Continuing from my previous post, the discussion is about Sartinian pace.
The next major improvement was the Brohamer Model. The concept was to create a model for each track-surface-distance that contained only recent races, perhaps the last 5 to 10. Tom Brohamer’s belief was that track models were not static. That is, they were subject to change as weather and seasons changed. While a day of rain would obviously change the track on a given day, the belief was even after the track had been dry for a couple of days, there would still be some change as the result.
Another innovation was “percent early.” Consider that you have the feet-per-second for EP and SR. If you divide EP by EP + SR you get a percentage which, roughly, represents how much energy the horse expends early. The belief has always been that there is a particular percent early range that is optimum for each track-surface-distance. The Brohamer model allowed one to keep constant tabs on the ever changing percent early range as well as knowing which column were most important in producing winners.
I think it is safe to say that Sartin Methodologists dominated pace handicapping in the US for more than 10 years. Towards the latter end of their reign the programs became more and more esoteric. The last program I had experience with was Energy!, a program that seemed to relate the horses to themselves rather than just each other. I must admit a serious lack of understanding of Energy! and all the software that was developed after it by the Methodology.
Howard Sartin, the true father of pace handicapping, passed in 2010, after a long debilitating illness. The legend of the Sartin Methodology lives on through Ted Craven at SartinMethodology.com. The current software is Racing Decision Support System, RDSS as it is known to its users.
In my next blog post I will be offering a look at a new, cutting-edge technology I have developed to take pace handicapping to an entirely new level. Stay tuned.
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