TRUST THE PROCESS
Breeders Cup falls on Halloween weekend, and I am going as, guess....
Yes, Nick Saban, and being Nick Saban for a couple of days, handicapping, and a few other things I shouldn't have to explain twice.
If you haven't indulged yourself in that ESPN documentary on Nick Saban, do yourself a favor and watch it. There's a lesson in there that applies directly to your handicapping, whether you're pretty damn good at it or still trying to figure out why your best bet finishes up the track regularly.
Saban is a unique individual. He's been a winner just about everywhere he's gone. Except the Miami Dolphins, but hell, maybe that was asking a little too much. Even Nick couldn't fix that..
What separates Saban from the pack is his philosophy: The Process.
You don't worry about the championship. You don't worry about next week. You concentrate on what needs to get done right now. Saban talks about focusing on the next six seconds. Handle those six seconds correctly, and then handle the next six.
We use that same philosophy at Racingwithbruno.
I get asked more times than I can count about a race coming up on the weekend. It's Monday, and somebody wants to know what we think about Saturday's feature.
When I tell them we haven't gotten that far yet, they look at me like I've just confessed to not knowing the difference between a horse and a donkey.
"But it's your job!"
Well, yes, it is. And we've also got Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday to get through before we get there.
You might have the luxury of looking ahead. We have products and races for three racing days to massage, analyze, and produce. We've got plenty to do without worrying about Saturday while we're still working on Wednesday.
We worry about tomorrow by taking care of what needs to be done today.
You can improve your handicapping the same way. One race in front of you at a time. One horse at a time. Finish the card before you start worrying about tickets and wagers.
So, in the spirit of Coach Saban, I'm going to lay out our process. Pay attention, because apparently some of this needs explaining.
1. THE SCHEDULE: KNOW WHAT'S HAPPENING AND WHEN
Invitations go out Wednesday afternoon for our Wednesday night Zoom, which covers Friday's races.
If you haven't signed up, get on it.
Don't wait until the last damn minute and then expect me to go into overdrive trying to accommodate your slow arse while I'm preparing to do a Zoom.
At that point, we're going to have to introduce wind sprints for the entire group and 20 push-ups for the guilty party.
And I'm not talking about the easy ones where your stomach gets to the floor first.
Sign up, and you'll receive an email from me explaining how everything works.
Simple enough? Good. Let's move on.
2. THE PRODUCTS: DOWNLOAD THEM, SAVE THEM, AND REMEMBER WHERE YOU PUT THEM
Before the Zoom, we'll have the Friday products, sheets, and works available for you.
Channeling my inner Saban here: Save the damn things. And remember where you saved them.
You'll also receive the Zoom invitation. Check that you've received it and save it somewhere you can find it.
I understand that some of you, like me, receive enough email every day to qualify for your own postal route. Things get buried. Things go into spam.
But five minutes before the Zoom is scheduled to start is not the time to announce, "I don't see the invitation."
That's not a process. That's a fire drill.
Check your email. Check your spam folder. Find the invitation. Save the link.
Get it done before we start.
3. THE ZOOM: MUTE YOURSELF AND PUT ON A SHIRT
Once you log in using the link and instructions provided, please mute yourself.
This isn't complicated technology. There's a button. It has a purpose.
We don't need to hear you arguing with your wife, yelling at the dog, conducting a business meeting, or negotiating a peace treaty with somebody in the next room.
We certainly don't need a front-row seat to your family disagreements.
Hit the mute button. Your family will thank you, and so will everybody else on the Zoom.
And gentlemen, let's establish another ground rule.
Clothes are not optional. Put on a shirt.
I realize we're handicappers and not exactly a group that gets invited to model for GQ, but there's a minimum standard of civilization we're trying to maintain here.
Let's meet it.
4. THE HORSES: WE CAN'T DISCUSS EVERYTHING
Here's another important part of the process.
I cannot discuss every horse in every race. There isn't enough time, and frankly, if I had something meaningful to add about every single horse, we'd be on Zoom until the next Breeders' Cup.
If I don't mention a horse, it means I don't have anything additional to offer.
If the horse isn't listed on the sheet as a suggested play, I think you can connect the dots.
And this brings me to one of my favorite questions:
"But what about this horse?"
No.
We're not doing the endless game of What About?
We're going to discuss what we've seen, what we've analyzed, and what we've determined is worth discussing.
Channeling my inner Saban again: Do your job. Trust the preparation. Execute the plan.
If you like a horse that we haven't mentioned, that's fine. You're entitled to your opinion, and we wish you the very best of luck.
But we're not going to turn the entire presentation into a series of detours because somebody wants us to validate every horse they've circled in their program.
