[AusRace] 1b4 - a system

[Tony Moffat]

Lucien was at a loose end.

Lucien might be French, he spoke it well(I thought), but he spoke Spanish,
Italian, Greek, and English. He was born on an island in the 'Ocean'
(Atlantic). There it was common, automatic he said, to speak English with
friends and other languages at other times. He wore a watch with a stop
watch on one side and the clock face on the other, and all of this was
enclosed in another case, vintage water proofing I thought. He used a scarf
and was always suited and tied.

He was Luci to us, and didn't mind. He was punting for a family who had no
other connection to racing it seemed. It was irreligious for them, the
family, to deal with money that way. I don't know their name. 

Luci did not bet with us with family money but at the end of his
commissioning along the rails and with the agents in the stand he came for a
seat and a chat and might have a quiet $10 on something of his (or was it?)
He smoked Gauloises and he was welcome to them. 

What he did have, his conundrum, was reams of data regarding the speed of
racehorses in Melbourne. He got the results for each race, showing the
winner and the other runners lengths lost out to 9 lengths (50 feet or so
back from the finish) then it was 'distanced'. Using the winners time and
supposing the length to be 8 feet he calculated the run time for as many
horses as would fit the equation.  

What he didn't have, it seems, was an assurance that a runner whom he
highlighted as finishing 'brightly' would do the right thing and win, or
place, at odds next time, or in a similar race in the near future. He didn't
get discouraged, he just accumulated a mound of data, and experimented with
various things, maths (he said it as 'maffs'), and relates that a few of the
highlighted horses did win, most not at speculative odds though, and perhaps
not because of any 'bright' run in its recent past outings. He graphed times
with weight, position at the turn with final time, finishing width with
times because his reasoning being that the runner must have run further
doing that - scooting out wide to get around the pack would make it run
extra lengths (him - lenfs). Lucien used the 'Sporting Globe' photos and the
finish photo that the Judge used.

He concluded that a good time in a runners formline at some time was
tantamount to the runner finishing on in this upcoming race. What he
couldn't say was which runner with that attribute would run on and win and
place today, this race. He had the information but no idea of the result
prior to the event. It was holding him back, paralysing his betting it
seemed. 

Lucien slowed his appearances at the races, Caulfield was always attended it
seemed, then he stopped turning up everywhere.

I don't know if he found an answer to his riddle. His one before run
analysis (1b4) was very involved for that time. With all the data now (mid
2022) he would be fairly salivating you would think. It is aggrieving
somewhat to realise that a plain and obvious form superlative did have an
effect on a race, although it, the form aspect and its affect, could not
have been reasonably predicted in advance. Especially if the same form
aspect had appeared in a previous race, that day and place, and had no
relationship with the result. That's why we have odds, they say. Still it's
a funny game most times.

Cheers

Tony






-- 
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG antivirus software.
www.avg.com