Come on, Len. Knock it off.

IMO, all this \"father of speed figures\" stuff is silly. The first day I bought the DRF I was comparing the final times of horses at the same distance. I knew absolutely nothing, but it was an obvious place to start. I\'d be willing to bet that people have been making basic speed figures since the very first day gambling on horses began. They just didn\'t publish their work. I remember reading Ray Talbout\'s book in the mid 70s (and it was a pretty old book then) and it had a parallel time chart for speed \"and pace figure\" calculations in it etc... Tom Ainsle had speed figure charts in his book from the 60s.

Along the way the process has clearly been refined and people have set aside comparative class handicapping in favor of numbers, but that\'s about it. Speed handicappers have been around since day 1. It\'s too obvious a place to start.

[TGJB]

CH-- you are right, and if you haven\'t done so already, \"History Lesson\" is required reading. That book (\"Consistent Handicapping Profits\") was a real eye opener.

[miff]

I heard from old timers when I first went to the track 40 years ago that Julie Fink and the speed boys were the sharpest fig guys at the track.

[kev]

Horse, are you a TG user?? If so this wouldn\'t work, that\'s just silly( little bias maybe?). I don\'t think were ever going to fine whose better, also that little thing about throwing out the worse and avg. the best 2 of the 3. Ok this is a study done by the guys at HTR--They use a speed fig. from Jim Cramer. This is on the best last race speed fig. won at 27.9%, now they did one where they threw out the 2 best speed figs in the last three ( which left the worse one ) and whatever horse had the highest worse fig. won at 25.0%  the ROI was about the same. The DRF speed ( no Variant ) won 24.6% best last race and the DRF + Var. won at 25.0%. 9,604 races were tested. Point is any of this BS is a waste of time. The top Beyer fig. wins at 25.4% based on a 16,450 race study. That\'s why pattern\'s should be study, like TG does, somewhat.  

[richiebee]

\"Len Friedman says\" .. is that like \"Soupy Sez\" from the old Soupy Sales TV show?

My favorite \"Soupy Sez\" of all time: \"Early to bed,early to rise, and you won\'t have red in the whites of your eyes\".

Sorry to read the obituary of Paul Fout in this week\'s Blood Horse (his son, Doug, trains Hirapour, who is running in the NY Turf Writers Cap today). Paul Fout was a top notch \'chase trainer who at least once a summer seemed to put over a runner on the flat at a decent mutuel at the Spa. He trained the only female ever to be named steeplechase champion (Life\'s Illusion).

Was going to drive to Spa for one day, but the $80 it would have cost me in gas will be sent through the (cyber)windows instead.