WEIGHT

Handicappers can take the following as gospel. A study of approximately 30,000 past performance lines has revealed beyond dispute that horses carrying higher weights tend to run faster than horses carrying lower weights.

One pound was found to be worth .09 lengths in favor of the horse carrying the higher weight.

No area of handicapping finds horseman and handicappers in greater disagreement, with the horsemen seemingly obsessive about weight and weight differences, but the facts support handicappers who proceed by abandoning weight as an independent factor in handicapping.

The same studies show unequivocally that weight shirts, pounds on and pounds off, are of little importance in both sprints and routes.

Weight is essentially a function of recent form and class. Handicappers best focus on those prime factors, and forget about weight.