Race and Speed Horses Books

A friend of mine just let me see his copy of this book, and I've just purchased a copy for myself. What a phenomenally intelligent man this Mr. Rates is! I've already purchased most of the books by the Author Joseph J Tuttle, and his books are good, but they're NOTHING AS IN DEPTH AS THIS!!!!!! WHAT AN AMAZING SPEED RATING SYSTEM THIS MAN HAS COME UP WITH! I'm soooooooooooooooooooooo BLOWN AWAY!!!! He also talks about the Beyer Speed Figs being on an average of (AT LEAST) 12% INACCURATE! If you enjoy reading about horse handicapping theory as much as me, then THIS BOOK IS FOR YOU, FOR SURE! A HUGE 5STARS FROM ME ON THIS BOOK. BEST BOOK ON SPEED HANDICAPPING I'VE EVER LAID EYES ON!!!!!


I'm out!

J.R.

I have absolutely no reason to lie. I indeed know Mr. Rates. He's a very intense older gentlemen who (after picking my brain for a few months) decided he'd like to try his hand at writing. I hate to admit this, but he has improved upon MY UNIVERSAL 20 methodology and this book is quite the study in mathematics as it pertains to speed horses, and speed handicapping. In the event that you are intrigued about what the "Universal 20" method is, here's an excerpt from my book "The Tuttle Way".....By the way, my books can also be found through Amazon.com


Excerpt from "The Tuttle Way".....


"A very long time ago, when I first started to fall in love with mathematics, within the realm of horse racing (I guess I was about 16 or 17 at the time), I devised a "universal number" (that I applied as a universal track variant number), for each horse in every race.
This was long before the Beyer Speed Figures were published in the Daily Racing Form. But, even after the Beyer Speed Figures began to emerge as a force in handicapping, I was still holding my own with my "universal number theory". Once I realized there was some validity to Mr. Beyer's numbers, I incorporated those numbers into my already unique system.

So what is the universal variant number? First off, when you're looking at any particular horse in the DRF, immediately to the right of the odds in which the horse went off at last time out, you'll see a speed rating number and a track variant number. Now, unless two horses are coming out of the same exact race on the same exact day, at the same exact track obviously, the variant number always seems to be different from horse to horse, and race to race.

So at the ripe old age of 16, I decided that I would give a "universal number" (20) as a variant for every horse. If the DRF says a horse last raced on a (14) variant racetrack last time out, I automatically raise it to 20, and then subtract 6 points from the DRF speed rating. If I'm looking at a different horse, and said horse raced on a 27 track variant racetrack, then naturally I would add (instead of subtract), 7 points to that horse's speed rating. It's my contention that by doing this you incorporate a lot more mathematics, and a lot less subjectivity, to the numbers, that the DRF provides to the gambler's on a daily basis.

It wasn't until the mid 90's, and about 3 or 4 years into the "Beyer Speed Figures" being published in the DRF that I decided to add this derivative to my system."


Signed,
Joseph J Tuttle

I can only half-finished but will not continue the book. If the people believe or love statistic records, the book is for them. Half of the book is stats records for USA dirt track ( unfortunately I am living in Australia ). I cannot enjoy the book.

Horseplayers have always known that, all things being equal, the horse that takes the early lead has the best chance to win the race. In "The Power of Early Speed," veteran handicapper and columnist Steve Klein shares a formula for identifying horses most likely to take the lead at the first call. Klein also explains how to use the formula to uncover horses who are good bets to win on the front end at long odds, taking into account field size, jockey and trainer tendencies, track biases and other factors. "The Power of Early Speed" is an excellent analysis of the inherent advantage of early speed (calculated by Klein using a massive sample of horses and races) and the best ways to exploit that advantage. [...]

