And now you know someone who was also at Kee the entire meet, except for the Mth overlap days, & based on personal experience, believes just the opposite of what you heard from someone else. For what it’s worth, my opinion is that as a matter of fundamental fairness, one who does not have first hand knowledge should not repeat a statement of this nature, especially in a public forum in which the individual does not participate.
While I don’t disagree with your idea that an extended competition might turn out to be a better test of handicapping acumen than the typical one & two day contests we have now, designing something which is fair to everyone is quite a bit more complicated than you might imagine. Nonetheless, I have every reason to believe that there is a better than 50-50 chance that a season long competition will be part of the NHC beginning next year, so you, your friend, and anyone else who’s interested may very well get the opportunity to enter a year long competition against Stanley in the not too distant future.
My experience leads me to believe that your idea of reducing the existing caps would be a mistake, particularly in a season long contest. The reason most often cited for adopting the existing 20-1/10-1 caps in the first place was because of the players who had the 105-1 winner of the last race at the Sports Haven contest in 1997. However, if the sample size is large enough, 105-1 shots are only going to win one out of every hundred and five races, so there isn’t any statistically valid reason to fear the possibility of a “stabber” being crowned champion in a season long contest.
More importantly, the present caps have operated in strict accordance with the law of unintended consequences, by placing a much bigger premium on horses which win at odds of 25-1 or higher than would be the case if there weren’t any caps at all. The reason is that in contests with a 20-1 win cap, many if not most players avoid horses which go off at odds of 25-1 or higher, the theory being that in the vast majority of cases, those who make such plays are getting the worst of it, which makes sense given that the win percentage of bombs is roughly equivalent to their off odds. As a result, under the current system a 35-1 cap winner is exponentially more important than a 20-1 cap winner because of the strong likelihood that few, if any, other players will also have had the winner.
The same principles would apply if the win cap was reduced to 10-1, except that 15-1 and 20-1 winners would become the new “separation plays.” Since such horses are statistically more likely than the longer bombs, there’s a very good chance the net result of what you’re suggesting would be precisely the opposite of what you’re hoping to achieve. In my view, the longer the contest, the less need for caps of any kind, so the kinds of changes I think would make more sense for a season long contest would be to raise both the win/place caps, or use a total cap which applies to the horse rather than its combined win/place payoffs, or eliminate caps altogether.
