[vderdak]

It always comes down to interpretation of the readouts and of course as others have said decision making on your part. I'm sure most can always get the race down to 4 horses or so, then the crucial rubber meets the road thingy, deciding the final one or two contenders which can actually win the race.

I always have to chuckle when someone posts a comment and asks for the race to be explained and why RDSS was way off, do they not realize we are only working in estimates at best with the readouts, these are horses running, not machines, you have as Andy Beyer likes to point out at times pinhead jockeys riding them, they are numerous reasons why a horse doesn't run it's race; slow off the break, doesn't feel good today, poor jockey, doesn't like to run inside or outside, pace to fast, to slow, to high of class of race, to short a race, to long a race, on and on and on.

The numbers we get with RDSS do a wonderful job of breaking down the fractions but again times and beaten lenghts are best estimates, not finite absolute in stone 100% accurate numbers.

As others have said, not a black box, you can take any race after the fact and point out which factor led to victory, but it's after the fact, the trick of course is to say with certainty before the race which factors will lead you to the winning horse. Nothing wrong with post analysis, it needs to be done but understand once you know the winner it's much easier to see why he won.

I won't be responding to this post, just wanted to point out some observations I've had recently from posts I've seen since I've been on here.