《金融时报》：他用AI“猜头马”赢钱了

简讯

3月30日，英国《金融时报》(Financial Times)发表了一篇题为《我用AI“猜头马”》(I used AI to bet on horse-racing. Here’s what happened)的文章，副标题是How computer-assisted betting took over the sport of kings。

本文全部由ChatGPT翻译，笔者只做了少数几处修改（主要是几处双引号）。

• 文/Oliver Roeder

• 译/ChatGPT (Mar 23 Version)

• 译审/花和尚

【注】本文图片都来自Financial Times

【注】原文链接：

https://www.ft.com/content/402955aa-21fa-42d5-b1d7-f79e7f19a617

正文

斯科蒂“Pick Six”麦克弗(Scotty “Pick Six” McKeever)和我开着他的黑色皮卡车以非法的速度在一条宽阔的佛罗里达高速公路上驰骋，谈论着马匹。我们来晚了。在前往赛马场的路上迷路了，这很奇怪，因为入口处有一个110英尺高的彪马与龙搏斗的雕像。在特殊场合，它会喷出火焰。我们赶到了Gulfstream Park，这是一个庞大的建筑群，位于迈阿密市中心的阴影下，我们恰好赶上了第一场比赛。
Scotty “Pick Six” McKeever and I drove at illegal speed along a wide Florida highway in his black pick-up truck, talking about horses. We were running late. We’d got lost on our way to the racetrack, which was odd, given that the entrance is marked by a 110ft-tall statue of Pegasus fighting a dragon. On special occasions, it breathes fire. We arrived at Gulfstream Park, a sprawling compound in the shadow of downtown Miami, just in time for the first race.

在室内，麦克弗和我经常停下来，让苗条的赛马和照顾它们的人类随行人员紧随其后通过。我们穿过各种兴奋和期待的“马迷”，以及接受他们的“money”的出纳员。我们乘坐电梯和一个长长的走廊到达一个空荡荡的豪华套房，俯瞰着赛道，一个巨大的草地和泥地椭圆形赛道，中心有一个闪烁的池塘。

Inside, McKeever and I frequently stopped to let sleek thoroughbreds, followed closely by the human entourage tending to them, pass. We wound past gamblers, in various states of anticipation, and the tellers who take their bets. We took an elevator and a long hallway to an empty luxury suite overlooking the track, an enormous oval of grass and dirt, with a shimmering pond in the centre.

麦克弗（McKeever）坐下来，急忙从包里拿出一台笔记本电脑。他启动了电脑，算法在其中闪烁着生命。它们显示了一系列丰富多彩的指标和图表，评估了每匹马的速度、家族谱系、经验和获胜的概率。麦基弗调整了一些虚拟旋钮，消化了输出结果，几分钟后登录了一个直播，向全世界推销他的电脑所选的马匹。

McKeever took a seat and hurriedly pulled a laptop from his bag. He booted it up and the algorithms within flickered to life. They displayed a colourful array of metrics and diagrams, rating each horse’s pace, genealogy, experience and probability of winning the race. McKeever fiddled with some virtual knobs, digested the output and, after a few minutes, logged into a livestream to tout his computer’s pick to the world.

在场地的另一端，马匹们被引入了闸箱，随后从一英里长的赛道的另一端传来了一声铃响。数十个马蹄按照不同步奏敲打着泥土，开始时很安静，然后变得越来越响亮，直到听起来像是一支前来的骑兵。这股滚滚的雷声在我们下方经过，尘土落定。麦基弗的马赢了比赛。

The horses worked into the starting gate at the other end of the field, and a bell rang from across the mile-long track. Dozens of hooves slammed the dirt in syncopated rhythm, quiet at first, then louder, until they sounded like an approaching cavalry. The rolling thunder passed beneath us, and the dust settled. McKeever’s horse had won.

在Gulfstream赛道的那个9月的星期五，除此之外非常安静。从包厢的阳台上，我可以看到十几个观赛者在赛道旁晃悠。他们啜着啤酒，抽着雪茄，观看着这些威严的动物走回马厩。他们等待着下一场比赛中另一支马队的出现。顾客们整天重复这个循环，在两场比赛之间“猜头马”。

It was otherwise quiet on that September Friday at Gulfstream. From the suite’s balcony, I could see a dozen racegoers milling about on the track apron. They sipped beers, smoked cigars and watched the majestic animals walk back to the paddock. They waited around for another equine battalion to emerge for the next race. The patrons repeated this cycle all day, placing bets in between.

