No. Not me.

The more I read and see the responses, the more I’m starting to think DeTerminator might be for me.

I think what’s messing with my head a little is that I’ve always treated depth as part of the handicapping itself. Two horses most of the time, three if one really made sense to me, and more only when the race felt murky.

What you’re describing sounds more like the race telling you how deep you have to go, whether you like it or not. That’s a different way of thinking about it than I’m used to.

I’m not saying it’s wrong — just that it feels like I’m stepping into a framework I don’t quite understand yet, and I’m trying to figure out where my judgment still fits into that.

I’ve got to admit, this part about the 88 telling you how deep the winner usually is… that’s new to me, and I’ve been around a long time. If it really predicts the depth with that kind of accuracy, I can see why you’d grab the extra horse in those Chaos races.

What throws me is how something that simple never showed up in any of the books we all read over the last forty years. We were all out there guessing how wide to go, and meanwhile this number is practically tapping you on the shoulder.

I’m not using the DeTerminator yet, but the way you describe it, the 88 sounds like it does half the decision-making for you. I’d like to understand why it works that well.

It isn't that the factor ranks don't matter at all. They still do.

They just don't matter as much as we think they do.

The answer is MORE FACTORS generated together to produce a NEW FACTOR that CAN separate the other horses.

Alright, I follow what you’re saying, but I’m still not clear on how someone actually builds these new factors.

I’ve been at this a long time, and I’ve never really seen anyone lay out what that process looks like.

So if there’s a practical way a regular handicapper is supposed to approach it, I’d appreciate a little direction.

Or must I have the DeTerminator to do this?

↪BobbyB Have you watched the rest of the videos? That's where the juicy stuff is. It needs to be watched several times actually, it's full of meaty stuff — Chuck Jones

Yes, I watched them all. What I don't understand is that if the factors we've all been using for years only matter for low odds horses what do we handicap with?

Did I miss that in the video?

In the Rank Bias videos are you saying that the factors only matter with 1st and 2nd favorites?

If that's true how do you handicap?