introduced retirement yearround

SPEAKER BIOSJOHN AVELLO is director of race and sports operationsfor Wynn Las Vegas, the Las Vegas Strip’snewest casino, which opened in April 2005. He previouslyheld the same position at Bally’s/Paris LasVegas, where he worked from 1990 to 2005. He isthe creator of the Kentucky Derby and Breeders’Cup future book betting lines for Wynn Las Vegasand is renowned for putting up the early futurenumbers.He also is credited with starting head-to-headwagering matchups in racebooks, beginning witha Sunday Silence vs. Easy Goer proposition bet inthe 1989 Kentucky Derby. These matchup bets havegrown to become a popular wager in Vegas andhave been used by the Breeders’ Cup in a parimutuelformat.Avello hosted two Daily Racing Form/NTRANational Handicapping Championship events atBally’s on his watch, and this is the third DRFHorseplayers Expo he has hosted in Las Vegas. Hisannual handicapping event, “The HandicappingChallenge,” which is held in August, is consideredto be among the best. He has been a resident of LasVegas since 1979 and is an active member of theNevada Pari-Mutuel Association Committee.ANDREW BEYER makes his seventh appearance atthe national conference on handicapping, whichwas conducted for the first time in 1983. Beyer, thelongtime racing columnist for The WashingtonPost, still contributes occasionally to that newspaperand to Daily Racing Form while continuing toplay the races from Gulfstream Park, Del Mar, andthe den of his Washington, D.C., home.Beyer is perhaps best known as the creator ofthe Beyer Speed Figures and continues to supervisethe team that creates those ratings, whichdebuted in print in The Racing Times in 1991 andhave appeared in Daily Racing Form since 1992.His first book, Picking Winners, outlined his developmentof the speed-figure methodology. He is alsothe author of My $50,000 Year at the Races, TheWinning Horseplayer, and Beyer on Speed.At the 2004 Horseplayers Expo, Beyer gave aresounding talk on “supertrainers,” a caustic termhe coined. This year he will talk about the handicappers’adaptation to technology, and the newtools he believes represent the sharpest edge forplayers.SIMON BRAY was born in Hertford, England, justoutside London, and has been a racing insidersince boyhood. His father owned several successfulracehorses in the 1980s in England, and Braybecame fascinated by the racing scene.His first stint, was as assistant trainer for HenryCecil. When Bray decided to come to the UnitedStates in 1992, he found a job with Hall of Fametrainer Bill Mott. He worked his way up–from hotwalkerto assistant trainer–and was involved inthe brilliant two-year campaign of Cigar. Later, hemanaged a public stable of his own on the toughSouthern California circuit.In November 2004, Bray retired from training.After some freelance assignments, he went to workfull time for TVG as an analyst, where again hislifelong love of horse racing shows through.Bray’s commentary on TVG reflects a highdegree of preparation and insight, especially inregard to maidens and juveniles. In his firstappearance at the national conference, Bray willdiscuss effective approaches to evaluating thosehorses.CATON BREDAR brings to the conference a lifetimeof participation in racing, mainly as a televisioncommentator and journalist. Her televisionroles have included stops at CBS Sports, FoxSports, ESPN, and TVG, where she headed thatstation’s broadcast team at its 1999 launch.She contributed to an Eclipse Award for FoxSports Southwest and the Fair Grounds with her2001 television coverage of the track’s LouisianaChampions Day. Her journalism experience alsoincludes the writing of a handicapping column forthe Chicago Sun-Times. Her career as a simulcastanalyst began at Arlington Park, and has continuedat Gulfstream Park, Monmouth Park, AtlanticCity, and Calder.Bredar is the daughter of trainer Ray Metzlerand the granddaughter of Hall of Fame jockey TedAtkinson. Continuing the family tradition, sheobtained an exercise rider’s license at 16 and atrainer’s license at 20. She turned to television in1990. A graduate of Knox College in Galesburg, Ill.,Bredar lives in Louisville with her husband, Doug.TOM BROHAMER has had extraordinary influenceon pace analysis and the use of pace figuresin combination with speed figures. His 1991 textPace Handicapping, reissued by DRF Press in 2001,filled a glaring gap in the literature and introducedto the general public the concepts of energydistribution, turn time, velocity ratings, and trackprofiles.Brohamer’s essential ideas and practices can befound in his chapter on pace in DRF Press’s BetWith the Best. MPH Software, a collaborationbetween Brohamer and programmer Ken Massa, isthe computerized version of his methodology. Thesoftware now selects representative pace lines, anupdate and advance of the original product.In 1987, at age 47, Brohamer took an early retirementas an account executive with Pacific Bell toplay the races full time. He never looked back, andfollows the Southern California circuit yearround,providing a speed- and pace-figure serviceand weekly updates to a select clientele. He lives inPalm Desert, Calif., with his wife, Shirley.