因为马是能够产生数据的生物，赛马观众也会仔细阅读厚厚的赛马期刊上的小字。几乎在赛马场的每个人手里都握着《每日赛马报》(Daily Racing Form)或赛场自己的赛马手册，里面装满了理论上可以为一天的“猜头马”提供信息的数字。

Because horses are data-generating creatures, the racegoers also pored over the small print in a thick periodical. Nearly everyone at a racetrack walks around clutching the reams of data in the Daily Racing Form newspaper or the track’s own programme. Each is jam-packed with figures that can, in theory, inform a day’s wagering.

但是有多少“猜头马”策略就有多少潜在的“马迷”。一位老手，在Gulfstream赛道来了20年，告诉我他个人认识所有当地的练马师和骑师，因此知道谁是热门、谁是冷门。一群法语为母语的加拿大游客说他们偏爱最昂贵的马。另一个常客解释说，他选择他的马是因为它摇了摇尾巴。“它已经准备好奔跑了，”他拍打着节目单说。然后他打断了我们的谈话去“猜头马”了。

But there are as many horse-betting strategies as there are potential bettors. One old-timer, who’d been coming to Gulfstream for 20 years, told me he knew all the local trainers and jockeys personally and, thus, who is hot and who is cold. A group of French-Canadian tourists said they favoured the most expensive horses. Another regular explained that he picked his horse because she was wagging her tail. “She’s ready to run,” he said, slapping his programme on his knee. Then he cut our conversation short to go place his bet.

57岁的麦克弗（McKeever）更倾向于更加实证的方法。他身材高大、健壮，有着老年大学篮球明星的干净利落的气质，极具魅力。他因为一种“猜头马”式而获得了“Pick Six”的绰号，即在连续的六场比赛中选择赢家——一种奇特的“猜头马”，即使只需投入几分钱，也可以获得六位数的高额回报。他一生中击中了数百个这样的“猜头马”，包括2011年赢得了110万美元的一次。

McKeever, 57, favours a more empirical approach. He is tall and well-built, with the clean-cut carriage of an ageing college basketball star, and endlessly charming. He earned his nickname, “Pick Six”, for a type of bet in which you pick a track’s winners in six consecutive races — an exotic wager that can pay well into six figures even on a meagre investment of a few cents. He’s hit hundreds of them in his life, including one in 2011 that paid out $1.1mn.

当麦克弗陪我在Gulfstream赛道周围走动时，他向老手、游客、我和任何愿意听的人兜售他的人工智能应用程序EquinEdge。他的新企业是对一项古老运动的最新涌现，这项运动现在已经充斥着AI辅助技术。

As he accompanied me around the Gulfstream grounds, McKeever hawked his artificially intelligent app, called EquinEdge, to the old-timers, the tourists, me and anyone else who would listen. His new venture is a recent arrival to an ancient sport now awash in AI-assisted technology.

据美国赛马会(Jockey Club)，2021年在美国赛马比赛上的“猜头马”花费约为120亿美元。其中一部分来自像我和那些游客一样的人，每次“猜头马”只有2美元。另一部分来自像麦克弗这样的人，每次“猜头马”几百美元。而高净值的企业客户每次“猜头马”可能达到数千美元。但是，在“猜头马”中最强大的人物可能并不在Gulfstream，也可能不在美国。

Some $12bn was bet on horse races in the US in 2021, according to the Jockey Club, a thoroughbred industry group. Some of it came from people like me and the tourists, $2 at a time. Some came from people like McKeever, a few hundred a pop. And perhaps thousands per bet came from high-net-worth interlopers partying in the corporate box. But the most powerful figures in horse betting weren’t at Gulfstream with McKeever and me. They may not have even been in the country.

这些高度使用计算机辅助技术“猜头马”的“马迷”被统称为“计算机辅助马迷”（Computer-assisted wagerers，CAWs），他们往往是匿名的。这些精明的“马迷”会极度利用赛马数据，使用算法、研究团队和内部消息(sweetheart deals)等手段来获取利润。近年来，他们已经将自己的投资和“猜头马”规模提高到了前所未有的高度，占据全国“猜头马”金额的三分之一甚至更多。

Collectively known as computer-assisted wagerers, or CAWs, they are largely anonymous. These sophisticated bettors use horseracing data to the extreme, employing algorithms, research staff and sweetheart deals to enrich themselves. In recent years, they have increased their capital and their wagering to unprecedented heights, accounting for as much as one-third of the money bet nationwide.

