One observation re: my paceline selections early on in my journey compared to recently... earlier on, if Line 1 was an outlying 0 line - not beaten badly, but not good enough to be considered a (+) and typically a "Front Half of the field" performance, I was treating it as a non-comparable race for ratings purposes and moving backwards, usually settling with a + or (+) line from L2 or L3 providing it was recent and at or near today's distance. Typically, that race would end up coincidentally being the best of last 3 Adjusted Speed Rating. This "loose" approach was working for me.
I am aware that in the
Paceline Manual, the guideline is to always consider the last line unless there is a valid excuse to go back further, and that "last line" can be expanded upon in various ways (e.g. last line before layoff, last line before trip trouble, last line on a dry track, etc). Rather than summarily dismissing a runner off a last out "0", I interpreted this particular "0" line - regardless of whether there was trouble - as I explained above, as a reason to backtrack.
At some point, I began changing my tune towards this, even though it was putting me on some winners. I began to really become tight with FTL's guidelines. Granted, FTL's guidelines are founded on logic and on his own personal research/experience (I give him 2 thumbs up for his hard work!) and can keep someone new to racing or the Methodology in general from getting themselves into constant poor decision making. The skill of passing races with too many unknown variables is just as valuable as being able to select pacelines and contenders, IMO.
Anyway, I began to tighten my standards, started mixing with other suggestions that members here have thrown in my direction, but with no success. I'm not pointing fingers, far from it - I make the decisions about pacelines, contention and wagers, not the members of Pace and Cap. The information disseminated by this group is invaluable, but as has been mentioned, if we focus on too many factors, the amount of noise increases. Same goes for taking too many voices at heart. The noise increases and it becomes difficult to maintain any consistency.
Today, after Tampa, I looked back at many of my selections from earlier in the month when as one would put it, "life was good!" I could see that my line selections were more intuitive rather than rigid - decisions were made more clearly and rapid fire. Lately, tough decisions have been wrought with second guessing my first instinct. The first instinct, as I've learned from years of test taking in public school and college, is usually correct.
I need to play to
MY records and intuitively, and not necessarily towards every guideline or axiom known to man. I lost sight of that. Shame on me. Having gotten that out of my system, tomorrow starts a new month and I refuse to be an April Fool!
