I was at the conference and listened attentively to Jerry’s presentation. I am one of the scientists (the biochemist) that Jerry referred to in his post. I have the following observations on his presentation:

1) Having presented at many scientific conferences and at the FDA, I know very well the stress levels that public speakers incur. Having said that, I did not think that Jerry appeared nervous during his presentation. On the contrary, he presented his points confidently and strongly albeit mostly on deaf ears. Many of the attendees misinterpreted confidence and strength as arrogance.

2) A lot of the presentation went over the heads of most of the group because, in my opinion, they were not listening and/or were listening but with closed minds—a terrible disease in any field of endeavor

3) The data and physical explanation by Dr. Pratt et al on how tracks can change substantively during the course of a day without a severe weather event is groundbreaking. For those who did listen, it clearly proved that splitting variants for sprints, one turn routes and/or 2 turn routes can and should be done on certain racing days. Jerry has cited several of those days on this site. Many apparently aberrant numbers can be “corrected” and made meaningful using such analysis.

4) I very much respect Andy Beyer for his contributions to handicapping and usually enjoy the humor in his presentations. I did think however that Andy was uncharacteristically speechless at times during the discussion. For example, he had no comments on the discussion of Donaldson’s 1936 book on making speed figures. Perhaps this is because he believes that he invented speed figures. Also, he had no retort to the point that both Jerry and Len made that, relative to 20 or 30 years ago, there are a lot MORE fast horses now than then. Jerry cited this as a reason why it so hard to win the triple crown in this era.

5) I had never heard Len Friedman speak before. Most (not all) of his responses were pretty much straight out of “The Odds Must Be Crazy”, i.e., (paraphrasing) “we have our secret formulas which are time tested and we do very well with them”. When pushed to elaborate on the physical rationale for certain key points such as not splitting variants or making impossible figures for 4.5f 2yo races at Keenland, his responses were exercises in tail chasing. He was very eloquent though on the fact that horses are getting faster and that he and Jerry don’t give you a horse in the 5th at Belmont, rather they give you a framework and methodology to analyze that race in a way that will provide value over the long run. Many attendees wanted simple answers (who’s going to win) or formulas or single numbers when in fact the fun and reward in this game is the complex analysis that leads to information of value which very few of your competitors (the general public and the other “experts”) have.

6) I was disappointed that Jerry did not present some of the trainer and sire info contained in Thorograph sheets. This is powerful stuff. In my limited survey, the Expo attendees were largely unaware of that information.

7) Finally, there are two ways to look at the mostly negative (my limited survey of the attendees) response to Jerry’s presentation. On the one hand, if you regularly analyze races using the Thorograph approach, you should be happy because your competitors will be using information of lesser wagering value. On the other hand, I’m sure that Jerry would have liked a more positive response to increase his client base. In any event, I hope that Jerry will be invited to speak again at the next Expo because I personally enjoyed the fact-based substantiation of his approach.



Dr.Fager 1:59