美国的赛马运营采用彩池制“猜头马”制度：所有在某场比赛上的“猜头马”款项被放入一个数字池中，赛马场抽取很大一部分（通常约为20％），其余的钱则分配给赢家。他们彼此对决，而不是对“庄稼”。因此，赛马场就像是一个巨大而毫无表情的扑克桌。“马迷”们专注于赛马，当然，他们真正“猜”的是自己的意见比其他人更好。而最近，最好的意见来自机器。

Horseracing in the US operates on a pari-mutuel system: all the money bet on a given race is put into a digital pool, the track takes a large cut (typically around 20 per cent) and the rest of the money is distributed to the winners. They’re playing against each other, not the house. A racetrack therefore is an enormous, faceless poker table. Bettors wager on horses, sure, but they’re really wagering that their opinion is better than everyone else’s. Lately the best opinions are coming from the machines.

我在爱荷华州德梅因市外的草原草地(Prairie Meadows)上长大，那里的马场是我童年时代的爱和迷恋之地。尽管这个地方的名字听起来很田园诗般，但从生态学的角度来看，它更应该被称为停车场(Parking Lots)。但它是我学会了烟草、啤酒和纸币的难以磨灭的气味的地方。我经常和我的祖父一起去，他是一个牛肉养殖场主和纸牌游戏玩家。赛马场的看台，不像Du场，是一个他可以同时“猜头马”和陪伴孙子的地方。他会把我抬起来，让我能够从“猜头马”窗口的柜台上看到外面的场景，我会递给窗口员工他给我的纸币，“请在第4匹马上‘猜’两美元，谢谢”，我低声说道。无论我赢了多少，都能自己留下来。

I was raised on horse races at Prairie Meadows, outside Des Moines, Iowa, where I grew up. Despite its pastoral name, ecologically the place would be more accurately called Parking Lots. But it was the site of great childhood love and fascination. It was where I learnt the indelible smells of cigarettes and beer and paper currency. I often went with my grandfather, a cattle farmer and cardplayer. The racetrack grandstand, unlike the casino floor, was a place where he could both gamble and spend time with his small grandchildren. He’d lift me up so I could see over the counter at the betting window, and I’d hand over the notes he’d given me. “Two dollars to win on the No 4, please,” I’d whisper. Whatever I won, I could keep.

这些是浪漫的旅行，也是分析性的旅行。我祖父的胳膊弯里总是有《每日赛马报》，这是赛马的起源文本(the urtext of horseracing)，里面有数据和细节。我估计，每场比赛中平均有几千个数据点。这些页面列出了马匹的名字、马主、练马师和骑师；母系和父系；年龄；体重；售价；所有过去比赛的日期和地点；各个时间点的比赛时间；各个时间点在场地中的相对位置；所有者的彩衣；每次比赛的短评等等。

These were romantic trips but also analytical ones. Ever-present in the crook of my grandfather’s arm was the Daily Racing Form, the urtext of horseracing, with the data and the small print. There are, by my reckoning, a couple of thousand data points for an average race contained within. The pages list a horse’s name; owner, trainer and jockey; mother (dam) and father (sire); age; weight; sale price; dates and locations of all past races; times in those races at various points of call; relative position in the field at various points of call; the owner’s silk colours; a short qualitative note on each performance; and much else.

祖父教我读报表，把它难以理解的数字转化为语言，一种可理解并转化为即将发生的比赛场面的方言。这是一种既实证又文学的练习。在赛马场上，我认为，你在竞争，是要讲述最引人入胜的故事。

Grandpa taught me to read the Form, to turn its inscrutable figures into language, a dialect that could be understood and turned into a vision of the race that was about to be run. It was an exercise equal parts empirical and literary. At the track, I like to think, you are competing to tell the most compelling story.

