Tandem Losers

[For The Lead]

Richie,

If you don’t mind, I would like to hear your comments ( and anyone else’s who would care to comment) on tandem losers. I haven’t seen much discussion on this subject, other than to eliminate them as “tandem losers”.

Here are a couple of questions I have on the subject.

1 – horse “A” ( a closer ) loses to horse “B” ( a need to lead) in a race where there were no other early horses. Does this mean horse “A” can never beat horse “B”? Does this mean that whenever we see horse “A” and horse “B” in a race together we automatically throw out horse “A”?

and of course, the opposite

2 – Horse “A” ( a need to lead) loses to horse “B” (a closer) in a race full of competitive early types. My questions here are the same as above.

3 – horse “A” is at the bottom of his form cycle and loses to horse “B” who is at the top of his form cycle. Can not horse “A” ever beat horse “B”?

As I see it, when evaluating a race based on the match ups presented to us in that race, how can we dismiss a tandem loser without knowing the match ups from that race, that may have affected the outcome, in the same way as today’s match up will affect the outcome of today’s race?
Let me put it another way. We see a tandem. Shouldn’t we ask “why” did horse “A” beat horse “B” in that race?