Racing's Eternal Truth: Hope

John Friedland was working for his PhD in political science when he was gripped by the preoccupation that would dominate his life.

He was making occasional trips to the New York racing tracks and, thinking like an academic, he decided that handicapping was a riddle that must have an unambigous answer. There must be a system that can beat the races.

Friedland left New York University to pursue his new passion, and finally found the answer he had been seeking.

One day at Belmont Park, he saw a horse named Captain Cee Jay make his first start on the grass and win at 38-to-1 odds; he learned that despite the animal's poor recent form he had once been highly regarded and cost $43,000 as a yearling. Soon Friedlandsaw another horse with a similar history: high-priced yearling, bad form on the dirt, a victory at long odds in his turf debut.

Perhaps there was a pattern here, a pattern of well-bred young horses who didn't live up to their potential until they ran on the grass. Friedland studied only racing forms and breeding records, formulated a system based on his assumptions, and then holed up for three weeks in the Jockey Club library to test its results over a 10-year period.

In the wee hours one morning, he reached the bottom line of his research: if he had bet $1,000 on each of his system plays, he would have made a profit of $260,000. Excited, he telephoned a racetrack friend and told him of the results. The friend