在赛马运动中推广现代经验法的第一位玩家是安德鲁•拜尔(Andrew Beyer)。拜尔长期担任《华盛顿邮报》的赛马运动专栏作家，撰写了一部经典三部曲：《选择赢家》(1975)、《赢钱的马戏演员》(1983)和《拜尔关于速度》(1993)。如果《每日赛马报》是赛马运动的圣经，那么这些是它的注释。这三本书中，我记忆最深的是《拜尔关于速度》这一本，不仅因为它引人入胜的标题，还因为我在爷爷的书房里第一次阅读的那一本破旧不堪。

The first horseplayer to popularise the modern empirics of the track was Andrew Beyer. The longtime horseracing columnist for the Washington Post, Beyer wrote a trilogy of classic texts on racing: Picking Winners (1975), The Winning Horseplayer (1983) and Beyer on Speed (1993). If the Daily Racing Form is horseracing scripture, these are the exegesis. It’s the last of these volumes that I remember most vividly, both for its evocative title and the dog-eared condition of the first copy I read, in my grandpa’s den.

Beyer是一位教授的儿子，他在20世纪60年代进入哈佛大学，但从未毕业。校园附近有四个赛马场，而关于英国作家乔叟的期末考试与贝尔蒙特锦标赛(Belmont Stakes)冲突了。无论如何，他发现“猜头马”提供了“比正规学术领域中任何学科都更多的智力挑战和刺激”。

The son of a professor, Beyer attended Harvard in the 1960s but never graduated. There were four racetracks near campus, and a final exam on Chaucer conflicted with the Belmont Stakes. In any case, he found that horse-race betting offered “more mental challenge and stimulation than any subject in the formal academic world”.

Beyer的中心假设是马匹的速度很重要并且可以量化。毕竟这是一场竞赛。挑战是创建一个指标来准确衡量这种速度。这比较容易说而不容易做，而且只靠码表是不够的。马匹在各种不同质量、深度和湿度的泥土上比赛，或者在草地上或人造草皮上比赛。它们奔跑的距离也不同，通常在五至十二个弗隆(furlong)之间。（一个弗隆约200米）。它们奔跑时经历着冷雨和炎热的阳光。马匹在小赛场和大赛场中奔跑，或者在豪华的场地和廉价的场地上奔跑。没有两场比赛是完全相同的。

Beyer’s central hypothesis was that horses’ speed matters and can be quantified. It is a race, after all. The challenge was to create a metric to accurately gauge that speed. This is much easier said than done, and a stopwatch is not enough. Horses race on dirt of varying quality and depth and moisture, or on grass, or on artificial turf. They run many different distances, typically somewhere between five and twelve furlongs. (A furlong is an eighth of a mile.) They run through cold rain and hot sunshine. They run as members of small fields and large ones, rich fields and cheap ones. No two races are created equal.

在20世纪70年代初，Beyer带着削尖的铅笔、一个小计算器、大张的纸张、高高的一摞《每日赛马报》以及一瓶杰克丹尼士，开始了他煞费苦心的工作。通过仔细和全面地考虑场地的偏见，并相应地调整马匹的计时时间，他把这些复杂因素缩减到一个数字里：速度指数(speed figure)。速度指数允许在加州和佛罗里达的马匹、在5弗隆和6弗隆之间、在低级卖马赛和高级锦标赛赛之间进行可靠的比较。Beyer在1975年写道：“速度指数澄清了这项运动我一直认为超出人类理解的神秘、微妙和表面上的矛盾。”

In the early 1970s — armed with sharpened pencils, a mini calculator, large sheets of paper, tall stacks of the Daily Racing Form and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s — Beyer performed his painstaking work. By carefully and thoroughly accounting for the biases of tracks and adjusting horses’ clocked times accordingly, he collapsed the complications down into a single number: a speed figure. Speed figures allowed for reliable comparisons between California horses and Florida horses, between five furlongs and six, between a lowly claiming race and a big-money graded stakes. “Speed figures clarified mysteries, subtleties and apparent contradictions of the sport that I had always thought were beyond human understanding,” Beyer wrote in 1975.