We have a process. We're going to follow it.
And one more thing: We won't talk about Saturday until Saturday.
There's a reason for that. When Saturday gets here, we'll deal with Saturday.
Until then, we have other work to do.
5. THE VIDEO LIBRARY: WE DO OUR BEST, BUT WE HAVEN'T INVENTED CLONING
If you want to see the horses on video, we've included a link to the Video Workout Library.
It's an invaluable resource, but let's get one thing straight: if a horse isn't in there, it doesn't necessarily mean somebody dropped the ball.
Sometimes we simply didn't catch it.
Take Churchill Downs over the last two Saturdays. Between those two days, there were approximately 530 workouts combined.
Five hundred and thirty.
Even with two cameramen and women working, capturing every horse is an enormous undertaking.
Horses are everywhere on the track. They're coming from different directions, working at different times, and occupying different parts of the surface. You can have a horse working while another one is coming around the turn, and somewhere else, somebody is trying to get a clean shot of a completely different animal.
It's a moving puzzle.
And that brings me to Amy Kearns at Keeneland.
Amy is a rock star. She works her tail off, and she's as good at this as they come. She doesn't simply record the horses. She identifies them, organizes the material, and gets those videos posted so you can actually use them.
That's a job in itself.
And guess what?
Amy has a process.
She does the best she can with the horses available, the time available, and the resources she's got. That's what professionals do.
Every once in a while, we get the smart-arse suggestion:
"Get more cameramen!"
Well, yes! Brilliant! Why didn't we think of that?
Somebody get this person a coaching contract with Nick Saban.
Of course we could use more people. We could also use more hours in the day, fewer horses working simultaneously, and a money tree growing behind the barn.
Everything costs money, folks.
And while we're at it, remember that the Video Workout Library is FREE FOR YOU.
We put a tremendous amount of work into providing these resources, and we cover multiple tracks. Keeneland isn't the only place with horses working, and Churchill isn't the only place we're trying to cover.
We have to allocate our time and resources across the entire operation.
So, if your horse isn't in the library, it may simply be because we didn't catch it. We aren't going to apologize for failing to achieve the impossible.
We're going to keep working at it.
That's the process.
6. THE BOTTOM LINE: TRUST THE PROCESS
Everything we do at Racingwithbruno has a process behind it.
The products. The sheets. The videos. The analysis. The Zoom presentations.
We have a system because the volume of work demands one. Without it, we'd be running around like a bunch of headless chickens, missing deadlines, overlooking details, and delivering something that falls short of what you expect.
And that's not what we're here to do.
We want to give you the best information we can, do the work properly, and help you become a better, more disciplined horseplayer.
That requires a little discipline on your end, too.
Sign up on time. Save your products. Find your Zoom invitation. Mute your microphone. Pay attention to the analysis. Understand what we're covering and why.
And when it comes to your own handicapping, stop looking three races ahead when you haven't finished the one in front of you.
One race. One horse. One decision at a time.
The Process works for us, just as it worked for Nick Saban.
ONE MORE THING: THE BREEDERS’ CUP AND THE TODDLER IN THE BACK SEAT
Now, one more thing before we wrap this up, and this one concerns the Breeders’ Cup.
I get a steady stream of emails asking, "When are the Breeders’ Cup sheets going to be out?"
You know what that reminds me of? A toddler strapped into the back seat of a car, 20 minutes into a four-hour drive, asking Mom and Dad, "Are we there yet?"
No, Johnny, we're not there yet. And asking me every five minutes isn't going to make the damn car go any faster.
Every time one of those emails comes in, I have to stop what I'm doing, take time out of the work, and answer the question. Which means I'm now doing something other than the very work you're asking me to finish.
See the problem?
Now, channeling my inner Nick Saban, this is where the arse-chewing would begin.
BEFORE YOU ASK, GO WATCH THE SABAN DOCUMENTARY!
We have a process. We follow it. We do the work, we analyze the races, and we produce the products when they're ready. We're not going to rush the job just because somebody in the back seat keeps asking if we're there yet.
The Breeders’ Cup is a big undertaking. We want to do it right, and that's exactly what we're going to do.
The products will be ready through our established process, and you'll have them when they're done.
Until then, please resist the urge to ask me for an arrival time every five minutes.
Trust the Process. And for the love of all that's holy, stop kicking the back of my seat.
Of course, there's one significant difference between Coach Saban and Racingwithbruno.
There will be no Saban-like arse-chewing. Not yet.
We're horseplayers, not the Alabama football team.
Although, after some of these Zoom experiences, I reserve the right to reconsider.
Now let's get back to THE Process.
