The Homa Files

There’s a trite sports adage:

“When these teams get together, you can throw out the record book.”

Same holds for American Pharoah … the first horse to win the Triple Crown in 44 years.

The betting odds were in AP’s favor … part wishful excitement, part herd mentality, part “uniqueness bias” that stipulated that this horse is really different from past Triple Crown contenders.

Let’s look back at the pre-race punditry …

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But, historical “base rates” were against him.

You know, the no horse since Affirmed banter.

• See HomaFiles How often do Derby & Preakness winners nail the Triple Crown?
• See Nate Silvers’s 538.com   Be Skeptical of American Pharoah 

And, so-called settled science was against him.

You know, the too short time between races … lactic acid … Lasix drug-doping.

• See  HomaFiles American Pharoah: Odds-on favorite, but scientific long-shot …
• See Wired  … “Science says that American Pharoah won’t win the triple crown” … retitled after the race to :”Whoa! American Pharoah Beats Science to Win Triple Crown”

Oh well. so much for punditry, historical base rates, and settled science.

Think about that last one for a minute … wasn’t it it was un-seasonally cool this weekend?

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This entry was posted on June 8, 2015 at 7:40 am and is filed under Horse racing, Settled Science, Sports & Athletics, Triple Crown. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.