Beyer的私人计算方法早已成功，主要是因为他的计算给了他很好的优势。他出版的书籍教育了市场，侵蚀了他的优势。 Beyer接受了这个折衷，因为他想成为一位出版作家。我能理解他的想法。 Beyer告诉我说：“就数学复杂度而言，它最多只有高中代数的水平。但它改变了我的生活，随着时间的推移，它也改变了游戏。” 这种方法已经深入人心，以至于Beyer Speed Figures现在在《每日赛马报》上以粗体字显示，每匹马的每场比赛都会列出。 CAW大玩家、麦基弗的EquinEdge和许多其他最近的项目都是Beyer的铅笔和纸张计算方法的直接后代。

By then, Beyer was already a successful gambler, in large part because his private calculations gave him a healthy edge. His books’ publication educated the market and eroded his advantage. Beyer accepted this trade-off because he wanted to be a published author. I sympathised. “In terms of mathematical sophistication, it was at best high school algebra,” Beyer told me of his arrival at the speed figure. “But it changed my life and, over time, it changed the game.” The approach became so ingrained that Beyer Speed Figures now appear in bold type in the Daily Racing Form, alongside every horse’s every race. The CAW syndicates, McKeever’s EquinEdge and many other recent projects are direct descendants of Beyer’s pencil-and-paper calculations.

在Beyer的赛马书籍中，除了他的深刻分析之外，还流淌着宗教隐喻。他写道，“掌管赛马运动的神”，“加尔文主义者的自律”，“弥赛亚狂热”和“连胜让他觉得自己是上帝”。他写道，《每日赛马报》“在赛马玩家的生命中占据着《圣经》在‘虔诚’信徒的生命中的地位。” 我提到了这个主题，他似乎很惊讶。“我是一个非常不虔诚的人，”Beyer说。他停了一下。“但当我发现速度数据时，它们是道路、真理和光明。”

In addition to their trenchant analyses, Beyer’s horse books pulsate with religious metaphor. He writes of the “gods who oversee horseracing”, “the discipline of a Calvinist”, “messianic fervour” and “winning streaks that make him think he is God”. The Daily Racing Form, he writes, “occupies the place in the existence of a horseplayer that a Bible does in the life of a fundamentalist”. I mentioned this theme to him and he seemed surprised. “I’m a very irreligious person,” Beyer said. He paused. “But when I discovered speed figures, they were the way, the truth, the light.”

无论信教与否，这个游戏中有一定的信仰成分。其中一部分原因是身体上的事实(a physical fact)。例如，在Gulfstream赛马场现场观看比赛时，马匹开始从赛道远端的一个闸箱开始奔跑，一开始被告示牌和一个巨大的视频屏幕遮挡。它们就在那里，你知道，只有靠信仰才能让它们奔跑。然后它们出现了，信念—以及数据—转化为有肌肉的现实(muscular reality)。

Irreligious or not, there is a certain amount of faith to this game. Part of that is a physical fact. In person at Gulfstream, for example, the horses begin running out of a gate at the far end of the track, hidden, at first, by the tote board and an enormous video screen. They are back there somewhere, you know it, and it is by faith alone that they are running. Then they emerge and belief — and data — transform into muscular reality.

Beyer 对 CAW 的复杂性和他们对这项运动科学的冷静热衷感到惊叹。他回忆起曾经遇到一位“马迷”，他聘请了一位大学教授长达三年的时间来研究马匹比赛中的“距离因素”。在这样的对手面前，公众有什么机会呢？学生们爱上这项运动的机会又有多大呢？Beyer说，新的“马迷”现在可能更喜欢在足球比赛中“猜头马”。换句话说，他创造了一个怪物。他说：“我认为，这些大玩家导致了对普通玩家的彻底剥削。”

Beyer marvels at the CAWs’ sophistication and icy devotion to the science of the sport. He recalled meeting one player who had a university professor on a three-year retainer just to study the “distance factor” in horse races. With this sort of opponent, what chance does the public have? What chance does the student have of falling in love with the track? New horse bettors may just be happier betting on football these days, Beyer said. He created a monster, in other words. “The syndicates have contributed, in my view, to a total rip-off of the average player,” he said.

最为活跃的计算机大玩家是位于荷兰加勒比岛屿库拉索的Elite Turf Club。全球只有约20人拥有该公司的账户。去年在Gulfstream Park的一个赛马日中，超过四分之一的“猜头马”总额——近450万美元——由Elite成员通过电子方式“猜下”。该俱乐部通过将其大额“马迷”会员连接到各种“猜头马”池并提供定制的“猜头马”和结果报告，促进了其会员的大额“猜头马”活动。

The most prolific of the computer syndicates are members of the Elite Turf Club, a company based in Curaçao, the island tax haven in the Dutch Caribbean. Only about 20 people in the world have active accounts with Elite. On a single day at Gulfstream Park last year, more than a quarter of the betting total — nearly $4.5mn — was placed electronically by Elite members. The club facilitates its mega-bettor members’ activities by connecting them at high speeds to various betting pools and by providing tailored reporting of their wagers and results.

