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Dave Schwartz
01-25-2009, 12:01 PM
As I begin work on the first manuscript, I have a question.

1. "Do you prefer a work with nothing but statistical tables such as thoese produced by Michael Nunamaker?"

Or

2. "Do you prefer pure prosematerial such as written by Mark Cramer or James Quinn?"

Or

3. "Do you prefer a mixture of tables and prose as in Winning at the Races and the original Percentages & Probabilities?"

DeanT
01-25-2009, 12:04 PM
Dave,

I loved Quirin's book. He gave me an "angle" or a feature he believed, or was believed to be good, then showed historical fact with IV's and ROI's. I always enjoyed that book and to this day it is my favorite.

JMO. Good luck and really looking forward to seeing what you come up with.

GaryG
01-25-2009, 12:09 PM
Dave: Prose, provided you can write as well as Mark Cramer.....:jump:

Fingal
01-25-2009, 12:46 PM
Prose & tables. It's like when you were in High School when you took a test & the Teacher said " show your work."

It's not just the final destination, it's the journey. I prefer both the right brain aspect of concepts, then the left side of hard facts.

Overlay
01-25-2009, 02:07 PM
Both Quirin's and Nunamaker's titles were excellent references. I favor Nunamaker's pure statistics approach, however, unless prose is necessary to explain any new or complicated concepts (such as Quirin did with his speed points or speed figures), so that readers know how to calculate and apply them; or to clarify the source of data and explain briefly which races in a horse's record a statistic represents, or which data source a statistic is drawn from (as Nunamaker did in the brief forward to Modern Impact Values).

I would especially favor statistics if inclusion of any prose would somehow limit or cut into the comprehensiveness or depth of the statistics presented. (For example, Nunamaker presented a more thorough breakdown of his statistics than Quirin did, by age, running surface, sex, distance, and maidens vs. previous winners, which, to me, made his data more useful.) Also, Quirin's findings were based on much smaller sample sizes (even though he applied statistical tests to project whether particular positive or negative findings constituted an enduring trend, rather than just a random fluctuation). I preferred Nuamaker's greater size and scope (even though I imagine it required much more number-crunching).

Finally, Nunamaker indicated that he somehow weighted his impact values to reflect the field size in which each horse ran. I recalculated all his impact values, doing them Quirin's way (by dividing percentage of winners in the total sample by percentage of all horses in the sample, irrespective of individual race field sizes), and I don't recall that there was too big a difference in the results. To me, Quirin's method is simpler and adequate.

Just one player's opinion (and apparently literally so, judging from the poll responses to this point). :D

kenwoodallpromos
01-25-2009, 04:34 PM
I prefer just the stats as more readabler, but a combination allows room for explaination so as to be adaptable.
I know people who can only learn something by stats; by pictures; by hearing it; by by trial and error. point is, a mixture suits more reads (buyers), a more adaptable to peoples' capping style.

Houndog
01-28-2009, 10:11 AM
Dave, I have always liked what Jim Mazur has done with his trainer stats. He has the hard stats and commentaries on the more significant trainers. I know we are not talking about trainers here so that style may not lend itself to your work.

Look forward to any product you put out especially an updated Fred Davis manuscript.

Dave Schwartz
01-28-2009, 10:51 AM
Dog,

That is precisely what I have done, although I am finding that the organizing and formatting of the data is huge.

I think you guys are really going to like this when it is finished.


Dave

Tom
01-28-2009, 12:43 PM
Well, if it comes anything like your Brainwaves stuff, I am chomping at the bit!