DRF's Alan Shuback on #s

[Perfect Drift]

This is Shuback\'s reply to a DRF blog post:

I put little faith in ratings or numbers of any kind. I think they are the lazy man\'s way of handicapping. With all of the data at our fingertips- in any country- people should be able to figure out for themselves the relative merits of any horse. As far as I am concerned, the only people who make money off the numbers are the people who make the numbers.

[TGJB]

Alan is a friend, and he is opinionated. I ran into him in the hotel lobby at the BC at CD a few years ago (not the last one), he was coming in as we were just going out. He\'d had a few, and he went off on a rant about line dancing, which was all the rage then. He\'s a ballet guy, and he was screaming that line dancing was \"fascistic\". At length. If you ever run into Alan, ask him how he feels about line dancing.

Yes, Alan doesn\'t get it about figures. He thinks handicapping is more art than science. And he doesn\'t know any pro gamblers that I\'m aware of.

And Alan, if you are reading this, you still owe me a drink for the head-to-head bets we made involving the Euros last year.

[toppled]

You both might have a point.  Each race has to be handicapped on its own merits.  Here\'s an example.  Sunday I loved Bluegrass Jet in the 4th at Belmont based on a few factors including the fact his last race was turning into a key race and he galloped out extremely well in his August race, neither evident in sheets.  I wasn\'t quite sure what to do in the race before it, so I bought the Thoro-Graph sheets for the day.  Well, as expected, Bluegrass Jet\'s # didn\'t match the better ones in the field, BUT-the horse who ended up running 2nd had the best # and better yet a review of the 3rd race sheet #s pointed me to the winner because he had a better pattern than the favorite, who had a severe reaction to a 0.5 2 starts back.  With the sheets, I confidently could toss the 2nd choice in the 3rd by combining TG #s with the lack of quality of horses he ran behind.  Then, I was able to take shots with horses later that day using TG #s.  I won big having 3 p3s, a p4 & p6.  While my key was a non-sheet play, for all the stuff around it, I couldn\'t have done it as well without you.

[moosepalm]

TGJB Wrote:
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> Yes, Alan doesn\'t get it about figures. He thinks
> handicapping is more art than science.


It seems to me that there\'s quite a bit of art involved in using the numbers.  Not sure why he would think it dilutes the handicapping experience.

[TGJB]

Nobody just blindly bets the fastest horse, at least nobody I know. But Alan seems to think the entire question is irrelevant.