Howard Sartin tribute by Mark Cramer

[highnote]

Mark asked that this be passed along to interested parties...

THE MUSIC MAN: TRIBUTE TO HOWARD SARTIN
You’ve all heard by now that Howard Sartin has died. He passed away in
the company of his family, at home, on January 31. He must have been
in his 80s. Not much has been written since his death about a man who
changed so much for so many.
Back in the early 1980s when I was the racing editor of Gambling
Times, an article arrived at my desk from a person with a strange
name: Howard Sartin. Once I got through the first paragraph, I knew I
was dealing with an iconoclast. He said he was a doctor of psychology,
though some of his enemies dispute that claim. He wrote that “absence
makes the heart grow fonder” so if you want to cure a problem gambler,
you have a better chance to teach him to win than to get him to stop.
Sartin had actually practiced his “win therapy” with problem
horseplayers, and was relatively successful if you compare his therapy
roi to that of the typical shrink.
(We have some shrink readers. You tell me if I’m right or not.)
You see what I mean. I was hooked. Next he wrote about calculating
pace handicapping on the basis of feet per second and then dividing
races into segments. Once you compared the segments (or fractional
times in feet per second) you could visualize if the horse was an
early runner (E), a pressure (P) or (S) a sustained pace horse (what
we would call a closer). You could call this a gimmick if you like,
but in fact, the visual aspect of his printouts helped a player to dig
into a race.
Howard explained that there’s no such thing as a closer. A horse that
looks like he’s closing in the stretch is really just slowing down
less than the others.
Howard developed computer programs to craft these ideas into a
methodology. He paid tribute to the nearly anonymous handicapping
here, Huey Mahl, who wrote the tiny classicThe Race is Pace (Gamblers
Book Club, Las Vegas). It was Huey who first spoke of how horses
expend energy. I met him once in Las Vegas and he looked like one of
the crowd, dressing no better than Albert Einstein.
So, thirsting for something original for the challenged pages of
Gambling Times, I felt rewarded by Sartin’s article and published it.
According to Sartin, the publishing of this article helped to
jump-start his Sartin Methodology Group, but knowing the charming
Howard, I suspect he was merely flattering me, knowing that I had
become one of his adversaries. So this is why I relate Howard to the
Music Man, because he seemed to me like a classy hustler, a PT Barnum,
and I like that type of person. What would the world be without such
characters?
A group of players coalesced around Howard Sartin and when you talked
to any of them, you heard they were winners. All of them! They were
told to do 20 race samples and then report on their results. They
mainly played claiming races on the basis of the pace factor,
observing the track profile of each race track in order to know
whether it favored E horses, P horses or S horses.
I went to one of his events and felt humiliated. There was a thick
atmosphere of inflated ego in the room: everyone was hitting high
percentages of winners, and amongst them, I felt as if I couldn’t pick
my own nose. It was a regular hotel conference room but I felt as if I
were in a huge tent and this was a revivalist meeting.
I dared to mention the trainer factor, and Howard smiled
paternalistically, reminding me in front of his followers that “the
trainer can’t talk to the horse”. I would go regularly to the SoCal
tracks and whenever I bumped into a Sartin follower, he would remind
me: “the trainer can’t talk to the horse”. Of course I know that a
trainer cannot talk to a horse, in spite of what Robert Redford might
suggest.
Among the Sartin followers there were some very talented people. One
of them was Tom Brohamer. Tom’s brother once played for the Chicago
Cubs. Tom never repeated to me that “the trainer can’t talk to the
horse”. I had the opportunity to actually watch Tom play and concluded
that he was an authentic winner: the real thing. Then he wrote Modern
Pace Handicapping, and the book is still good today.
My writing went in a different direction. I wrote my first novel,
called Please Hold All Tickets, in which my main character had to
confront the Certinites, a sect or cult of handicappers led by Prof
Certin.
After the book had reached the publisher and was being printed, I had
second thoughts. Had I been unfair to Doc Sartin? I honestly believed
that his methodology was good, but not surely good enough to make ALL
of his followers winners. I felt that there was fudging going on, with
his followers consciously or unconsciously feeling that they needed to
please The Doc.
Sartin read my novel and then, in his publication called The
Follow-Up, edited with flare by Dick Schmidt, wrote a glowing review.
It took me by surprise because I had been leaning towards thinking
that Howard was a control freak, like Fidel Castro, a paternalist who
wanted the best for his people but who couldn’t deal with anyone else
as big as him and who felt that his system was the only good one.
As some of Fidel’s best people were dropping out or being purged, thus
it was with a number of Sartin’s followers. The parting was not
friendly. There was bitterness in the air and one of Sartin’s people,
a magician, played an ugly prank on him.
Sartin’s empire seemed to be crumbling. I have more tolerance for
control freaks. Sartin was one of those rare human beings who was
truly unique, and as an iconoclast, it was understandable that he
would be the center of controversy. Then Barry Meadow, never a Sartin
follower, wrote an article that essentially called Howard a fraud.
My take is that Sartin had a good product and so whatever bizarre
marketing techniques he would use could not be raised as evidence
against his pace handicapping product.
My dear friend Dick Mitchell was another who parted with Howard, but
Dick’s fine All In One program was surely influenced by Howard’s
stuff. (All science and art is derived from something, and "influence"
can be a positive force.)
Later, I visited Tom Ainslie (Dick Carter) in Ossining. Dick Carter,
for me, was one of the greatest all-time human beings, and we owe it
to him and his books that horse race handicapping has legitimacy
today.
I discovered that Dick Carter was using an updated Sartin program and
finding it an excellent tool. Carter told me that his handicapping had
become reinvigorated with Sartin’s methodology.
So now that Howard has died, how do we look back on his life? Was he
the paranoid that some of his former followers allege? I don’t care.
For me, he was a truly creative human being who produced something
unique. Howard could play jazz on the piano, and you could see in his
inventive way of living, that the jazz was there in everything.
Charlie Mingus had trouble dealing with people, as did Miles Davis.
They’re still great.
A number of the players who parted with Howard Sartin did so only
after they had learned to win at the track. I suppose that if I had
been a follower, I too may have parted. But from a safer distance, I
could appreciate Doc Sartin.
On days when I am having an enjoyable chat with friends or family, I
think back and long for something perhaps more challenging, and maybe
“troubling” in a good way: another polemical discussion with Howard
Sartin.
Mark Cramer

