If we're going back to the war years, Ray Taulbot gets a mention. He was pace makes the race long before it became part of the modern handicapping literature. I think American Turf Monthly might still be recirculating his articles.

I met Tom (Dick Carter) at a Sartin seminar in Albany. He sat in front of me and we chatted a bit during breaks. Very nice man. He was learning to use the advanced Sartin programs and was very interested in the whole thing.

The war years? Ray Taulbot who passed away in 1969 was very relevant during Beyer's early years and I didn't include him because Beyer and others wrote for widely distributed daily newspapers whereas Taulbot was writing for a niche publication.

This doesn't demean Taulbot, but I don't think journalistically he had the same effect on the sport with his writings as Beyer.

I know Taulbot was born in 1895 and I believe he was managing editor at ATM from the 30's until his death, wasn't he? It's hard to compare eras - horseracing was a different game until the middle of the 20th century, but Taulbot might have been one of the better known "handicapping writers" in that era. I know ATM relentlessly pushed his pace calculator and they sold an awful lot of them. For those of us who got their start pre-Beyer, Taulbot was one of the few references we had until Ainslie's 1968 book. I would agree he didn't have nearly the impact Beyer did at any time, and a lot of Taulbot's stuff was based on "angles" which were a popular handicapping tool in an era when the racing form had more limited data set. I was familiar with ATM because later on I wrote for them when the Bomze brothers were running the show and there was definitely a formula for the articles. Beyer has the advantage of recency and his bibliography well surpasses anything Taulbot did, but in the day ATM and Racing Digest had a pretty wide distribution in the Northeast anyway. Beyer is the clear winner in any comparison, and perhaps Taulbot wouldn't make a top five list, but for a lot of us he was the first guy to fool around with handicapping "science" and he does hold a special place.

While this article was firmly written tongue-in-cheek on April Fool's Day, I do see this particular quote as quite poignant:

As the “saberists'” popularity has grown, a great debate has emerged between sabermetrics and traditional scouting. You cannot remain in the “saberists'” good standing if you place any value in anything a scout has ever said.

I see this as quite true in horse racing.

Both sides of the fence riddle the other in their methods when it comes to "numbers" or "computer" generated models versus the wiley veteran that utilizes pen, paper, and a racing form to earn their trade.

Both can be great. Both can be woefully wrong.

Anyone know which handicapping author was the biggest bettor? :)

Are we talking at least $5K a day, in 1985 dollars?

A high school player can't be measured by sabermetrics...

http://www.baseballamerica.com/minor...e-trout-12308/

...but his development can be measured once in the system...

http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx...on=OF#advanced

To establish the satire, the author created a false dichotomy...

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/what-...-teams-use-it/



--but I still enjoyed the April Fool's joke.

Charles Barkley and Michael Jordan have both authored books. I'd say they are the biggest bettors; even to date.

Handicapping books?

They weren't?

I would guess Beyer, or Davidowitz.

I am going to hazard a guess that it might be C X Wong.
Although he did not write about handicapping, Pete Axthelm was know to wager large amounts of money on the ponies.

I didn't say Beyer numbers were the best, just the standard by which all are measured against.

Beyer, to his credit, could entertain us in his writings leaving all authors behind. Beyer didn't invent parellel time charts. He just gave them life to the public.