Bare with me on this one guy\'s because I just got home and read a string of posts that really disturb me.
First the Knock on Andy Beyer. Anyone who is willing to state their opinion in a public forum and stick their neck out on a selection to the national media deserves some cu dos. They did not get asked for there opinion without a resume ?
Andy came out in the Washington Post for years with horses that \"could not lose\"
he had a pretty incredible record, wrote some books, made a lot of money and sold his figs to the racing form. That ain\'t too shabby at all ! We all like to take shots at public handicappers. For years people bitched about Jimmy The Greek, he must have picked a few winners at some point in time to get on TV ?
Beyer wrote two books that probably did more for the modern day horse player than anyone else. I would be hard pressed to believe that an overwhelming majority of posters here have not read both of them. Picking Winners in 1975 and The Winning Horseplayer in 1983.
As an impressionable 18 year old I took Picking Winners to heart and started keeping charts, making pars and even drank Jack Daniels as Andy suggested while you did the work. His figures seemed to make sense. I was always fascinated with math, geometry and physics especially motion problems. Then I realized something, the fastest horse didn\'t always win !!!
The Winning Horseplayer did more for the sheet business than anyone could imagine.
It talked about trips, ground loss, astute race watchers, guy\'s who tracked the gimmick pools and wind. Before that book came out there were a handful of regular Raggies and JB was just getting started. There aren\'t many around here on this board who were using figs, making their own figs or like me as a misguided youth trying to figure out what the hell they all meant ?
I started using Rags after I read the book. I waited in the parking lot of the Spa City Dinner waiting for the bus to come up from NY at 11;00 with the Rags. I spent every morning from May to October at the Oklahoma training track. I got to know jocks, exercise riders, trainers, grooms and clockers. I had numbers on my side. I made some big scores for a 20 something know it all. I moved to Chicago for a job and people never heard or knew anything of what I was talking about. It was a New York thing that had gone to the left coast and that was it.
I went to Sportsman\'s Park a 5/8 bull ring at the time, Hawthorne & Arlington before the fire. I believe it was 87 or 88 before Rags had people in Chicago. This was before PC\'s, the Internet and the vast amount of knowledge that is now available in the racing form. A wacky guy named Tomillison gave his sire figure book to sports writers hoping to promote his theory. Matt Graves from the Albany Times Union used to give me one every year. You had to make your own mud or turf number by looking up the sire and the dam\'s sire and adding the numbers. The dam\'s sire counted as half and the sire\'s number was whole. It was a little tan colored pocket sized book.
Miff, this one is for you:
I sat in the the clubhouse on the 1st turn and charted the races. I learned more about ground loss, track biases and trips at the bull ring called Sportsman\'s Park that I could have ever imagined. I kept records, charts, horses that ran against the grain etc.. Remember here a 6f sprint was a 2 turn race, when Lost Code won the Sixty Sails the prep for the Illinois Derby by 17 lengths it was 1 1/16 around 4 turns. Ground loss there on the 1st turn was obviously more dramatic than a mile or mile and eight track.
BUT: The point is the horse that went wide in the first turn ran further unless equaled out on subsequent turns. Case closed. In 99.99 % of all races run at any distance what is the fastest fraction ?
I\'ve seen the evolution as have many here that made this game a profitable one for some, yeah rebates help ! Is it is profitable for me as my business ? No that\'s why I still work. Does the fastest horse always win ? Of course not, no one would ever work again. Have drugs clouded the scenery ? We know they have and cheaters have to be taken into consideration when handicapping.
BUT:
The one constant from Beyer to Rags to Thoro\'s I\'ve seen and can attest to is number power. Is it the only consideration in making a bet ? No.
Beyers numbers have been rendered irrelevant. ( IMO )
Rags has no where near the detail of Thoro\'s and wind from the airport along with other discrepancies ? Enough said.
Yes I\'m a Kool Aide drinker. I\'ve fooled with Thoro\'s on and off for 10 years. The last 2 I\'ll use nothing else. I can get comp on Rag\'s at the Albany Teletheather, instead I buy Thoro\'s and would not even consider making a serious bet without them.
I\'ll take Lime please !!!
\"In 99.99 % of all races run at any distance what is the fastest fraction\"
Frank D,
Lets see:
In a large percentage of TWO TURN grass routes it\'s NOT the the first fraction.In a fair percentage of TWO TURN dirt routes it\'s not the first fraction either.
Sportmans Park two turn sprints and Fairplex are precisely what I said, when they fly around that first turn ground loss is far more critical then when they go 25 seconds to the quarter in a turf route.
Mike
P.S. \"Beyers numbers have been rendered irrelevant( IMO )
Your right there Andy, Mark Hopkins don\'t have a clue and there figs published in DRF are irrelevant in the betting pools, Brilliant FRANK!!
miff,
In Europe on poly or in a \" boat race \" I would agree with you.
We just had a whole meet at The Spa with an incredible speed bias on the turf. 23 \'s were the norm for 1/4\'s for 2 turn routes on the grass, no one was coming home faster than those 1st quarters.
What about Cali before poly ?
23\'s were the norm there for 2 turn dirt races in the first 1/4 sometimes even 22 \'s !
Keeneland before poly, remember what a speed bias that was for years ?
That\'s a lot of years, a lot of races and a lot of horses who lost ground if they were wide into speed bias\'s or hot paces ?