NOTE: “SimonSays” Racing Podcast IS LIVE on Blogtalk Radio – Join Derek for his LIVE podcast starting at 10 a.m. Pacific (1 p.m. Eastern) on Friday, Sept. 3, 2010. The program will feature a recap of last week’s big races and big news events, as well as a preview of the weekend’s top races. If you’d like to chat with him, call (347) 855-8641 during broadcast hours. The show will also be recorded and available through the usual channels by Friday afternoon.
by Derek Simon
In 1982, singer Thomas Dolby recorded his only top-5 Billboard hit, “She Blinded Me with Science,” as an ode to a woman named Miss Sakamoto. Who was Miss Sakamoto, you ask? Well, depending on whether you trust the song lyrics or the video, she was either a geometry teacher or a lab assistant. One thing seems clear, though: Miss Sakamoto was not a horseplayer. For, if she had been, Dolby’s song likely would have been titled “She Blinded Me with Random Thoughts and Unproven Theories.”
In a game that rewards those with specialized skills and unique knowledge, I am constantly amazed by the willingness of some horseplayers to accept and embrace any handicapping premise that sounds good — and even some that don’t. Take, for example, the “Bounce Theory,” the belief that horses regress in form after a particularly taxing race or sequence of taxing races. First postulated by Len Ragozin of the “Sheets,” a NY-based speed rating service, the Bounce Theory went from controversial to mainstream faster than one could say “chiropractor.”
