Class Handicapping

[the_fat_man]

Originally Posted by philcski

For example, from today's 7th at KEE, Bigshot would have been identified by a computer model as an absolute gold PRIME play because of his closing performance against the strong speed bias on the 8th in the Alcomatch race- which a human analysis would conclude as skeptical at best because it fell so far outside of the rest of the day. Likewise, being able to toss his performance and reanalyzing without that he was an easy toss at 5/2.

Bigshots' race, per the non Trakus charts, is not nearly against the grain enough to warrant a look; certainly not at 5:2. Moreover, he's never run a race in his history where he's run against the grain (or done anything of note in terms of his setups). This is key: I want horses that run well against the setup not those that plug along when they don't get one and run only when things go their way. A chart history, while flawed (as all data presently is) goes a long way towards pointing them out. (Another way would be to watch all their races and keep copious notes.)

And, it's become evident to me that even the strongest bias is not immune to pace/setup. Even if there were a speed bias on 4/08, race 6 was not run as such.