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Originally Posted by Dave Schwartz
Twenty Seven,
Are you aware of any way to accomplish that statistically?
In other words, can you put a value on particular moves or is all just "seat of the pants analysis?"
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This is one of those dilemmas that I don't think can be resolved by either an objective
or subjective solution. I agree with Davidowitz who emphasized a comprehensive approach which needed a high degree of discrimination in order to concentrate on which particular factors needed to be given priority for the specific race under study.
I will say, though, that the crowd's love affair with quantification (I'm guilty of overemphasizing it, too) means creative options can have more than enough value.
This can all sound so general, so an example:
Fair Grounds used to favor posts 1 and 2 at 6 furlongs in the mid 90s to a stunning degree. Posts 3 through 5 were acceptable. And if you bet on #6 through #12, you were either poorly informed, a masochist, or someone with a
very unusual case to be made, along with high corresponding odds. I didn't know how long this had been going on, but obviously I bet accordingly.
The next year the inside bias disappeared (track maintenance and/or unusual weather). The funny thing is that post position strengths were all over the map. I don't have the exact data on hand, but post #1 (for example) would be great, #2 poor, #3 decent, #4 great, #5 poor, etc. I had and have no idea why this was so -- certainly the wide swings in adjacent posts meant that trips couldn't account for it -- but it destroyed all confidence in putting much stock in those results. The only thing I could think of was highly atypical value due to the vagaries of post draw.
IV for all trainer categories are very important. But I can't see the value in post position draw having any meaning in isolation other than the usual and obvious trip issues to the first turn.