KIRK BROOKS started in the pari-mutuel industryas a Greyhound trainer/owner from 1972 through1985. During this time he was licensed in severalstates including New Hampshire, Massachusetts,West Virginia, Colorado and Iowa. In 1985 Brooksbegan working in the race and sports book industryin Las Vegas. In two short years Brooks worked hisway up from writer to director. For the next 10years Brooks worked as the director of race andsports for major resorts pioneering such ideas astelevisions at every station, the first million dollarparlay card and major tote upgrades that are nowused all over Las Vegas.In 1996 Brooks began the process of creatingRacing and Gaming Services (RGS). Through hiscontacts made over the years and his close personalrelationship with many players Brooks was uniquelypositioned in the industry to understand andmeet the need for a telephone service for a nichemarket of professional players who had a desire toplay pari-mutually from their homes or offices.Brooks has always served as RGS’ CEO and managingdirector.TOBY CALLET is the creator and author of theFlorida Handicapper’s Sheet, which he started in1995. His reputation for success has found him conductinghandicapping seminars from coast to coast,and he has been a featured guest handicapper onFox Sports Net Pittsburgh and on numerous radioshows.Among a cluster of roles, Callet has served sincethe mid-1990s as the official observer for LenRagozin’s The Sheets at the Florida tracks. He alsoworks as a professional clocker, with his annualDerby workouts published in The Courier-Journal(Louisville), and in 1999 at Gulfstream Park he wasinstrumental in helping the track to correct theclockings for 79 mistimed races.Callet’s key selections for the tracks of Florida,Kentucky, Louisiana, and California are posted onhis website, tobycallet.com.GIBSON CAROTHERS is formerly a board member atCanterbury Park, and the innovator in 1998 of thattrack’s Claiming Crown. Long before that, he could befound playing the races at Canterbury and elsewhere.He has since moved to San Diego, where he plays theSouthern California pick six. Carothers has succeededwith the difficult exotic bet using a method he insistscan be duplicated by many recreational players, andwill discuss his approach at the Expo.Carothers’s professional work began in the field ofadvertising, where he was responsible for a number ofhighly identifiable campaigns and brands, includingBurger King’s Double Whopper, that company’sanswer to McDonald’s Big Mac.In 2005, Carothers wrote an article for TheHorsePlayer magazine on the industry’s failure to recognizethe gaming aspects of its product and audience,which received honorable mention in the mediaEclipse Award competition.MATT CAROTHERS has been a lead analyst for TVGfrom the station’s beginnings in 1999, and last fallplayed a dual role that included being the on-tracksimulcast analyst for Hollywood Park. He is the son ofGibson Carothers, and is a definite chip off the oldblock in his ability to isolate overlays and longerpricedhorses.Carothers lived most of his youth in Minneapolisand then went to college in New Orleans (TulaneUniversity) where, he says, he majored in political scienceand “minored in Fair Grounds."On his return to Minneapolis after college,Carothers earned a certificate from a local broadcastingschool, then interned at KARE-TV in the TwinCities. When Canterbury reopened in 1994 as a simulcastfacility, Carothers took a job announcing raceresults from around the country. With the return oflive racing to Canterbury the next year, he became theon-track handicapper and TV host. After three yearsin this role he moved on to Monmouth Park and theMeadowlands in New Jersey. Nearby New York beckoned,however, and Carothers went to work for NewYork City OTB, partnering with legendary trackannouncer Dave Johnson from a studio at AqueductRace Course.Along with Daily Racing Form's Mike Watchmakerin the East, Carothers is the Western voice on theprovocative and popular TVG Friday morning showBlinkers Off.KEITH CHAMBLIN serves as Senior Vice President forthe National Thoroughbred Racing Association(NTRA), where he is responsible for the followingdepartments: advertising, national promotions, e-marketing,media/public relations, membership mattersand industry relations. He also serves as ExecutiveDirector of the Breeders’ Cup Challenge, which willlaunch in 2007.Since joining the NTRA in April 1999, Chamblin hasconceived, developed and assisted in the implementationof several successful programs, including theDaily Racing Form/NTRA National HandicappingChampionship, which in 2007 offered a total purse ofnearly $850,000.In the aftermath of the scandal involving theBreeders’ Cup Pick