Thinking of 'newbie' questions, and the foregoing discussions re Methodology factors and their relative value, and also re ties, and from another discussion I've been having privately over the past several days, here is a link to an excerpt article from a couple of Follow Ups written in the late 1990's by mark Cramer - one of horse racing's 'luminary authors'.
Mark writes about his research using the form of BL/BL (Bottom Line / Betting Line) available in Sartin software at the time and how he fared following 'the rules' given by Sartin. (He profited and donated the winnings to a monastic order!).
BL/BL was later added to a subsequent deceleration formula (=V/DC). Later still (last 5 years with RDSS), VDC (including its BL/BL heritage) gets added into CSR and some external (thus non-correlated to pace) ratings like public Morning Line, BRIS ProfitLine and Prime Power, plus internal an non-pace, non-line-dependant Class Rating (CR+) and a positional Early/Late speed tendency formula (EL+) to become the array of newer Rx factors (Rx1,2,3).
It all began with BL/BL, which in turn came from still earlier Phase III/Modern Pace Handicapping ratings and TPR ratings (Total Pace Ratings). Aka evolution ...
Mark Cramer's BL/BL articles from Follow Ups 69 and 70:
http://paceandcap.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6229
Ted