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Richard, that's a fine book. I haven't read it in several years but seeing your excellent post, I pulled it off the shelf. According to the dust jacket, Glendon Jones has a master of science degree in applied statistics from the University of Toronto. (I have a degree or two, but I don't have one of those.)
I understand Lefty's point. For several years, back in my "paper and pencil handicapping" days, I tried to construct my own odds line for each race and frankly, it was little more than SWAG. For all that effort, I don't think I improved my ROI a penny. Perhaps the only benefit was that it kept me out of some races that I shouldn't have bet anyway.
Still, the concept of value has stayed with me. I have always been a big fan of Dr. Bill Quirin and his book Winning at the Races remains one of my favorites. After much thought and watching at least a dozen Dave Schwartz videos, I have decided that an odds line based on measurable factors, weighted by impact value, might just be the answer, at least for me. (Dave was an early Sartin guy who also was influenced by Dr. Quirin and his philosophy and software blend the two.)
So, I'm waiting patiently on our friend Ted to release the new version of RDSS with the tote fix, among other things, and then I'm going to build a large RDSS database that contains all the horses in each race, not just the winner or the place horse, and after I have a thousand races or so, I'm going to do some serious impact value analysis.
One of the best players that I know on P&C is Richard Mathie who has created his own four-factor system from vast statistical studies which he has done by hand! He can tell you the winning percentage of all contenders from their four-factor profiles. I have spent many hours on the phone with Rich handicapping races and he almost never loses. He is using his percentages to determine value, both in the horse and in the race. He is a very disciplined player and only bets when there is value. (Needless to say, he doesn't bet many races.) In a manner of speaking, he's creating an odds line with his statistics, an objective odds line, not a subjective SWAG version like Lefty mentioned.
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