Six at Arlington Park in 2002,Chamblin convened a group of leading horseplayersfrom around the country to discuss their thoughts onthe attempted theft and other issues of importance toplayers. The NTRA Players’ Panel issued a number ofimportant recommendations on myriad issues rangingfrom tax withholding issues to simulcast standards.Prior to joining the NTRA, Chamblin served as vicepresident of marketing at Hollywood Park Racetrackin Los Angeles, Calif. At Hollywood Park, he oversawthe promotion and implementation of a first of its kindguaranteed $1 million Pick Six wager that resulted ina then North American record pari-mutuel handle ofmore than $3.2 million.From 1988-1994, Chamblin served in variouscapacities at Remington Park in Oklahoma. He is agraduate of Boston University.

SPEAKER BIOSMARK CRAMER is the peripatetic author of handicappingtexts, travel books, and fiction, and hisnovel Scared Money, a not-so-tall tale about goodhandicappers who underachieve at the track, wasrecently reissued by DRF Press. This is Cramer’sfifth trip to the national conference, again fromParis, where he has lived since the late 1990s, followingtours in Barcelona, Los Angeles, Paris,Bolivia, and Gaithersburg, Maryland. As always, hearrives with angles, spot plays, and opposite logicsthat have long constituted his iconoclasticapproach to beating the game.Cramer began his off-track exploits as an editorfor Gambling Times, and swiftly graduated to teachingthe basics of handicapping and parimutuelwagering at Los Angeles City College. He hasauthored numerous books and articles, and continuesas the editor of his personal C&X Racing Report.Aided by a doctorate in romantic languages fromthe University of Illinois, Cramer has journeyed tofaraway places and dissimilar cultures, where heoften teaches English as a second language to professionalsand business executives. Currently, heteaches at the Sorbonne, in Paris, where his sonMarcus is a student.STEVEN CRIST continues as chairman and publisherof Daily Racing Form, which he rescued froma steep decline by assembling an investment groupto purchase it in 1998. He also served as the company’sCEO from then until 2002, upgrading thepaper’s journalistic and statistical offerings andlaunching the company’s book-publishing andonline data-sales businesses.Crist was the racing writer and columnist for TheNew York Times from 1981 through 1990, after whichhe was the founding editor of The Racing Times. Henext served as a governmental appointee on theNew York State Commission on the Future ofRacing, and then as a vice president of the NewYork Racing Association from 1994 to 1997.He is the author of several books, including thememoir Betting on Myself and the handicappingbook Exotic Betting.STEVE DAVIDOWITZ was an originator of theHorseplayers Expo and a prominent speaker at thefirst national conference in 1983, and has been asteadfast friend of the American horseplayer sincethe original publication of Betting Thoroughbreds,his signature text, in 1977. The third edition, andsecond major revision, of that bellwether book waspublished in 1995.Among his many roles and pit stops, Davidowitzwas the editor of DRF’s The American RacingManual from 2000 to 2003. Concurrent with theopening of Canterbury Park in a virgin market in1985, his year at the Minneapolis Star Tribunefound Davidowitz writing a daily handicap, dailynews reports, feature stories, and a number of opinioncolumns. He currently writes regularly for DRFSimulcast Weekly, and has recently moved to LasVegas.He is most recently the author of The Best andWorst of Thoroughbred Racing (2006), a book of listsand essays regarding the sport’s highlights and lowlightson and off the racetrack.MICHAEL DICKINSON is a leading trainer and thedesigner of the patented Tapeta all-weather surface,which will be installed in 2007 at Golden GateFields. Tapeta, a name derived from the Latin wordfor “carpet,” is also the name of his highly regardedtraining center in Maryland.Dickinson began his career in England, where hewas a champion steeplechase trainer whoseachievements included saddling the first five finishersof the Cheltenham Gold Cup. In 1987 hemoved to the United States, where he became a leadingtrainer on the flat, renowned for his patienceand unorthodox methods. In 1998 he performed oneof the most memorable training feats in Breeders’Cup history by winning the Mile for a second timewith the meticulously rehabilitated Da Hoss, whohad won the race in 1996 and was making only hissecond start after a layoff of almost two years.RICHARD ENG is the turf editor and handicapperfor the Las Vegas Review Journal. In 2005, heauthored Betting on Horse Racing for Dummies forthe industry’s newcomers.Eng has worked as the public-relations directorat Santa Anita Park, Turfway Park, and ArlingtonPark racetracks. For seven years, he was aresearcher and writer for ABC Sports during theircoverage of horse racing and the Triple Crown. Healso has been a contributor to Daily Racing Form.In April 2003, he won the $400,000 handicappingchampionship at the Orleans casino. He currentlyresides in Las Vegas.He is the author of the forthcoming The CompleteGuide to U.S. Casinos and Racinos, to be publishedin 2007 by DRF Press.

