There came a time, during the early Fifties, when your scribe found himself short of funds. In order to overcome this undesirable condition he devised a gadget that came to be known as The Self-O-Matic Selector Scale, or " The SOM." Being employed by American Turf Magazine, he offered and sold this to his boss, the publisher, for a sum large enough to alleviate the devisor’s financial distress. American Turf, in turn, sold many hundreds of these "class detectors."

In the intervening years the SOM concept went on to be pirated, plagiarized and copied by many different companies, and sold under many different names.

The point to this recital, however, is that the SOM, at the time of its introduction, gave the race player a valid means enabling him or her to approximate a horse’s "real" class. The concept was that better horses raced for better purses. Therefore using a point system as its basis the SOM simply divided gross earnings by the number of points an animal had earned. The result indicated the average purse size competed for and provided a reasonably legitimate class rating.

The point system, used as the divisor, was based on approximate average purse distributions i.e., a win was credited with 6.5 points equaling 65% of the winner’s share of a purse. A second place finish earned 2.5 points equal to 25 % of the purse, and a third place finish earned 1 point or 10%. These were only approximations and did not count fourth place finishes, but nonetheless served the purpose extremely well.

Example: Horse A with two wins, one second and three thirds ran 10 times and earned a total of $ 80,000. His earned points equaled 18.5 which would then be divided into $80,000. Horse A’s resultant class rating would be 4324 or "43" as the final abbreviated figure. Forty three of course would be superior to any lesser figure such as 33, 28, etc.

This original calculation worked fine 45 years ago but is no longer applicable inasmuch as there are too many variables involved in today’s purse distributions. One obvious example; the outsize purses offered to State breds .

It is not, however, our habit to present readers with negative information. Therefore our intent is to show how the same reasoning that went into creating the SOM can be used effectively to rate the "class" of trainers and jockeys. A well-known platitude has it that , "Figures don’t lie, but liars can figure." Recently published 1999 percentage figures from several sources provide a bit of fodder that serves to nourish this bromide.

Our next edition of HANDICAPPING HINTS (No. 9) will analyze figures for leading trainers and jockeys and demonstrate how the raw numbers can be deceptive, yet can be broken down and converted into usable handicapping factors. They can even be used effectively to increase one’s exacta successes.

No. 9 will also remind readers of our previously presented "efficiency scale" and show how this can be tied in with the upcoming analysis of trainers and jockeys.

(Don’t miss HANDICAPPING HINTS NO. 9 due on or about July 15th)

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