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[Aerocraft67]

Maiden post here, offering a new guy’s take on the updated Davidowitz book. I haven’t finished it, but I’ve been poring over it considerably and I’ve skimmed what I haven’t read thoroughly, formulating an opinion on the book in the meantime. At the risk of a premature review, I want to post while the thread is active, as well as for posterity as new horseplayers like me search for guidance on handicapping books. I bought it on Amazon with Crist’s Exotic Betting for about $17 each, which cleared the $25 hurdle for free shipping. I had to wait about a week for the Davidowitz book to arrive in stock.

I bought the book because it seemed like one of the most comprehensive and authoritative tomes on handicapping with the most recent update. I got what I paid for and recommend the book accordingly. That said, it reads more like one dedicated and benevolent man passing along his lifetime experience and expertise with racing and handicapping, rather than an authoritative reference for the modern horseplayer that the title suggests. My critique holds the book to the latter standard, which might not be fair.

That the original was published 30 years ago shows a bit too much. The pedagogical value of many of the old examples stands the test of time, such as studying the career of Secretariat, but this edition remains a bit too reliant on old examples. It just gets tedious to pore over 30 year old PPs to follow a concept, and subsequently difficult to maintain faith that the examples remain relevant, particularly for the purpose of applying the principles to today’s races. Where there are more recent examples (and there are many), the material is much more encouraging.

The author’s firsthand experience with great horses and races of yore helps cultivate the reader’s appreciation for the game, but the heavy reliance on the material gets a little, well, boring, and subjugates the quest for how to handicap today’s races with today’s tools. When I compare this material to the “beautiful mind” antics referenced on this discussion board, the book seems downright quaint in comparison. No doubt some would argue that the back-to-basics, old-school approach is not only charming, but also provides individuals an achievable edge in competition with large-scale data mining and whale-sized betting.

A new or old handicapping approach requires dedication, and you get out of the endeavor what you put in. But many of the methods and prescriptions in the book are impractically time-consuming for me, and presumably many others. I guess it’s fair to set out the path for ultimate dedication to accommodate the high-achieving readers, but it would be helpful also to identify less ambitious techniques based on those principles for the casual horseplayer more explicitly. That said, the title does specify a professional's guide.

For example, it sounds like one of Davidowitz’s primary contributions to handicapping is the key race methodology. But this critical chapter of the book began to distract me with dated tactics. Poring over printed results with a pencil seems like an antiquated methodology given electronic data sets available today. It’s a virtue to learn things from basic methods, but it’s not like we continue to train mathematicians with slide rules. On the other hand, the takeaway of why race results are important does come through.

I have not yet mastered the data sources available to horseplayers (i.e., what’s available, what’s it mean, and what do I need), and this book didn’t help much. The book is biased toward DRF as a primary information source, and doesn’t offer much insight into other sources of data, which I’d have found helpful. Even within the scope of DRF, it remains anchored on print data, and only alludes to Formulator occasionally. Perhaps a contribution from an editor with more experience using modern data sources would have helped here.

Each chapter aptly covers a fundamental component of handicapping, using old and new examples, and usually includes prescribed methods to practically apply the knowledge. Editorially, however, the material does not hold together too well. Chapters begin with colorful anecdotes, but often end abruptly, without summary or context or transition to other chapters. Not a fatal flaw, but I think the editors could have done a better job with the flow of the material after three editions. Again, the book can read like a long series of journal entries rather than a formal reference.

I should acknowledge that it’s conspicuous for a brand new horseplayer to critique the seminal tome of a lifelong master of the endeavor. But that juxtaposition is kind of the point—it’s a unique angle compared with the prevailing expert opinions on the board. I don’t even know what I need to know that the book isn’t telling me, but I suspect it’s substantial. Maybe I’m asking too much of one book, or maybe I'm intimidated by how challenging handicapping is. But I do think I’m too old to be biased by youth, and that I’m being realistic about the time and effort people can spend on pastimes, and that I have sufficient editorial acumen and fondness for how-to books to offer a useful view.

The book is comprehensive, but seems short on modern tools and techniques and long on historical anecdotes and methods. Perhaps the formula still yields an edge today. The approach implies specialization in a specific track, which I find compelling and look forward to pursuing, but applying the formula in it's entirety seems impractical for all but dedicated professionals, and it seems that those horseplayers have built on this material and moved on. I do value the book and will continue to study it, especially given the dearth of foundational yet modern handicapping reading out there, and try to apply the wisdom to weekend horseplay.

Since this is my first post, a quick thanks for a great board. I look forward to participating as my pursuit of horseplay evolves.