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Originally Posted by Robert Goren
Even today a book can effect a part of your handicapping process. Giles book did that for me. It was a big deal since it is only the fourth racing book that did that out probably over a hundred that I read. A fifth book written a long time ago has sent me chasing an idea from it with my never ending Prime Power research. It is far to early to tell if it will pan out. Giles's book did not start pace handicapping by a long shot, but he came up a unique way classifying a horse's running style. It is a big improvement over anything else I have read. Nothing in the book is much of a stand alone method for pickings winners in my opinion. Using his ideas with your own does make it a bit easier.
There are a lot of beginner handicapping books out there. They all pretty much tout the same ideas but with different emphases. If you were to ask me about any one specific book, I would most likely say it was crap because it is.
Some day somebody with a huge data base is going to write a book that answers question similar to this. What happens when the very likely front runner gets the easy lead and then quits in the stretch? Does the horse chasing 2nd place win? What about the trackers in 3rd or 4th? Does some closer come from no where to win. One of these types wins more often than others, but which one?
or this question What happens when the 1/5 favorite front runner loses all chance coming out the gate? I have got a million questions like this. Like I said some day somebody will write that book and I will tout it every chance I get.
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IMO...database research such as the one you are suggesting is the equivalent of a dog chasing its own tail; it is an enterprise destined for failure from the very start. It makes no difference at all if a horse is running in 2nd, 3rd, 4th, or last in a given race. The horses find themselves where they are during a race because of the unique "dynamics" which present themselves during that particular race. You can't lump all those 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and last-place runners together...and hope to draw any meaningful conclusions about upcoming races...because the dynamics which will dictate the outcomes of those races are guaranteed to be DIFFERENT.
If the solution was as simple as you make it sound...then it would have been discovered by now. Huge databases already exist.
