Happy 40th Andy Beyer

[Tom]

Picking Winners hit the shelves 40 years ago.
To celebrate, Steve Byk had him on for a full hour Thursday, the third hour.
Well worth the listen, imho.

A serious milestone in handicapping came with the debut of the Racing Times with the Beyer numbers in it.

[horses4courses]

Picking Winners hit the shelves 40 years ago.
To celebrate, Steve Byk had him on for a full hour Thursday, the third hour.
Well worth the listen, imho.

A serious milestone in handicapping came with the debut of the Racing Times with the Beyer numbers in it.

Racing milestone. :ThmbUp:

The Racing Times was a game changer.
Terrific publication that brought the DRF into the modern era.
Beyer was a big part of that.

[Tom]

Horsey, I used to buy the Beyers from BRIS!
You got a line of 10 numbers for each horse.
Not a lot of people at FL were using BRIS back then......and there days you would see a horse lay over the field going off at 10-1~!
Or a 6-5 shot with no chance.

Oh, the golden years.
I met Andy twice - once at the Laurel Sports room with a Sartin group.
Very nice guy. He had a stack of Charts Weekly at his table that he would thumb through all day long.

[horses4courses]

About how many years could you buy his numbers at BRIS, or elsewhere,
before they went mainstream?

That could have been a substantial edge for a player,
until everyone got on the bandwagon.

[Tom]

I was just getting into BRIS, and I think it was on their old BB, not the current website.

Don't remember the year, but I thing it was not long before the RT came out.

[maddog42]

Beyer is the MAN. And a good writer too. He brought a level of literacy to the field that was unheard of.

[infrontby1]

Actually went to one of Beyers seminar back in '87 at one of those OTB teletheaters in downtown Manhattan.

I believe it was around the time his third book came about which was in depth with taking trip notes.

Beyer spent almost over three hours explaining how speed figures were constructed and how to make a daily variant along with using time charts and adjustments for beaten lengths.

From that time up until around '92 when Beyers were published in the Form, the speed handicapper really still had an edge in the game. It practically vanished overnight when traditional class handicapping took a major back seat and horses with horrible running lines that had a competitive speed figure would be bet down like never before.

The game has truly changed since then.

[PaceAdvantage]

I was just getting into BRIS, and I think it was on their old BB, not the current website.

Don't remember the year, but I thing it was not long before the RT came out.I remember well logging into their BBS using the old dial-up modems and downloading their data files. Ahhh...those were the days...being on the cutting edge of handicapping technology...now everyone has caught up... :lol: