I would only add that after Aly's lengthy and masterful explanantion of this subject he concludes, in part,

"Any talk that a handicapping factor, whether it's riders, TG figures, or anything else, is unimportant because the crowd will take it into consideration and bet accordingly, strikes me as epic, monumental, awe-inspiring sanguinary BS."

I hope JB will take the tone of this sanguinary BS thing into account when he considers what a great guy Aly is after he asked him to tone down the personal attacks. I would point out that he pours this on based on his complete exaggeration of my comments.

I never said that riders were unimportant because the crowd will take it into consideration and bet accordingly... I said certain situations may lead the crowd to back a jockey's horses excessively. I said a bunch of other things too, but this is really stretching my point to suit Aly's need to let everyone know what a genius he is. Everybody has priorities when they bet. This isn't one of mine. That's my only, simple, point.

Again, I find it hard to believe that even you Aly, O great handicapping master, give more than say, 15% of your overall handicapping energy to a consideration of this particular subject. You have supplied precisely no examples of using this to such tremendous advantage (and have ducked Patent's rather simple question, "tell us, O master, how you use this to such advantage?"). You have spent A LOT of time on the theories of how you could do this. I guess there wasn't room for an example in this huge post, which we can refer back to as the "zero sum" jockey analysis post (Vol. III, No. 63).

Michael D, if I understand correctly, was unable to pick up on the much vaunted current market angle despite paying close attention to this factor every day (and doubtless giving it more than say, 15% of his handicapping energy) and also despite the fact that someone else was/is doing it right next to him.

Mall's contribution was nice. I guess that's it.

HP