[Hajck Hillstrom]

Thanks for posting.

[LottaKash]

Thanks for posting that John.......Two very unique individuals, and both "iconoclasts" in their own right.....I found MC's take on HS very interesting and thought provoking, to say the least.......Two Winners for sure..........................

best,

[CincyHorseplayer]

I've read that a few times already and I like Mark's take on the "Godfather Of Pace"!!

Seriously though,I think the marriage of those two's ideas has been the vision I've tried to achieve in my quest to be a 5-tool handicapper.

[levinmpa]

I heard Mark Cramer interviewed just the other day on Ralph Siraco's Race Talk Las Vegas show. Among other things, they talked about Mark's new book titled Tropical Downs. The show is archived at racedaylasvegas.com. The air date was Tuesday, March 24.

[Tom]

Thanks.

[strapper]

Mark,
Thanks for your tribute to Doc Sartin. My father was one of his followers/disciples. My late father helped him put on his New Orleans seminar at a local Holiday Inn and flew to several of his other conferences. I found the good doctor a fascinating fellow, but like you, was somewhat skeptical of his claims and his circle of believers.
My dad was always searching for answers in his life and would go from one thing to another. There was a gentleman in the New Orleans area at one time preaching about his handicapping method and selling it to unsuspecting novices. I could see through this guy but my father, for some reason, bought into it. Eventually this guy lost his luster and ran off with some of his students' money and was never seen again around the local tracks. Shortly after that time, my father landed hard for Dr. Sartin's Methodology. I felt this was a better course for him and his handicapping pursuits, but after his previous phony guru, was somewhat leary of the new messiah.
To make a long story short, my father probably never stuck to everything the Doc advised. Example, you were instructed to bet two horses in each race and keep those 20-race cycle forms. Dad couldn't resist a few exotics here and there but who can? He was only human.
My own memories of Dr. Sartin are similar to Mark's but I think, overall, he was great for the game. I believe he truly wanted to help people win; he wasn't just out for himself. He was, indeed, one of those characters that could hold you spellbound and go on and on like a great lecturer can.
I would also like to thank Mark Cramer for his contributions to handicappers everywhere with his fine work at Gambling Times (which published one of my articles on chartcalling) and also his several books on the Turf.

[QuarterCrack]

Originally Posted by swetyejohn

The parting was not
friendly. There was bitterness in the air and one of Sartin’s people,
a magician, played an ugly prank on him.

Anyone know what this prank was? Who was the magician? Pizzolla?
Sounds scandalously intriguing...

[Dick Schmidt]

Nice article. Mark is one of the good guys. I'm sure he is right, the view from the outside was clearer than that from the inside. There is little doubt that Howard changed handicapping forever. Not a bad legacy.


Dick

Life is short and dinnertime is chancy.
Eat desert first!

[Greyfox]

Originally Posted by Dick Schmidt

Nice article. Mark is one of the good guys. I'm sure he is right, the view from the outside was clearer than that from the inside. There is little doubt that Howard changed handicapping forever. Not a bad legacy.


Dick

Life is short and dinnertime is chancy.
Eat desert first!

Dick,

In spite of the fact that you...were an a-hole last fall that I felt insulted my
avotar, a ficticious persona, on this board, I think that you diminish your own role and Huey Mahl's role in the Sartin Legacy.



Sartin was a promoter. Yes, he left a legacy.
Your own interpretations in those early newsletters or publications made the whole thing go. When you left there, the newletters went into neverneverland with gooblygook, chaos and other concepts beyond his ability to clearly make them credible.
Huey Mahl, and perhaps others,were giants that he "borrowed from?"
Absolutely.

Yes Sartin left a legacy.
He was a promoter.
Was he an originator?
You could answer that and I won't ask you. That would be unfair.
But I feel my comments are fair and thank you for your contribution to making the methodology readable in those years, in spite of the fact that you were so gruff to me last fall in this forum.

Greyfox

[toetoe]

Foxhole,

Whoa whoa WHOA ! I'll survive without ever ascertaining the meaning of avotar, but give up last fall's resentment. LAST FALL ? Come on, don't get a big fat ulcer over some behavior of "Bull" Schmidt, or of ANYONE ... unless you really want to. [End of sermon.]

[Indulto]

Originally Posted by toetoe

Foxhole,

Whoa whoa WHOA ! I'll survive without ever ascertaining the meaning of avotar, but give up last fall's resentment. LAST FALL ? Come on, don't get a big fat ulcer over some behavior of "Bull" Schmidt, or of ANYONE ... unless you really want to. [End of sermon.]

toe, toe. toe. An insult – intended or otherwise -- is more likely to produce an ulcer if unanswered. Better late than never, I say, as the slow grey fox plowed into the hazy brownsmith.