Part of the nostalgia from racing's good old days.
I remember how
improbable it was that the KY Derby
preview edition would ever reach the newsstands by Derby day.
And how they always presented
Ray Taulbot as if he were alive, when he died in 1969.
And the
Horses to Watch lists that were harvested from various guys dotted around the continent who were made to send-in their lists
months in advance (making it nearly certain that some name on a list from some corner of the continent would pay $157.40 to win so it could be championed on the cover of an issue {months later}).
The systems... the
systems... they were an early intro, comprised of stuff you could actually find in DRF lines of the day, and you need only have applied each step to arrive at the proper conclusion.
Some of the racing coverage was fab... and they too kept
old stories alive (from 30 or 40 years prior).
But their product distribution completely sucked, and nobody on the inside ever made much effort to improve anything. Computers hitting the mainstream probably did them in as much as anything, for now anybody can collect vast amounts of raw data and create their own betting system. While there are touts everywhere online now. But those were the good old days.
I just googled the name of my most-remembered old
system from ATM and found this link: (it was the ONLY 'hit' online using the name of said system)
https://www.americanturf.com/pdf/master1.pdf
(heaven knows what some column called "Those Wonderful Days" (about "Racing History") would have been about
in 1957!! )
But if somebody were producing a horse racing movie of old times, surely the names and words written at the above link would help to get anybody into character.