BRAD FREE is the author of the back-to-basics textHandicapping 101 and is the longtime SouthernCalifornia handicapper for Daily Racing Form.Prior to arriving at DRF, Free completed handicappingtours with the Pasadena Star-News, thedaily sports newspaper The National, and TheRacing Times. He is also the defending champion ofthe handicapping contest first launched at thenational conference at Paris Las Vegas, in 2004.STEVE FIERRO is a Reno pro making his debut atthe national conference with an innovativeapproach to setting an 80 percent fair-value bettingline, which he published in a businessman’sapproach to playing the races entitled The FourQuarters of Horse Investing.Fierro is the radio host of Everybody’s Racing, aReno broadcast, and delivers seminars and educationalprograms at the Grand Sierra Resort andCasino in northern Nevada and at the CasinoFandango in Carson City, Nevada. In 1998, he beganhis betting-line service, RaceDayUsa.LEN FRIEDMAN has been the public face of TheSheets, created by Len Ragozin, for 23 years, andhas been a successful user of the product since 1965.Renowned for his facility in making daily trackvariants and projected figures, Friedman is the coauthorwith Ragozin of The Odds Must Be Crazy,and has produced a number of tapes on patternanalysis using speed figures.Friedman also has advised horsemen on thedevelopment of racing stables, and has managedracing stables himself. In January 2003, Friedmanwon the Suncoast Invitational HandicappingChallenge, which earned him $350,000.BOB IKE has been a public handicapper in southernCalifornia upwards of 20 years, with his gradedhandicaps having appeared variously in the LosAngeles Daily News, the San Diego Union-Tribune,the Orange County Register, and the South BayDaily Breeze. He has been the leading public handicappernumerous times for the meetings at SantaAnita, Hollywood Park, and Del Mar, and currentlyIke co-hosts the Thoroughbred Los Angeles radioshow.Ike’s daily prime selections can be found on-lineat www.BobIkePicks.com, where he also posts adaily blog, called “Notes on a Program.” With anemphasis on trip handicapping and identifying pacescenarios, Ike has developed a keen eye and matchingreputation for watching and analyzing racevideos.DAN ILLMAN is the drf.com handicapping editorand the author of Betting Maidens & Two-Year-Olds.Illman specializes in juvenile races, maidens, andturf races, and was a handicapper at Daily RacingForm until early 2006, when he moved exclusivelyto drf.com. Each summer he produces his “SpaBabies” column, a complete statistical analysis ofeach 2-year-old race at Saratoga. A frequent radioand TV guest on programs including ESPNEWSand TVG’s Blinkers Off, he is also the host of theDRF News Desk, and has delivered handicappingseminars at tracks across the country.His presentation at this Expo, his second appearanceat the national conference, will emphasizevalue plays with first-time starters, trainer-jockeycombinations, and the nonclaiming juveniles, especiallyin routes and on the turf. Illman is a graduateof Nova Southeastern University and currentlyresides in Brooklyn, New York.GORDON JONES has traveled a marathon distancein the sport and game, from one of the originalspeed handicappers and authors on the subject inthe 1960’s, to his presently popular ‘Easy Pickings’seminars at Sam’s Town in Las Vegas. Along theway, he wrote Gordon Jones To Win and SmartMoney, the latter an early timely empirical examinationof exotic wagering and the strategies likelyto prove most effective.During summers, Jones has focused on the northernCalifornia fair circuit that encompasses thegood racing at Pleasanton and Santa Rosa, and climaxesin September at Fairplex Park near LosAngeles to complete the southern California circuit.An aggressive player for upwards of four decades,Jones can contribute variously to the discussion onCal-breds intended to help simulcast bettors in theCalifornia Pick-6 and Pick-4 pools, where the statebredsare more prominent than ever.Jones is the former turf writer and handicapperfor the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, and has beena popular radio host in Los Angeles and Las Vegas.He lives in Las Vegas.

