The other way to look at this is of course to take these findings as evidence for the so-called \"ground loaded\" figures.
FWIW I don\'t really subscribe to that, I too believe that \"wide\" horses are more likely to run their races because of what you mention there with less traffic issues and banging around, and also because of the \"kinder angle\" wide horses faces in the turns and maybe even herd-dynamics play a part in this. The only \"ground loaded\" figures I would be skeptical to is if horses are running wide while the pace is slow, they are still running further but it probably cost them less than what they \"gain\" by the ground adjustments. I guess one could also run into \"problems\" on days where there seems to be a strong outside bias, specially if one still insists to \"pair up\" the inside horses at the same rate as the outside horses to get the race to fit. There\'s no sensible way to go about this from a figure making perspective though, IMO, other than counting every path the same and maybe sometimes give a few more X\'es to the inside horses on outside biased race days - but the handicapper should be aware of this \"flaw\" in the methodology. A number is \"never\" just a number.
If the \"plus points\" about running wide is enough to counter the effect of running further, when one is trying to predict who will win, run 2nd and 3rd (which after all is what it\'s all about), is another debate though..
