Can't disagree with anything you said. Jockey strategy surely does influence the outcome of some races. But that doesn't have anything to do with the example I cited or the question I asked. No doubt the final time that a closer runs is influenced by the fractions that he runs in the early stages. The question that I was addressing is "how is a closers final time influenced by the fractions that OTHER HORSES run in the early stages". I posed a particular example of a race pace shape to see how classichandicapper would respond. You posed a completely different one - which I will summarize as "when the pace is slow up front, some jockeys on closers screw up". Can't argue with that. I'm sure that some of those jockeys up front are screwing up with a really fast pace as well. Can't argue with that either.