He had a quick start in the race to success as a handicapper – San Gabriel Valley Tribune

Many racing fans feel such a natural attraction on the sights, noises and excitement of the route that they believe that they were born as a horse player. Tyler Hoffman could be the only one who can support this claim with photographic evidence.

In a photo that was taken by his mother Tracy Tracy in 1992, the 4 -week -old Tyler is in the arms of his father Alan next to his grandfather Ron Kojis. The Santa Anita racing track is located in the background, and at least two of the three boys in the picture look at the daily racing form. It is the first time that Tyler's parents took him out of the house.

The love of the family into handicaping horses was passed on for generations, starting with Kojis, an enthusiastic weekend weekend, and Alan's father Dale, who calculated his own speed figures.

“My parents met in the paddock in Santa Anita in 1981,” said Tyler if they wish more evidence for his Parimutuel Stammbaum.

From these beginnings, Tyler was out as a racing visitor and ran.

“(Dad) taught me how to read the (earlier appearances),” said Hoffman, 33, a native of San Gabriel Valley and Pasadena. “I would read the chances from the program and he would write them in the racing form. I would take all the lawn races and give him the final quarters (times) of all horses. I was good in political groups much earlier than I should have been.

“It became my passion.”

Hoffman made this passion for documented success as a handicapper and bed. From Friday he will be one of more than 600 participants in the 26th National Horseplayers Championship in the Horseshoe Las Vegas Hotel. It will be his eighth time – and the 14th of his father – which plays at the biggest tournament of Racing, which offers 5 million US dollar prize money, the winner for 825,000 US dollars and an ECLIPSE Award as a Horseplayer of the Year.

One player has to qualify for the three-day NHC, and Hoffman by taking third place at Del Mar last November last November, whereby he converted his bankroll of $ 7,500 in $ 115,500 plus $ 152,100 in the amount of prize money.

This is a long way from his first tournament triumph when at the age of 18 he won Santa Anitas Showvivor competition with a horse a day for more than a month, which became the third or better place. The price was 3,000 US dollars.

“I was a college newcomer,” said Hoffman. “$ 300,000 were $ 300,000.”

Hoffman, an alum of the Gabrielino High School in San Gabriel, went to the University of Washington, where he studied communication and sale and served as a basketball team manager.

Now he works with his father in the family contract company of the family, Pag Construction. He and his fiance Lauren, a national marketing manager for Live Nation Entertainment, will be married in September. They chose a date between the del Mar Summer and the autumn meeting of Santa Anita.

Racing is a hobby, but he said he treated it like a profession.

“He is smart. He is always ready to learn new approaches to handicaping, ”said Tom Quigley, who knows many serious players as VIP player from Santa Anitas VIP player Concierge and Pre Race Handicaping Seminator. “He is the future (hopefully) of our sport.”

Hoffman, whose best NHC finish 2018 46. He counts qualified events and plays in a tournament almost every week.

In tournaments and everyday game, Hoffman said, his search for horses that are worth the use of a commercial computer program (the way that was found by Google) to narrow down competitors, to study the hard work, video to recognize horses who had “subtle difficulties” in the last races, and the handicaping of Trip handaps aimed at how the impending breed would develop.

Most of his bets, said Hoffman, was Exactas and double. It expired because of the late betting bets.

These approaches meant that the two winnings of Exacta betting, which took him to third place at the 2024 Breeders' Cup tournament: a payout of around $ 30,000 in the mutual and mare grass, with the winner Moira (who was almost 6: 1), which Hoffman discovered and presented with subtle difficulties in Woodbine that he was initially running against the leaders dealt. And a six-digit score in the Dirt Mile Boxing winner Full Serrano (13-1) with runner after the postal period (7: 1), because Hoffman liked the combination of Full Serrano from early speed and endurance, which came out of a second place in 1 1/4 miles pacific classic.

With so success, it is no wonder that Hoffman said that his love for the race was only up to.

“My (gambling) is almost secondary with the handicaping,” he said. “I love the riddle. I love to find out how a race will run. I love finding out the placement of a horse in a race. Why are you running (here)? Why do you change equipment?

“I find all these little nuances stimulating. Some people like crossword puzzles, they like to play Sudoku. I like to have hindered the races. “

Enthusical racetrack. Expert handicapper. Potential horse player of the year.

Obviously, the young man was really raised.

Follow the Kevin Modesti correspondent from Horse Racing at X.com/Kevinmodesti.