这些Elite的巨额“猜头马”大部分来自两个账户，“Elite Turf Club 17”和“Elite Turf Club 2”。这两个人以及他们雇佣的人员可能占据了美国近20%的所有“猜头马”数额，这是《金融时报》对“猜头马”进行的数据分析。

The bulk of this Elite money is wagered from two accounts, called “Elite Turf Club 17” and “Elite Turf Club 2”. These two people alone, and whomever they employ, may account for nearly 20 per cent of all horse-race betting in the US, according to a Financial Times analysis of wagering data.

当我和Elite Turf Club的总裁Scott Daruty交谈时，他告诉我他不会回答任何有关“猜头马”账户或Elite会员的个人问题。“所有这些都将被拒绝评论，”他援引保密协议。“Elite Turf Club是一家为世界上一些最大的‘马迷’提供服务的‘猜头马’平台，”他继续说道。“我们为一小部分客户提供定制化、个人服务。”拥有极大权力的最大Elite账户会员密切保护自己的隐私；多次安排与他们中的几个人面谈的尝试都未能成功。

When I spoke with Scott Daruty, the president of Elite Turf Club, he told me that he wouldn’t answer any questions about wagering amounts or individual Elite members. “All of those are going to be met with a no-comment,” he said, citing confidentiality agreements. “Elite Turf Club is a wagering platform that services some of the largest bettors in the world,” he continued. “We’re servicing a limited number of customers, and it’s a bespoke, hands-on service that we provide.” The largest Elite accounts, the people who hold extreme power over the sport, guard their privacy closely; repeated attempts to arrange interviews with several of them were unsuccessful.

事实上，Elite Turf Club和Gulfstream Park都由同一家公司Stronach Group所有。Stronach在美国拥有其他几个赛马场。该公司的创始人Frank Stronach为巨大飞马雕像草绘了第一份计划，就是我前文说到的那个雕像。计算机大玩家的成功在很大程度上要归功于他们与赛马场达成的协议。这些大“马迷”获得被称为回扣(rebates)的折扣，通常他们投入的10%左右会返还给他们以确保他们持续地“猜头马”。“我们认为不让第三方介入我们和这些客户之间非常重要，”当我询问Elite和赛道之间的安排时，Daruty告诉我。

As it happens, Elite and Gulfstream Park are owned by the same company, the Stronach Group. Stronach owns a number of other racetracks across the US. (Frank Stronach, its founder, sketched the first plans for the gigantic Pegasus statue that greeted McKeever and me.) The computer syndicates are successful in large part because of deals they cut with tracks. These large bettors receive volume discounts known as rebates, and typically about 10 per cent of whatever they bet is returned to them to ensure their continued business. “We felt it important not to have a third party standing in between us and these customers,” Daruty told me, when I asked about the arrangement between Elite and the tracks.

“我们投入很多钱，而在另一端是普通大众，” David Bernsen告诉我。Bernsen是GWG集团的经理，该公司是一群CAW玩家的集合体，专门“开发和管理高容量连接软件和商业解决方案”，根据其网站上的介绍。并非有很多主要的CAW玩家。Bernsen估计在美国只有四个“非常大”的CAW“马迷”群体，或许还有几个位于其下层次的“马迷”。

“We wager lots of money, and on the other end of the spectrum is the general public,” David Bernsen told me. Bernsen is the manager of GWG Group, a collective of CAW players, specialising “in the development and management of high-capacity connectivity software and business solutions”, according to its website. There aren’t many major CAWs. Bernsen estimated there are four “very large” CAW bettors active in the US and perhaps half a dozen in a tier below them.

“大型‘马迷’群体是精密的运营，就像股票交易团队一样，” Bernsen说。“它们是一个适当的业务结构。你有你的建模方面，你的业务方面，你有你的研究和开发方面——花费了很多钱。”他迅速为他们在这项运动中扮演的角色进行了辩护。“我们所做的一切就是平衡池子，使其更加有效。这与股票市场或‘甲米获笔’市场的闪电交易并无二致。”

“The larger ones are sophisticated operations, like a stock-trading team,” Bernsen said. “They’re a proper business structure. You have your modelling side, your business side, you have your research and development side — a lot of money is spent.” He was quick to defend their role in the sport. “All we’re doing is balancing out the pool to make it more efficient. It’s not unlike flash trading in the stock markets or the crypto markets.”

