Win The Effort Race

“Somebody may beat me, but they are going to have to bleed to do it.” -Steve Prefontaine

What makes my good friend Joe one of the world’s best handicappers is that he can evaluate how well a horse ACTUALLY ran a race. As opposed to how they finished. He uses tools like Beyer ratings, Sheets numbers, Pace figures, etc..as well as watching replays of past races. All that and more factor in to his analysis of a horse’s quality. He’ll be the first to tell you that a horse can finish second or third or even out of the money and run an incredible race (for example, maybe it had a bad jump or was boxed in or the jockey gave it a bad trip).

A great scene in the movie WITHOUT LIMITS–which is about the legendary distance runner, Steve Prefontaine–involves Pre and his coach, Bill Bowerman. Bowerman repeatedly challenges Pre to run from behind in order to conserve energy and win more easily. But that’s not Pre’s style. He only wants to sprint out front and win wire to wire. It’s his art.

But…Pre does listen to his coach one time for a big race.

Unfortunately it’s not a good outcome. Pre gets boxed in by the other runners and can’t make a closing move until it’s way too late.

But he does try. Coming from waaaay back, he runs the fastest single lap time ever recorded in the event; it’s an almost inhuman time. But not enough for the win and Pre is distraught. An apologetic Bowerman says he just ran the greatest race he’s ever seen in his life. And that he’s so proud to be his coach. From then on, Bowerman will let Pre be Pre.

You can’t control if you win the race. There are way too many other factors beyond your control that determine the outcome. But you can control your effort. Always, always, always.

Win the effort race.