[Tim Y]

I have read almost every book that was suggested as a corollary to understanding the essence of the methodology from the Follow Up. Many, after reading them the first time around, didn't seem relevant to horse racing, so over the years I have re-read many of them in the later context of understanding the methodology better.

Sartin forever suggested all of us forget the horsey talk of class structure, the effect of the trainer and rider, and ONCE you put all of that into the dust bin where it belongs. you have ONLY the program left. Most people, and he mentioned this repeatedly, FIGHT in retaining these horsey ideas and never are able to just let go and let the program do what it is designed to do.

Put alcohol, water and vegetable oil in a glass. Shake it up and the let it sit. What happens: it self organizes into three layers of differing density. A race is very much the same way: enter a bunch of lines and it organizes into the race structure all by itself.

I have followed up on the school of chaocomplexity at the Santa Fe Institute that Howard Sartin enlightened me to so many years ago. They have found that in what appear to be chaotic systems, an emerging self organizing order over time.

What is the program other than a vehicle to find that emerging order? Throw in 10 lines and see what the self organizing system (the program) spits out. Don't try to overlay the illusion of some other "order" i.e. class structure the effect of a work out on racing or a trainer.

Use horse races to allow that order to appear. That's it. Use what Sartin predicted would work all those years ago and FORGET THE REST!