The examples below are screenshots taken from the windows version of HedgeHog. We also offer a manual version and a version for PDA's that you can put in your shirt pocket and take to the track.

Before I go into the examples, let me first explain a few things about the HEDGEHOG screen. Look at any one of the examples below.
There are 7 headings.
The only ones fields that data is entered into, however, are "HORSE#", "ODDS", and "Dch/Hdg", the rest display results. "$BET" is the amount you are to bet on that particular horse, "%PROFIT" is the percent profit you'll make on the entire bet if that horse wins, $Profit is the amount you'll win after your bet is subtracted for that horse and "$BACK" is the amount you'll get back on the entire wager if the horse in that row wins. In the ODDS column you enter odds as they appear on the tote board. The "Dch/Hdg" field allows three type of entries, A POSITIVE NUMBER, ZERO, or A NEGATIVE NUMBER. If you enter a positive number, you are telling HEDGEHOG you want that many times your bet back if this horse wins. For example, if you enter "1" you'll get all your money back but no more if that horse wins, a "2" gets you twice the total bet back, etc. If you enter a zero you'll "dutch" that horse with all other horses that have zeros (or negative numbers as explained below) in this column. A "dutch" proportions the money left over from your "fixed bets" (the positive numbers) so that you'll get the same amount back regardless of which dutched horse wins. The exception is the "biased dutch" which is triggered by entering a negative number. This gives you more back (or less if you enter a number between 0 and -1) on that particular horse, For example if you want twice as much back on a particular horse because he is your prime bet, You'd enter a -2. For a straight Dutch or Hedge you can also enter "D" or "H" as well as "0" and "1" as explained above.

The best way to explain this is by example. Let's say you want to dutch three horses, horse A, B, and C going off at 4:1, 5:1, and 6:1 (it sometimes takes me weeks to construct these examples).
A straight dutch of $100 on these three looks like this:

       

    
...It doesn't matter which horse wins, you'll make around 96% profit on your bet. The slight differences are unavoidable because your bets must be rounded to the nearest dollar.
When you enter a ZERO in the Dch/Hdg column it is changed to the word "DUTCH" as shown above. The column
%Profit shows the percent return on your wager for each horse if he should win. The column $Profit shows you the amount you'd get back over your initial wager. Since all the bets in these examples assume a $100 dollar bet these amounts are the same. A different bet amount (Target Wager) will change the $Profit column. The $Back coulmn shows the total amount including your initial wager you'll get back for each horse if he were to win.

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Next... Dutching does not have to be equal for all horses.

   
Now let's say that horse C is your prime bet and you want to get twice as much back than for the other two.
Set this up by entering a -2 (negative 2) in his Dch/Hdg field. Here's how that looks...

   
     

  
...Now you'll get about twice as much back on horse "C" at the expense of less back on "A" and "B."
You can use any combination of options in any race.  The -2 in C's column under Dch/Hdg tells you this is a proportional dutch. In this case note that the Amount Bet in the display to the left of the numbers is $101 instead of the even $100 you wanted to bet. Because of rounding (you can only bet in dollar increments) this sometimes happens.

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Next... The Real Power is in the Hedge.

  
If you want to HEDGE one of the horses to just get your money back if that horse wins enter an "H"
(or the number "1"). The word "HEDGE" will replace your input  in the Dch/Hdg window.
The example below shows "B" and "C" Dutched with  "A" Hedged to recover your wager if he should win.

 
  

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Next... The Hedge can be any percent of your wager.

     
You can control exactly how much you'll get back on a hedged horse by partially hedging or hedging a horse so you'll get back more than your wager. This is controlled by inputting a positive number into the Dch/Hdg column. In the example below I hedged  "A" at 50% of the wager  by entering .5 in the Dch/Hdg column. 

If it's not possible to make a profit on a wager the amount will be displayed in RED as is the case with the partial hedge for horse "A."

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In this  I example, I wanted to triple my money on Horse "A" and dutch the other 2.  I entered "3" into the Dch/Hdg window for horse "A" and left the other two in the dutch mode.  HedgeHog first calculated the bet needed to triple the retrun for "A" then hedged the other two with what was left over.hedgetriple.gif (6668 bytes)


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Next... You control the Payback

 
You like a 5:1 horse in the 5th and there's a  20:1 longshot you think may be able to steal it. However, a 3:1 shot could take it and you can't ignore the layoff horse at 4:1. What to do? Sound familiar? With hedgehog you can structure your bet seconds before post. One solution would be to "double hedge" the 5:1 horse, throw a few extra bucks at the longshot with a "triple dutch" because it doesn't cost all that much, hedge the layoff horse so you're covered and dutch the 3:1 with what's left. In the example below  I entered "- 3" (negative 3) for horse "A," the long shot. I didn't go with a straight dutch because his high odds allowed a large payoff with only minor impact on the potential return from the other horses. The other dutched horse is horse "D", the 3:1 shot. Notice that the return is 3 times as much ($357) for  horse "A" as for horse "D" ($120). Again the number isn't exact because of unavoidable rounding. By entering a positive "2" for horse "C" you fix his return at double your money and the "Hedge" entered for horse "B" gets your money back if he should win. And if you don't like this solution you can play "what if" and and see the results instantly.
  

