bobphilo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> As breakthroughs are fairly uncommon we can't
> really say how his opinion on breakthroughs has
> anything to do with his success. Lots of people
> get to the top of their profession despite being
> wrong on 1 small issue.
> Besides, jockeys are notoriously bad handicappers
> and, being human, are not immune to the effect of
> selective memory. In fact they are among the least
> educated and most dependent on tradition and
> superstitious beliefs, making them even more
> likely to have these beliefs deeply ingrained and
> resistant to change.
> I tend to be skeptical of beliefs lacking the
> support of controlled studies, Physics and
> Physiology tend to make a negative effect of an
> easily opened gate unlikely. Also since one is
> betting against the crowd, better results can be
> obtained by thinking outside the box and betting
> against the majority with even slightly better
> info which the science and common sense imply.

Let's take this point by point:

- "There is no correlation between breakthroughs and his success." I have no idea how you made that connection. His success is simply suggestive of a knowledge base formed through experience, and breakthroughs are just one of hundreds or thousands of facets of the game that are part of that experience.

- You wrote "lots of people get to the top of their profession despite being wrong on one issue." That has no relevance here. Nothing was being offered about his being right or wrong. It was offered as an opinion with specific experience and feel for horses, and energy expended. It's fine if you choose to disregard it, but you do so without comparable experience of handling horses, and you've made a generalization of the possibility of being wrong that is applicable to exactly everything known by anyone at the top of his/her profession, so what could that possibly prove?

- Then you wrote, "jockeys are notoriously bad handicappers ... and are not immune to the effect of selective memory." Again, this has no relevance. He was not handicapping, nor predicting an outcome. He was speaking to direct experience with a substantial knowledge base of horses who broke through the gate, who got loose in a post parade, and the majority, who did neither. Could his memory have been selective? Sure. You could have easily said he could have been partially intoxicated when he made the statement. In fact, you could say just about anything that would apply to just about anything anyone says at any time, but it is utter speculation.

- You then basically insult not just this individual, but the better part of an entire profession. I suspect their education level is below the norm because they enter the profession at a young age. Are we to assume that this lack of education absolutely presumes a lack of intelligence, specifically the lack of cognitive ability to establish causal relationships of different facets of an activity done over twenty thousand times? And this is supposed to be superstition-based?

I have not identified this individual, nor will I, but as I said before, he was one of the most articulate and impressive people I have met in this game, inclusive of owners, trainers, and, God help us, racing executives. That doesn't make him right, because as I've said repeatedly, he was simply offering an opinion. But it does make him 180 degrees different from how you've characterized those in his profession.

You have an opinion, and that's fine. Bet it, flaunt it, do whatever you like with it, but understand that you haven't offered a shred of empirical or experiential evidence to support it. That doesn't make you wrong, but it does make your opinion far less qualified than someone with a career's worth of experience specific to the subject matter of the opinion..