Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Bio background

Bio background

STEVE DAVIDOWITZ BIO

Steve Davidowitz, author of The Best and Worst of Thoroughbred Racing, has been a professional handicapper, reporter, editor, columnist and consultant to newspapers, magazines and Internet websites for more than three decades. . .He also is the author of the influential and best-selling handicapping book, Betting Thoroughbreds, (Dutton/Plume), now in its 12th printing.

A highly touted baseball star at Rutgers University who lost a potential pitching career due to a freak boating mishap, Davidowitz has a wide-ranging background that includes solo travel to Cuba as a teenager; scuba diving for exotic species in the Caribbean; guitar performances in the clubs of New Orleans; photographic magazine covers and highly praised exhibitions of non-racetrack oriented photos. As a single parent, Steve raised his son, Brad from age 5 to adulthood. Brad, now a corporate program analyst in Minneapolis, is married with two children.

Davidowitz says he "began his interest in horse-racing at Rutgers University, Garden State Park Division," when a local bookmaker gave him a copy of the 1959 American Racing Manual. Ironically, Davidowitz helped to bring that prestigious 1000 page annual back to print as ARM’s Editor in Chief from 2000-2003.

An active horseplayer who manages a successful pick-six wagering syndicate, Steve has contributed several op-ed columns and investigative reports for The New York Times; was a featured columnist and Executive Editor of Turf and Sport Digest Magazine and helped design and reconfigure racing pages for the Star Tribune of Minneapolis, The Oakland Tribune, The Philadelphia Journal, The Racing Times, St. Petersburg Times and Houston Post. Steve also has written hundreds of features about the game’s greatest stars and a like number of hard hitting columns about racing issues from the player’s perspective. He also has written for many Internet outlets, magazines and foreign based publications including TV Guide; Sport Magazine; Daily Racing Form and DRF.com; Bodoglife.com; Trackmaster.com;
The Thoroughbred Times; Bloodhorse Magazine and The Racing Post of London.

Best known for his revolutionary handicapping ideas, Steve brought to the racing lexicon ‘Track Bias’, ‘Key Races’ and ‘Trainer Patterns’, all of which have become fundamental handicapping concepts. Davidowitz’ handicapping achievements include 13 straight Best Bet winners and 20 out of 22 during one red hot month that was chronicled in Sports Illustrated; the exact 1-2-3 order of finish in the 1978 Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes, the cold 1-2-3 Trifectas in 10 other Triple Crown races, including the 1997 Kentucky Derby, the 2007 Preakness and eight different runnings of the Belmont stakes; plus numerous in the money finishes in nationally important handicapping contests.

In addition to his horse-race writings, photography and commentaries, Davidowitz wrote poker columns for Daily Racing Form for two years and provided consulting advice to the offshore wagering site Betwwts.com before it was absorbed by bodog.com in December 2006.

With his background as a musician, Steve also co-authored They Can't Hide Us Anymore with singer/songwriter Richie Havens, the great humanitarian and legendary folk-jazz performer who was the first the first performer at the famous Woodstock Music Festival in 1969.

Today, Davidowitz is devoting time and energy towards a revision and update of his seminal Betting Thoroughbreds ('Betting Thoroughbreds in the 21st Century', to be published by DRF Press in 2009. He also is devedloping a new web site business that also will be unveiled in 2009 while he continues to write regular columns for his established free lance outlets. . .
Steve lives in Las Vegas, Nevada and can be reached at davidwtz@aol.com.