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My post in no way implies that a horse bettor cannot beat the public: Blll Benter and others have proven that it can be done. The purpose of the post is to show how accurate the collective public is in assessing and ranking win contenders.
In order to show a profit at this game, you need to have an edge: the quants call is +EV or positive expected value. Sartin's edge was measuring and manipulating pace in ways that the public was not aware at the time. But like all markets, his initial edge declined over time and he needed to create new calculations to try to maintain his edge.
The modern task for those betting today is to use a method that will either 1) find significant defects in one or more of the publics top few choices, and/or 2) use a method that will show a horse that will run today significantly better than the historical data used by other bettors. For example, the "Sheets" bettors will look for a "bounce" to satisfy #1, or use form cycle patterns to satisfy #2. Similarly, when betting verticals, it is imperative to understand that the horse second most likely to WIN is NOT the horse most likely to PLACE (see Sartin's 55% Solution), something that the public tends to ignore, thus creating an edge. Finally, when betting horizontals, a method needs to differentiate races where ticket structure needs to run deep from races where likely winner will come from one of the top few public choices.
Richard
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