SPEAKER BIOSJOANNE JONES has been involved in horse racingfor more than 20 years from the backstretch to thepress box. She was the first woman on the WestCoast to do television commentary at a racetrackwhen she worked at Hollywood Park. Jones hasbeen seen on HRTV, TVG, New York City OTB, FOXSports Net, FOX Sports Midwest, SKY Channel inAustralia, Gulfstream Park, Fairplex Park,Handicapper’s Report and Bet the Race. She is currentlya host/analyst for HRTV in Los Angeles.Attracting women to racing is something nearand dear to Jones’s heart. She created her popular“Track Diva Days” designed to entertain and educatewomen about racing. The events have beenwell attended from coast to coast.Jones has owned, ridden and worked aroundhorses and served as stable foreman for Hall ofFame trainer Jack Van Berg. She is the daughter ofspeaker Gordon Jones.KEN KIRCHNER is a consultant on product developmentto the NTRA, the organization he serveduntil recently as a senior vice president in charge ofmanaging the simulcast and wagering operationsfor the Breeders’ Cup championship races.Kirchner introduced the pick four to the Breeders’Cup cards, and for the past eight seasons has guidedthe growth of the Cup handle from $64 million tothe $132 million wagered in 2006.Kirchner has been a member of the NTRA’sWagering Technology Working Group, and as amember of the NTRA Players Panel, formed followingthe 2002 Breeders’ Cup pick-six scandal, he connectedthat panel to various offices within theNTRA, to the member tracks, and to the broaderindustry. Kirchner also contributed to the growth ofthe Daily Racing Form/NTRA National HandicappingChampionship. Kirchner lives in Lexington,Kentucky.THOMAS L. LEVENICK is the Vice President of Salesand Marketing at Youbet.com, Inc.While starting with Youbet.com August 1, 2006,Tom has more than 20 years of general management,sales and marketing experience. Levenickoversees programs aimed at growing Youbet’s consumeradvanced deposit wagering (ADW) franchiseand expanding sales of technology-based productsand content distribution services to tracks andother potential business partners. He develops andcoordinates marketing and advertising programsfor all three of Youbet’s operating units: onlineADW leader Youbet.com, rebate providerInternational Racing Group, and United Tote.Prior to working with Youbet, Levenick wasSenior Vice President of Sales for E2 Strategies, oneof the nation’s top corporate incentive, entertainmentand meeting companies. Before joining E2, hespent a decade (1995-2005) in executive capacitieswith major brewers, growing national sales andprofits for Miller, Coors and Labatt USA.Levenick is a 1984 graduate of the Ohio StateUniversity where he lettered in football and playedin the 1979 Gator Bowl and 1980 Rose Bowl. He completedthe Ironman Triathlon in Kailua Kona,Hawaii in 1989. Levenick also graduated from theExecutive Development Program at the Universityof Pennsylvania Wharton Business School in 1996.In 1997 and 1998 he earned the Coors KeyContributor Award for Sales.DAVE LITFIN is Daily Racing Form’s analyst forracing on the NYRA circuit and a handicappingcolumnist. He is the author of the books DaveLiftin’s Expert Handicapping and Real LifeHandicapping, a personal memoir of his play.Whether he is examining figure patterns, trainerpatterns, form patterns, shifting track biases, or themere day-to-day tracking of track profiles, Litfin isdevoted to the record-keeping that is part and parcel ofrecognizing such patterns. Not surprisingly, in DRF’s2001 handicapping anthology, Bet with the Best, Litfincontributed a chapter on record-keeping.MIKE MALONEY, who is making his initial appearanceat the conference, is a professional player inKentucky, where he plays on-track at Keenelandfrom a private suite. Maloney was a member of theNTRA Players Panel, where he was keenly instructiveon the complications bigger bettors experiencewith the anachronistic reporting and withholdingprovisions of the parimutuel tax laws.BARRY MEADOW is one of the most disciplined handicappersand bettors playing the game today. He constructsa 100 percent