Quote:
Originally Posted by lbj
If I understand correctly, we must learn the subtle intricacies hiden in a horse's pp, and once this task is accomplished with certain amount of accuracy the software become almost irrelevant.
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That's a good way of putting it. I think Jimmy, with his volume of experience was able to develop shortcuts to the process. Tandems, power lines, power moves, projecting pace, finding the lead horse, fast horses, matching up--all of those things are born of experience brought about by an intuitive application of the data at hand.
He realized that in certain situations he could borrow bits and pieces of different races for the same horse and meld them into new lines because somehow that's what the software did on occasion, so to speak, and after doing that over and over he just knew when to apply it and when to discard it.
He once told me a good way to learn to pick winners was to look at old races and see who won, and then try and figure out why they won, in a sense reverse engineering.
It's still a marvel to have studied with a man who went from not being able to pick a winner to picking nothing but winners.
That light bulb "ah-ha" moment must have been momentus.