The definitive Question

[turninforhome10]

Having a serendipitous moment while walking today with my daughter today on the beautiful Appalachian Trail, the realization that an efficient market comes from a well defined customer and for that customer in a way that is completely disclosed. It occurred to me when meeting a couple that had logged 3 months and 2148 miles, passed us on the path and me being nosy had to ask their mileage. Asking someone why they are walking halfway across the US, is a bit like asking someone why do you handicap. Both ventures are for the most part hard work, bad conditions, emotionally exhaustive, and those that partake in such activities are in the minority, and a novelty almost in our society. Why you handicap is your business and I don't want to sidetrack this thread, by going that way.
Here is my question: Going back to the the original idea about markets and to tie this together, the couple on the trail had a GPS to tell them where they were on the trail, so I asked where they get their info from and the rattled of a bunch of info about how well the trail is monitored and they have a variety of sources and everything is real-time. So if walking on the trail is the market the trail is the completely disclosed. The trail info exists in real time and the walker being the customer is satisfied.
In horse racing we know the product, but who is the customer? The handicapper, the owner, the trainer, who? Until we answer this question and have complete disclosure, does it real do any justice to discuss all that is handicapping. I mean if you can have real time GPS on a trail why not wire up all thoroughbreds with GPS and let us record our number real time. Why not wire up the horses with heart rate monitors so we don't have to argue about fitness. Any time a horse has an x-ray put it on database for all vets to view, allowing for more owners to claim with confidence. Make bloodwork available for viewing.I feel that with GPS, heart rate and muscle enzyme counts, handicapping would change completely for the better. We talk all about speed figures and pace and all things handicapping, but why are we guessing at so many things.
The point of this ramble is this: With the technology that is available for improvement of the product, are we not as handicappers walking across America with a road map and compass?

[Overlay]

With the technology that is available for improvement of the product, are we not as handicappers walking across America with a road map and compass?
The self-interest of the parties involved dictates against the type of disclosure that you're talking about. If that walk across the country were a race, with prizes awarded based on finishing position, or with 100% of the participants battling to divide up a pool that would only pay back (on average) less than 85% of the amount that they had contributed to it, the same type of secrecy and non-disclosure, and the search for an edge that nobody else had or knew about, would prevail, regardless of the sophistication of the devices available to assist in the journey.

[bks]

In horse racing we know the product, but who is the customer? The handicapper, the owner, the trainer, who? Until we answer this question and have complete disclosure, does it real do any justice to discuss all that is handicapping. I mean if you can have real time GPS on a trail why not wire up all thoroughbreds with GPS and let us record our number real time. Why not wire up the horses with heart rate monitors so we don't have to argue about fitness. Any time a horse has an x-ray put it on database for all vets to view, allowing for more owners to claim with confidence. Make bloodwork available for viewing.I feel that with GPS, heart rate and muscle enzyme counts, handicapping would change completely for the better. We talk all about speed figures and pace and all things handicapping, but why are we guessing at so many things.
The point of this ramble is this: With the technology that is available for improvement of the product, are we not as handicappers walking across America with a road map and compass?

Of course you are onto the biggest issue in betting horses. But as overlay has alluded to, the problem of non-disclosure is not primarily a technology problem, it's a willingness problem. It's too advantageous to keep key information from the public to ever remedy it. You're asking [quite appropriately, in my view] for complete transparency. But as long as horses are privately owned, one can never be sure one has it. Even if it were required that 24-hr. video cameras trained on every horse who runs in a race in North America, that still wouldn't solve the problem.

But you are 100% correct that greater transparency is needed to grow the game.

[Dave Schwartz]

IMHO, the thread starter made his point, albeit with me thinking of my days with loaded brownies.