The title says it all in that early speed is the ultimate bias. It's like in the movie Top Gun where Tom Cruise says "I feel the need, the need for speed." The stats of the sucess of early speed don't lie, & this book presents an interesting way of compiling them with an emphasis that includes field size. And a large part of the book presents charts on trainers, jockeys, etc. But concentrating on the 1st call only without the all important 2nd call & no use of fractions means that this work as providing raw numbers is only a starting point for further research. The books of Ainslie, Beyer, Davidowitz & Brohammer should be studied first, as while this effort presents a formula for early speed points, the best system is that one that compiles information & experiances using the most complex computer, the one above the shoulders.

I liked the book mostly for the Klein speed figures, I have applied them with some success. I was disappointed though when I figured out that it was pretty uneccessary to figure them myself, TVG for example has speed figures that almost exactly mirror what I came up with using the formula from the book. But it did give me a new respect for early speed that I will continue to use in my handicapping.

I agree that early speed is important in horse racing and in particular horse racing on dirt. Klein Speed Points and Klein Track Bias Numbers as mentioned in this book give the horse racing fans some kinds of objective measurement and idea on how the speed of a race will look like and the likelihood that a horse will perform better because of the favourable change in the pace of a race as well as track bias. However, the author of this book does not explain how the formulas used to derive Klein Speed Points and Klein Trace Bias Numbers are created.

Once again, I would like to stress that just knowing early speed is not enough. This is only one part of horse racing. Moreover, if everyone focuses on early speed evaluation, the inefficieny in the "horse racing market" will disappear and the profit will also disappear.

This book is OK to read, but as an experienced horse racing fans who have read many books on handicapping I found no surprise in this book.

I loved reading this book. I read it at home, at work, while driving... It is the best history of the origin of the thoroughbred I've read. Everything imaginable is compiled into one book. All racing nuts have heard "The" story of the origin of the thoroughbred: in the 17th and 18th centuries, English nobility imported a handful of Barb, Turk, and Arabian stallions, crossed them on non-descript local mares, and found that because of the enormous "prepotence" of these fabulous foreign studs, the offspring were stamped with their sires great speed and beauty. Mackay-Smith's great contribution is telling the history of these local mares, showing that they were not just empty vessels waiting to be filled, but were powerful sources of speed themselves, having been bred for racing for generations in England and Ireland. Indeed, they may have been faster than the imported stallions, with the Arab/Barb/Turk sires adding conformation and endurance, more than speed itself. The sires are the source of "speed that can carry", not speed per se. Fun book -like a little trip to a museum everytime you flip through it.

I enjoyed reading this book. It is full of interesting information. Most books about the history of thoroughbred breeding tell all about those magical three eastern stallions. But this one tells the whole story. Mackay-Smith has offered proof that the Irish hobby- and English running-horse strains were thriving in England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and that it is the "taproot mares" which offer the thoroughbred its speed. The addition of the blood of the eastern stallions provided middle distance stamina to the breed. He also talks a lot about the various personalities surrounding the early breeding of thoroughbreds. Until I read this book, I wasn't aware of the connection between the English civil war, the Restoration, and the development of the thoroughbred.
BUT.... this book is far from perfect. As an earlier reviewer pointed out, it is very poorly edited. The illustrations are very good, but the style is a bit jarring and disjointed; it does seem like a bunch of author's notes thrown together under sketchy headings, and the same facts are repeated over and over. There are punctuation errors, and at one point the book refers to "Kentucky Derby winner Native Dancer", a grievous mistake that I think highly unlikely to have been the fault of Alexander Mackay-Smith. In my experience of books published by the Derrydale Press, this book is not quite up to their usual high quality of production. However, even with its faults, I thought this was a unique book, and for racing fans it's definitely worth reading.

This book is not a good read but full of interesting bits of information. It is drastically in need of editing. Published posthumously, the format gives the sense that the author's notes were simply printed as they were found with information oddly organized or repeated.

I was dreadfully sad to read a review of this book which thought that it was too difficult and not well edited. I'm only 21 and found this book to be fascinating, with much knowledge and information that captivated my interest. It is a text that has to be thought over and studied, making it much more valuable than simply a child-view of such a distinct history of the Thoroughbred horse. It was well written and planned out. I found this to be a brilliant construct of the details of such a beloved tradition as these creatures.