fair-value betting line for straightwagers and exacta probables for every race he plays,and he never deviates from it. He publishes his MasterWin Ratings, which he applies steadfastly, forSouthern and Northern California, and from 1997-2003he wrote and published the newsletter Meadow’sRacing Monthly.Shortly after he abandoned a popular and successfulcareer in harness racing for the Thoroughbreds in thelate 1980s, Meadow wrote and published Money Secretsat the Racetrack, a treatment of money managementand betting strategy.Meadow, who lives in Los Angeles, makes his fourthappearance at the national conference.NOEL MICHAELS is the director of player developmentfor Nassau Off-Track Betting in New York. Michaels hasprominently reported on the DRF/NTRA NationalHandicapping Championship since the event’s inceptionin 2000, and his Handicapping Contest Handbook,published by DRF Press in 2002 and 2005, has made hisname synonymous with the tournament scene. Heenjoyed a 12-year association with Daily Racing Form,where he held positions ranging from handicapper, tosports and gaming reporter, to Internet editor.

RANDY MOSS is the leading analyst for ESPN’s racingcoverage of the roads to the Triple Crown andBreeders’ Cup. He sees the analyst’s role on nationaltelevision as a continual push and pull between commentaryfor the novices and the regulars. He does bothwell enough to draw comparisons with the leadinganalysts of the mainstream sports.A figure expert and devotee, Moss has developedBeyer Speed Figures for a number of Southerntracks. He formerly reported on horse racing on theArkansas, Louisiana, and Texas circuit for TheDallas Morning News, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and the Arkansas Democrat.He has been preoccupied lately with the developmentof a new approach to the making of pace figuresand recently launched Moss Pace Figure on DailyRacing Form’s Website, DRF.com. He is scheduled toreport on his progress at the kickoff session of theExpo. Moss lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma.HARVEY PACK is the legendary face and voice of NewYork racing. His time with the horses on radio datesback to 1972 at WNBC, and on television, to 1985, onlocal stations and his immensely popularThoroughbred Action and Inside Racing shows. Heprovided the first television exposure for many of thegame’s leading handicappers and analysts and was thepublic face of handicapping at Saratoga for manyyears with his popular Paddock Club there.Pack continues in classic form as the host of DailyRacing Form’s morning seminars at Siro’s duringSaratoga, and is currently writing a memoir that willbe published this summer by DRF Press.JAY PRIVMAN is the national correspondent forDaily Racing Form and an analyst on the ESPNtelecasts. In 2000, Moonlight Press and theBreeders’ Cup, Ltd., selected Privman to composethe text for Breeders’ Cup: Thoroughbred Racing’sChampionship Day, a coffee-table book providingpictures and narrative of every championship dayand race since the inaugural in 1984.As a journalist who has covered several sports,Privman served as the West Coast editor of TheRacing Times in 1991-92 and joined DRF in 1998.Privman also hosts a one-hour Saturday-morningradio show on the races of Southern California.LES ONAKA is the perfect featured speaker for thefirst-ever Expo presentation on the handicappingof the quarter horses, a platform he will share onSaturday afternoon with Mark Cramer’s insightson harness racing.Following a flirtation with the Thoroughbredsat Hollywood Park, Onaka shifted his interest tothe quarter horses in favor of their conformationand exciting speed. A quarter century has passedsince a $20 bill he found became a first-ever betthat returned $250, and after 12 years working atLos Alamitos as an analyst and clocker, Onakanow serves as a frequent guest commentator onTVG’s late-night coverage of The Quarters.The daily handicapping routine produces hisHandicapper’s Racing Report, a report that analyzesevery horse in every race in depth, and featuresinterpreting workouts, video analysis ofreplays, troubled trips and horses to