[Greyfox]

1. The customer is the bettor
2. Wiring up horses with GPS, or whatever....gimmee a break Jake.

[turninforhome10]

I am not talking so much about transparency, I am talking about collecting data. Being a lab tech by trade, I am merely suggesting that the technology is available to put a very small chip on the overgirth that would be a transmitter for GPS. The GPS signal would be able to track the horse in real time during the race and we would get a true measure of time, without any guesswork. Heart rate monitors are also very small now and could be incorporated into the chip. The heart rate monitor could be used most effectively to enhance the safety of the horses. Heart rates are the first warning sign that a horse is coming down with a problem, both during a race and at rest.
The reason for the bloodwork transparency is my own selfish want so I could make a lactic acid curve to figure out fatigue. If we had a true measure of time vs heart rate vs lactic acid, so much of the guesswork regarding fitness would be over.
We used heart rate monitors to train our horses and they worked very well. A simple elevation in heart rate at rest gave us a signal that the horse was starting to develop problems, and when running the heart rate gave us an idea if our training methods were effective.
So if we are the customer, why can't we get better data based on the technology that is available. With GPS, we would no longer have to rely on chart callers and the tracks (with a good system), could present us with a product that has pinpoint accurate timing systems. The maker of the system could charge us for the data and we could make charts in real time. The heart rate monitor data could be useful for the state vets to keep the cripples from breaking down and does not have to be disclosed to the public.
I guess what I am trying to get a here is that we are spending all this time and effort to handicap the races using information that has not changed for the bettor since the advent of the starting gate. How could this information be anything but helpful for all parties involved?

[turninforhome10]

To Dave Schwartz, While brownies were a part of my younger Grateful Dead days, being in the beauty of the Appalachian Trail does bring out that "wow man" kind of feeling. Nature is good for introspection.

[turninforhome10]

1. The customer is the bettor
2. Wiring up horses with GPS, or whatever....gimmee a break Jake.

How do you qualify the 1st statement. How are we to know we are the customer. You say it with such confidence but give no examples, in fact you just bold up up make a couple of statements and that it. So in other words, you are happy with your relationship with the technology that is available and firm in the stance that you are getting the best tools available to make informed handicapping decisions. Give me a break. It is this complacency, that keeps us solving riddles with shoestrings and prayers. We argue about timing of length, the same as our dads and grandfathers, when we have the technology available to put this to rest. So I am the nut, who wants to wire up horses in order to make clear and concise charts to invest my money? I am crazy for asking for a better way? So be it.
"When I was a kid we walked to school,uphill both ways in the snow with no shoes and we liked it" is what I hear. Well we now have shoes, and a bus, still want to walk, not me.

[Robert Goren]

While out there on the Appalachian Trail, did you run into Mark Sanford?

Sorry, the devil made me do it.

[turninforhome10]

While out there on the Appalachian Trail, did you run into Mark Sanford?

Sorry, the devil made me do it.

Yes, he was in dreadlocks and mumbling something in spanish about "la familia"

[comet52]

I like bread pudding.

[Dave Schwartz]

TFH10,

We, the bettors, clearly ARE the customers, while the others are participants.

Since racing likes to use the "entertainment" analogy, we are the audience, and the horse owners, track owners, trainers and jockeys are everything from stars to stage hands.

They all, ultimately, trace their income to us.

This is not a difficult equation to master. Only someone with an agenda could possibly see it any other way.


Regards,
Dave Schwartz

PS: I can give you a big "amen" on the nature thing. For us, that is generally around Lake Tahoe, but certainly I get it.

[Fager Fan]

TFH10,

We, the bettors, clearly ARE the customers, while the others are participants.

Since racing likes to use the "entertainment" analogy, we are the audience, and the horse owners, track owners, trainers and jockeys are everything from stars to stage hands.

They all, ultimately, trace their income to us.
This is not a difficult equation to master. Only someone with an agenda could possibly see it any other way.


Regards,
Dave Schwartz

PS: I can give you a big "amen" on the nature thing. For us, that is generally around Lake Tahoe, but certainly I get it.

That's not entirely accurate. The income in the racing industry comes from two places - the owners and the handicappers. The owners put up all the money and from them all the others in the industry are paid. The betting incomes provides a partial return to the owners. The industry will be deemed healthy when if ever the betting income provides a 100% or more return to the owner. Racing will have to whittle itself way down to ever reach that point. In the meantime, racing depends on the outside wealth of owners to continue funding the sport.

