Funny Beyer Quote from Picking Winners

[CBedo]

A friend of mine asked me how speed ratings were made. After bumbling through an explanation, I told him to read Picking Winners since it's an easy and fun read, and gives a pretty straight forward description of what goes into the making of a speed rating. To head off any questions, I thought I'd reread it as well, and had to chuckle when I read this quote (from 1975):

"Speed handicapping would not be at all complex if horse races were conducted on artificial surfaces..."

:rolleyes: If he only knew how much fun he would have making synthetic numbers 30 years later, haha.

[PhantomOnTour]

Whoa, that is funny....Andy, who woulda thought....

If racing were conducted in a controlled environment (let's say indoors and the temp remains the same all day) then the figs would probably be less complex.

[CBedo]

Whoa, that is funny....Andy, who woulda thought....

If racing were conducted in a controlled environment (let's say indoors and the temp remains the same all day) then the figs would probably be less complex.Yeah, that was clearly his intent, and I think the rest of the quote said something about surfaces that don't change from day to day (isn't that what we were told about the synthetics, lol?). I just thought that even if taken somewhat out of context, it was funny.

[wisconsin]

By artificial, I don't think he was envisioning poly. Probably a generic statement, but he probably meant an artificial surface such as concrete or blacktop. ;)

[JustRalph]

By artificial, I don't think he was envisioning poly. Probably a generic statement, but he probably meant an artificial surface such as concrete or blacktop. ;)

in 75 Astro Turf was all the rage............I think it was first installed around 66 or so..... and was burning Knee's for the next 20 years........it also turned many a .230 hitter into a .275 hitter

[appistappis]

they asked tug mcgraw if he liked artificial turf better than natural grass.....he replied that he had never smoked artificial turf.

[Horseplayersbet.com]

Pace wasn't invented until after 1975.

[Cardus]

Yeah, that was clearly his intent, and I think the rest of the quote said something about surfaces that don't change from day to day (isn't that what we were told about the synthetics, lol?). I just thought that even if taken somewhat out of context, it was funny.

So, what is the rest of the sentence and/or paragraph?

Give it some context.

[CBedo]

So, what is the rest of the sentence and/or paragraph?

Give it some context.It's just what I said above, that speed handicapping would not be that difficult if races were run on artificial surfaces that didn't change from day to day.

The context was that he was just trying to explain the importance of the variation in the day to day speed of race track had to be taken into account.

I just thought that given all the issues with Beyers and synthetics, this quote over 30 years ago was funny.