[AusRace] Simpendorfers system

[Tony Moffat]

Simpendorfer was a trees man - he studied locations suitable for planting
trees, Pines usually, and  spoke Latin a lot, Pinus radiata, and Pinasta,
Confromens , Ardonachie (which is Scottish) and Dolichos LabLab (which isn't
a tree I know, and might be Spanish). He ate almost everything that came
from the sea, not just the swimming things either, the plants, lichens,
animals, vegetables and minerals and was skinny as a rake, brown as
anything, and healthy although barefooted. It was this last bit that got him
the sack. You work for the Government, Mr Bolte said, you must wear boots.
His personal transport was a tractor, although his around town was a large
CZ motorcycle, those blue haze causing ones that went like a shower of
something, if only in a straight line. Enough about him, he left and went to
the South Seas somewhere, doing plantation work I bet. 

It was a bet that caused us to meet up again. I was standing in a queue on
Melbourne Cup day in Warrnambool when he came back down the line after
placing his and we spoke then and met up later. 

Oleg had a system. He reasoned that the barriers were important, to the
extent that horses racing from wide barriers have to overcome, pass, runners
on the inside to get to the front to win. Half of that is correct, front
going, but discounts the effect of horses dropping back for instance, or one
paced runners who get over run, or any combination of everything dynamic in
a race that causes a result, 1st, 2nd or 3rd and the also rans.

He took the barrier number and deducted one from that, the space occupied by
the horse, and this was the starting point. Barrier one was always 1, and
barrier 2 was one as well

He took the weight allocated to the horse, and each two pounds over the
limit he counted as a length. So bottom weight was on zero, after two pounds
was +1 length, 4 pounds +2 lengths. His reasoning was the topweights were
the better horses, but they had to accelerate that weight up to race speed
too. 

A high/heavy weight and a wide barrier was detrimental.

He ranked the pre race prices as well. It was his opinion that the prices
are the distillation of everything known to that point, including barrier
position and weight, but the barrier and weight deserves the extra attention
he gave them. He took the favourite price and gave it the value one. Then
doubled the price for a value of two, etc. Horses priced between one and
two, got the value one, those between two and three got the value two - I
think you get the picture now.

Race distance was not considered except he only bet on races less than 1800
metres (9f), nor jockey ability, nor sex, going or anything else much. Back
to sex, briefly, and he liked his picks to be male, horses, geldings, colts
and discounted females somewhat so that mares might be overlooked if a male
horse was close up in the calculation, never bet on fillies, never bet on
colts. 

Not that any of that distracted him from his system- barrier, weight,
morning line.

Melbourne Cup - Delphi 13, Pondus 13, Floating Artist 14, Twilight Payment
15,
Winner on 30, 2nd on 22, 3rd on 24 - this race would not be considered
because of the distance clause.

MelbRace 8 - 2nd and third selected 1400m - good place divs also
MelbRace 9 - 1st and 2nd selected - good place div also
MelbRace 10- 1st and 3rd selected
Syd Race 7 - 1st, 2nd, 3rd selected
Syd Race 7 - 2nd selected, winner was next in queue (meaning 4th pick)
Syd Race 8 - winner selected
Syd Race 9 - 1st,2nd, 3rd selected

Cheers

Tony





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