watch, andselections. Class levels and speed indexes are dulyreported, but Onaka’s preference typically will befor horses having hidden trouble lines.TOM QUIGLEY is the publisher of TheHorsePlayer magazine, combining his backgroundin magazine publishing with a daily habit of playingthe races. He is also a handicapping-tournamentregular and has won two six-digit firstprizes.Quigley is a rare species among daily handicappersin that he studies the body language of horsesup close wherever he plays. His place on the apronat Del Mar where the horses parade out of thewalking ring is recognized as Quigley’s Corner.JAMES QUINN got the idea for a national conferenceon Thoroughbred handicapping in the fall of1982, and when leading authors Tom Ainslie,Andrew Beyer, Steve Davidowitz, and Bill Quirinagreed to participate, the inaugural Expo waslaunched in February 1983 at the WestinBonaventure Hotel, in downtown Los Angeles. The1983 conference was a huge hit, and it was held fora second time in 1984 at The Meadowlands Hilton,in Secaucus, New Jersey. In 1990, the conferencemoved to The Mirage, in Las Vegas, only threemonths after Steve Wynn had opened the firstmega-resort hotel on the Strip. Then, when a new,player-friendly team purchased Daily Racing Formin 1998, Quinn knew instantly the national conferencehad found its new partner. DRF first conductedthe conference in 2000 at Paris Las Vegas,and it has been bigger and better ever since.Quinn has been a leading author on playing theraces since he wrote the paperback version of TheHandicapper’s Condition Book (1981), whichremains in print through three later hardcovereditions. A second Quinn text, his popular anthologyThe Best of Thoroughbred Handicapping, wasrereleased by DRF Press after Quinn updated the1987 original with 13 new essays. Quinn has playedthe races for three decades and in 2003 was selectedto form and moderate the NTRA’s PlayersPanel.A staunch proponent of the importance of playerdevelopment, and a stern critic of the industryfor not bothering to educate its customer base,Quinn lives in Arcadia, California.

SPEAKER BIOSANDY SERLING, a native of Saratoga Springs,New York, has been a familiar face and voicearound New York tracks since he began followingthe races while still a child. As an adult, he hasbecome known as a trenchant and highly opinionatedanalyst. He was the first co-host (with MikeWatchmaker) of the “Talkin’ Horses” segment ofthe NYRA simulcast show, and currently serves asa weekend-stakes commentator on drf.com webcasts.He is also a regular guest and the Mondayhost of Daily Racing Form’s handicapping seminarsat Siro’s during the Saratoga race meeting.ALAN SHUBACK is the foreign editor of DailyRacing Form, where he has been responsible forthe expanded coverage of imported horses in thepast performances. These additions now includeTimeform ratings for major race meetings inEurope and Asia; the gradings and purse values ofstakes; and extensive trip notes on running stylesand mishaps. He is the author of the chapter onforeign racing in Bet with the Best and writes a regularcolumn for DRF.Shuback first volunteered his services to TheRacing Times, where he developed the two-line formatfor foreign past performances that has becomethe industry standard. From 1992-1998, he was theAmerican correspondent for the British racingdaily The Sporting Life. Shuback annually attendsthe classic events of Europe, plus the Dubai WorldCup, the Japan Cup, and the important internationalDecember races in Hong Kong. Lately,Shuback has been reporting more often on thehorses from Germany, Dubai, and Japan, and hewill talk about the new imports from those countriesat the Expo.RALPH SIRACO is a 30-year veteran of radio, television,and print, but is best known perhaps as thecreator, producer, and host of Race Day Las Vegas,a broadcast that has covered Thoroughbred racingseven days a week, 52 weeks a year, for the past 11years. Siraco also served as turf editor of the LasVegas Sun for eight years, until the paper ceasedoperations in 2005. He has been a contributingwriter for Daily Racing Form, and his company,Siraco