers have to take a clue from Michael Jackson, look to the man in the mirror, and be honest with oneself.

One of my brother’s friends taught me a ton about the game but he was the biggest sore loser I have ever encountered. For every gem of handicapping wisdom he taught me, it was lost on the ride home from the track after a losing day because he was moaning so loud and often.

This guy was a great reader of the past performances but he always had a negative outlook and always expected the worst to happen even during the running of the race when his bet still had a chance to win.

This type of thinking is one of the worst things a player can have and he has to widen his horizons to avoid getting sour.

One way to do this is to try to score on minor successes if one is having a tough day, week or meeting.

Instead of teeing it up in low percentage bets like a Pick Six or a superfecta, go back to basics, isolate a good solid play, hopefully not a prohibitive chalk, and try to string together some winning wagers.

Remember, there is nothing wrong with taking 3-1 on your money considering the state of affairs of the economy these days and also considering that a bank is giving you nearly nothing on interest on your hard-earned deposited money.

Another thing that some players have to get over is the losing trend of blaming somebody other than the handicapper, oneself, for a losing bet.

A former colleague at the Daily Racing Form, who I totally respected because he bet with both hands and thought nothing of $200 and $300 bets, was NEVER wrong.

He always made the right selection but the rider didn’t use his choice’s natural speed, or the rider got the runner caught in a box, or the rider did not take advantage of an obvious bias or the trainer put a ‘too fast’ work into the runner right on top of the race.

This guy would moan and groan about what everybody did wrong except himself and although he was a superior handicapper, he went into extending losing streaks and bad weeks because he focused on what transpired to defeat him, rather than to concentrate on moving on, bearing down, going on to the next race and basically just turning the page.

Think of it like a golfer that has a bad temper and can never let go of a bad shot. He may blow up on a hole and before you know it, he was thinking about that bad hole and hour later and his game deteriorated every step of the way.

The lesson here is to just man up. Realize this is a game of percentages and even when one is not perfectly right, that person can turn a profit if he stays grounded, continues to work hard, and if a wager turns bad and you are totally wrong, accept it, turn the page, and go to the next race.

More on winning techniques later this summer.