Here we all are again. The horses are machines and follow a certain "precise" set of mathematical laws, scientifically calculatable (??) which makes even a Swiss clock look "haphazard" by comparison!!! Past performance, as has been pointed out (not least, by every Fund Manager/New Stock Float PDS in the world!!) is not a guarantee of FUTURE performance. Yesterday is only a "rough" guide fellas,at best:an approximation only able to tell us WHAT IT TELLS US: that if these horse from Melbourne, Wangaratta,Kyneton and Murtoa had met, at Geelong, over 1500m YESTERDAY, when it was pouring, we could've made a killing!! In fact we could've got the "first fifteen" no sweat. Average times? Perfect so long as no horse IMPROVES!! Nor ONE blunders and messes the others up. Nor the "best" horse has been kept awake by howling cats next to the stables all night. I see something "unexpected" in nearly every race I watch,yet there appears to be no place anywhere in YOUR calculations for such surprises.

This is simply a rehash of the idea that the fastest horse,from yesterday, ("the right time", in Woofspeak) wins. Who should we have backed in the Olympic men's 100m final last year? We all knew the best times for each runner AND there was nothing like "pace" or interference or "the bend" or Barrier Draw or "going" to worry about. The bookies had the odds at just about "perfect", statistically. Pity they couldn't pick the winner!! As Ron Clarke once noted (most ironically, when you think of it) after losing AGAIN in a big 5000m Final "But he (Keino) had to set a world record to do it!!" Or when Roger Moens was nutted by Peter Snell in the 1960 800m: "who is he???" By the way, Snell is the quintessential problem for "statistical" analysts such as you Woofy. He was (in retrospect) both totally predictable AND totally unpredictable: he NEVER lost at the Olympics or Commonwealth Games where "statistically" he was most vulnerable {on times,only marginally superior or,sometimes, inferior to his opponents) In smaller races where he was FAR BETTER on times (and "performance" to boot) he often didn't "get there". We know that NOW!! Just as we know that a "slow",class 2 performer from the boondocks COULD win the Group 1 S.A. Derby this year. Just as we know that the fastest 800m runner (Coe) of his, and most generations, never DID win the 800m at a Major championship, despite "the clock" telling us what SHOULD have been. Both his 1500s at the Olympics were, "statistically seen", the WRONG races, (try telling that to the beaten brigade!!),though NOT "psychologically seen".
Why do I mention all this? Because horseracing is FAR MORE uncertain than human racing, and since we can't even begin to have them "pegged" (the humans, I mean) what folly it is to waste braincells on quantifying that which is not quantifiable (the horse) to the LAST SPLIT OF THE HAIR