Productions, produces sports- and racingrelatedprogramming out of its Las Vegas base. Hiscurrent venture, Sports Book Extra, is a one-hourradio program that focuses on the day’s leadingsports events from a bettor’s perspective.Siraco likes to play the tournaments, and he haswon twice, including a $98,000 first prize for beating700 players in the 1998 Orleans NationalHandicapping Challenge.He began in racing at Hollywood Park in themid-1970s, where he progressed to be director ofthe track’s radio and television department. Heeventually helped Turfway Park launch the firstsimulcast network in Kentucky, and did the samefor the Northern California Fair circuit.LAUREN STICH has been a student of pedigreessince her teenage years. Her time in racing tracesback to a stretch with The Morning Telegraph, andwhen the paper closed in 1972, Stich sang professionallywith three girl groups of early rock ‘n’roll: the Chantels, the Delrons, and theShangriLas.When The Racing Times debuted in 1991, Stichreturned to the sport she loved, working on thecopy desk and writing pedigree analyses of 2-yearolds.She now writes a weekly pedigree column forDaily Racing Form and Simulcast Weekly. Stichalso contributed a chapter on that topic to Bet withthe Best and is the author of PedigreeHandicapping.In 1997, she moved from the East Coast to LasVegas, where she plays the horses full-time. Herspecialty has also taken her to various sales andauctions, where she serves as a consultant tobreeders and buyers.LOU TAVANO is the co-founder of InternationalRacing Group (IRG). A lawyer out of McGeorgeSchool of Law since 1985, Tavano and co-founderJames Scott sold IRG to YouBet.com in June, 2005,and today serves as general manager of the company.His background in gaming encompassesfour years as general counsel to Bally Gaming,Inc., 1993-1996, and the private practice of the lawin Las Vegas from 1997 through 2001.After forming IRG, Tavano served as presidentand chief operating officer of the company from itsformation until June of 2005.Tavano’s appearance at Expo 2007 affords thehandicapping audience a rare opportunity to askquestions and exchange perspectives on rebateswith an executive who has experienced the topicin its various ramifications for the industry andits customers virtually from the beginning.

SPEAKER BIOSLEE TOMLINSON is the creator of the TomlinsonRatings, a scale of numerical ratings, the higherthe better, based upon the performances of thesons and daughters of sires and the correspondingbroodmare sires on wet tracks, on turf, and attoday’s distance. The ratings have appeared inDaily Racing Form’s lifetime statistical box since2001 and now cover more than 11,000 sires. Beforethe ratings appeared in Daily Racing Form,Tomlinson published his research in bookletstitled Mudders & Turfers.Tomlinson spent 27 years in financial services,22 of those on Wall Street, but in 1995 left to devotehis time to family, friends, and Thoroughbred racing.He has owned race horses, and competed onthe New York circuit with trainer Bob Dunham.MIKE WATCHMAKER is the national handicapperfor Daily Racing Form. He ranks the leaders in thenation’s stakes divisions weekly, and analyzes themajor weekend events of the sport for the paper.He is also the co-host with TVG’s Matt Carothersof that station’s Friday-morning show BlinkersOff, where he provides an East Coast perspectiveand spars with Carothers on seemingly every topicof interest. In Bet with the Best, Watchmaker contributeda chapter on stakes races, providing acontemporary profile for evaluating the TripleCrown candidates.Watchmaker has more than a quarter-century ofexperience in Thoroughbred racing, mainly as anemployee of DRF, which he joined in 1980. He hadcovered as many as 20 racetracks before becomingthe New York correspondent. Watchmaker alsoworked for The Racing Times and for the New YorkRacing Association, and was named that circuit’smorning-line maker and official track-programhandicapper in 1994. His speed figures appeared inthe official NYRA track program and was a co-hostfor NYRA’s daily Race Day program before leavingto rejoin DRF in 1998.