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Next... Here's a real day at the track.

I was able to get 7 of the 9 races down to three horses at Santa Anita. All races were playable using HEDGEHOG even though one had an entry going off at .6 to 1. For this discussion assume $100 was wagered on each race, but you can enter any wager amount you want in the program.
  

Race 1

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Since I try to get at least 40% profit this race was was playable by dutching all three equally. The profit column shows I'd get around 42% back regardless of which horse won. If I had wanted more profit, I could have entered an "H" in the Dch/Hdg column for KELLY G which would have freed-up more money to bet on the other two. Since Kelly G won the race this would have resulted in a break-even situation. Left as a three-horse dutch, however, a profit was made. Kelly G paid $6.20 to win. Since there was $47 bet on her the return was $145.70, or 45.7% profit. The difference between this and the 41% predicted by the program comes from "odds rounding" as displayed by the tote board. Sometimes the payoff will be a little higher and sometimes it will be a little lower than the actual payoff, but it will always be close enough for practical purposes.

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Race 2

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No problem here, the odds were good and %PROFIT high. STOODTHETEST paid $14.00 to win for a $259 return (159%) profit.

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Race 3

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Another easy choice because of overall high odds and %PROFIT. One thing I like to do in cases where a choice of mine is going off at relatively high odds is place more on him. I could have entered a negative number (say -2) for PRIVATE ADMIRER. This would dramatically increase the profit if he were to win while not proportionally reducing the payoff on the others. PRIVATE ADMIRER did win but was DQ'd and placed 2nd. No matter, ABSOLUTE BEST was awarded the win so I got the same return. His payoff was $12.20 and returned $195.20 for the $32 wagered on him.

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Race 4

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The 3-2 odds on the favorite, PRETTY NEAT GAL drove the profit margin too low. By hedging her, I could get around 50% back if one of my other choices were to win. Well CONCORD'S SPIRIT paid 8.00 and returned $152 on the $38 placed on her nose.

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I couldn't come up with 3 solid choices in race 5 and race 6 didn't have enough paceline information for my taste so I skipped them both. I'll use race 5 as a learning example later.

 
Race 7


I couldn't discount the two favorites in this race, but my third horse's odds were high enough to allow me to play all three. FINDER'S FORTUNE took this one, ATLANTIAN was last. What do I care, so long as I have one of them.

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Race 8



I used to skip this kind of race before HEDGEHOG. The entry (HEART OF JOY and BEL'S STARLET) both had super fast races on the SA downhill turf course. SPEEDPLUS showed that GLEN KATE did also. Everyone was touting the entry, but I knew that GLEN KATE had just as good a chance to win. I could have dutched them all because there was a "higher than usual" chance that one of these three would win. Or I could try to beat the entry and I'd at least get my money back. What to do? Play the entry to break even and put the rest on GLEN KATE. Well, GLEN KATE won and paid 7.80 for $148 back.

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Race 9


Again, an easy choice, nearly 60% profit regardless which horse won.
It was STYLISH MAJESTY paying 10.80 for $156.60 back on $29.

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...Race 5   -A learning tool
Getting back to the 5th race, I had 5 horses that I thought had a chance.
Dutching all 5 would have produced the following profit margins:

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Actually, this is not too bad since there are 5 horses involved In retrospect this would have been an acceptable bet, especially since the two favorites (OAK FOREST and RATHSALLAH) were included. ALTANERO won paying $22.80 and would have returned $136.80 for the $12 bet on him.

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Let's stay with this race and play "WHAT IF". What if ALTANERO were your prime bet? Let's just get our money back on all but ALTANERO by entering an "H" under "Dch/Hdg" for every other horse.


WOW, look at that, we could have made $274 with the security of not having to worry about the other 4.

Many times you'll have several horses going off at good odds but you're worried about the favorites.
In such a case you can "HEDGE THE CHALK" as follows:


If one of the two favorites were to have won, we'd get our money back.
However if one of our three longer horses were to win we'd make around 120%, not bad, eh?

Let's look at one more. Let's say that ALTANERO is our prime bet, REGALSTAFF and ESKAY CREEK are secondary bets, and we don't want to worry about the two favorites. By hedging the favorites  we get our money back if one of them wins. The other three will be dutched, but by entering a "-2" for ALTANERO, we'll get twice as much back if he wins then if one of the other two dutched horses wins.

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  As you can see HEDGEHOG can change the way you think about betting.