[Fager Fan]

I forgot to mention the government subsidy called slots income. That's a third source of income.

[Dave Schwartz]

The industry will be deemed healthy when if ever the betting income provides a 100% or more return to the owner. Racing will have to whittle itself way down to ever reach that point. In the meantime, racing depends on the outside wealth of owners to continue funding the sport.

If the horse owners get all the money from the wagering, what do the track owners get?

[Greyfox]

How do you qualify the 1st statement. How are we to know we are the customer. .

Nice soliloquy.

1. In business models....you are either a customer or a seller. If you can't figure out what you are, I can't help you.

2. With respect to technology, trakus already puts a chip on the horses.
Purchase their info if you think it will help you.
http://horseracing.about.com/od/latestnews/a/aatrakus.htm

[Fager Fan]

If the horse owners get all the money from the wagering, what do the track owners get?

I thought of that too after posting - the track is another entity who gets funds from the betting dollar.

So does the state, but I guess we're not counting them as they're not a racing entity.

[JustRalph]

Having a serendipitous moment while walking today with my daughter today on the beautiful Appalachian Trail, the realization that an efficient market comes from a well defined customer and for that customer in a way that is completely disclosed. It occurred to me when meeting a couple that had logged 3 months and 2148 miles, passed us on the path and me being nosy had to ask their mileage. Asking someone why they are walking halfway across the US, is a bit like asking someone why do you handicap. Both ventures are for the most part hard work, bad conditions, emotionally exhaustive, and those that partake in such activities are in the minority, and a novelty almost in our society. Why you handicap is your business and I don't want to sidetrack this thread, by going that way.
Here is my question: Going back to the the original idea about markets and to tie this together, the couple on the trail had a GPS to tell them where they were on the trail, so I asked where they get their info from and the rattled of a bunch of info about how well the trail is monitored and they have a variety of sources and everything is real-time. So if walking on the trail is the market the trail is the completely disclosed. The trail info exists in real time and the walker being the customer is satisfied.
In horse racing we know the product, but who is the customer? The handicapper, the owner, the trainer, who? Until we answer this question and have complete disclosure, does it real do any justice to discuss all that is handicapping. I mean if you can have real time GPS on a trail why not wire up all thoroughbreds with GPS and let us record our number real time. Why not wire up the horses with heart rate monitors so we don't have to argue about fitness. Any time a horse has an x-ray put it on database for all vets to view, allowing for more owners to claim with confidence. Make bloodwork available for viewing.I feel that with GPS, heart rate and muscle enzyme counts, handicapping would change completely for the better. We talk all about speed figures and pace and all things handicapping, but why are we guessing at so many things.
The point of this ramble is this: With the technology that is available for improvement of the product, are we not as handicappers walking across America with a road map and compass?

yep, and then we punch a button the software and everybody bets the same two horses......... :bang:

[turninforhome10]

yep, and then we punch a button the software and everybody bets the same two horses......... :bang:
I have thought of that, and it goes back to an earlier post in the tread, someone will always be looking for an angle. Data collectors is what we really are as handicappers, gamblers are the ones that put the data into play and profit from it. Can steroids make someone hit more homeruns, if they can't hit homeruns to begin with. Nope.
Give 20 handicappers the exact same info will they come up with the same winners?Not if they can't turn the data into something useful. It would just be nice to have uniform data. Handicapping is subjective, should the data also be subjective? Even if you drew a random group of handicappers and force them to bet random races with uniform data, there would be a wise guy, with just a little more insight.

So far today:
We as the bettors are the customers
The racetrack is the product
Owners, trainers, jockeys, personnel, are the vendors
We as bettors pay taxes for the right to use the product.
We as bettors pay for information to use the product properly.
Vendors are paid by ractrack, taxes, and bettors and each other.
The racetrack is paid by the bettors, taxes, and vendors.
So we as bettors pay on two levels and the money we spend goes little to product improvement.
Sound right.