The Sports Trifecta

Backstory: Two long-time friends, both big sports fans and in particular horse racing fans, wanted to start a competition against each other to see who was the best handicapper. A mutual friend heard the conversation and wanted in- he believed that if they were so good that they could beat his casual non-deep dive style of handicapping. Out of this, the original "Sports Trifecta" was born!

The group determined that the most pure (and popular) form of North American horse racing is the 3-year old division for dirt routers (route races are ones that are a mile or longer). These races include the biggest purses with the most prestige. Included are the Triple Crown races, Summer Classics, and the season concludes with the Breeders' Cup. For stakes and accountability they created a twitter account (@thesportstri) where they would publish their picks and also make the last place finisher of each "segment" do an embarassing thing.

The format was simple to begin with, each race they would each pick a winner and then do any single-race bets that totalled $50.00 total. The group had a little growing pains but actually learned a lot from their tracking. Eventually the third member, aka "The Control", lost interest and dropped out as he was constantly finishing last despite his winnings counting double. The two others, "SOB" and "DLO" continued on for the following season. The "Trifecta" became an "Exacta", but we kept the name.