这股钱多势大的入侵赛马运动引发了一些人专门从事调查其影响的职业生涯。帕特里克·卡明斯(Patrick Cummings)运营着纯血马点子基金会（Thoroughbred Idea Foundation），这个智库成立于2018年，旨在解决赛马界的利益冲突和走向错误的问题。该基金会在2020年发布的一份报告中写道：“这些（CAW）机构大笔投入，因为这是数学所决定的。这就是华尔街与赛马界的结合。他们不会输，如果你试图减少他们的回扣，他们会寻找其他的“猜头马”渠道。”

This moneyed invasion into the sport of kings has goaded some people to devote their professional lives to investigating its impact. Patrick Cummings runs the Thoroughbred Idea Foundation, a think-tank founded in 2018 on the belief that horseracing was riddled with conflicts of interest and heading in the wrong direction. “These [CAW] entities bet big because that is what the math dictates. This is Wall Street meeting horseracing,” reads a report the foundation published in 2020. “They don’t lose, and if you try to reduce their rebates, they will turn to another source for betting.”

根据卡明斯的研究，在过去的20年中，调整通货膨胀后，美国普通大众在赛马界的总投入额减少了63％。与此同时，来自CAWs的投入金额增长了150％。卡明斯称，我和麦克弗一起去的海湾公园（Gulfstream Park）是电脑团体的“起点”(ground zero)。 “赛马运动无法拒绝客户，但我们已经接受并拥抱了这些大户，几乎没有考虑如果不加以控制会造成的损害，”卡明斯告诉我。“失去普通的赛马玩家并不是一件好事，而我们已经失去了很多。”

According to Cummings’s research, in the past two decades, adjusting for inflation, total betting on US horseracing from the general public decreased 63 per cent. Betting from CAWs, meanwhile, increased 150 per cent. Cummings called Gulfstream Park, the track I went to with McKeever, “ground zero” for the computer groups. “Horseracing is not in a position to reject customers. Yet we have accepted and embraced these whales, with little to no consideration of the damage that they do if left unchecked,” Cummings told me. “It’s not a good thing to be losing Joe Q Horseplayer, and we’ve lost a lot of them.”

麦克弗则自认为站在普通赛马玩家的一边。他在EquinEdge的13名全职员工和合同工组成的团队想要进行自己的CAW“猜头马”，但麦克弗拒绝了。“我支持小玩家，这就是我推动的，”他告诉我。“我将我所拥有的每一份信息，我们开发的所有东西，以及我们的技术都提供给他们。我所做的一切都是为了小玩家。大玩家认为他们已经知道了一切。我想照顾好小玩家。”

McKeever, for his part, sees himself on Joe Q Horseplayer’s side. His team of 13 full-time employees and contractors at EquinEdge wanted to do its own CAW wagering. But McKeever refused. “I am for the small guy, that’s what I’m pushing for,” he told me. “I give them every bit of information that I have, everything we develop, all of our technology. Everything I do is for the little guy. The big guy thinks he knows it already. It’s the little guy I want to take care of.”

《每日赛马报》是赛马爱好者的权威期刊，如今也进入了技术时代。这家出版物由拉斯维加斯的Affinity Interactive公司拥有，该公司在其网站上被描述为“一个全渠道游戏行业领导者，拥有扩展的‘猜头马’和在线游戏服务套件”。《每日赛马报》提供了一个被称为“赛马的彭博终端”(Bloomberg terminal of racing)的Formulator和TimeformUS，它使用算法预测和数据可视化来帮助“马迷”。该公司的“猜头马”和数据高级副总裁马克•阿滕伯格（Marc Attenberg）迅速指出，人类的推理和直觉仍然有发挥的空间。“有些东西只有通过算法是看不出来的，”他告诉我。“这就是为什么人们仍然喜欢它。提出那些聪明的看法仍然有很多潜力。”

The Daily Racing Form, that august periodical in the crook of the racegoer’s arm, has itself entered the technological age. The publication is owned by Affinity Interactive, a Las Vegas-based company described on its website as “an omni-channel gaming industry leader with an expanded suite of casino and online gaming offerings”. The Racing Form offers a “Bloomberg terminal of racing” called Formulator and TimeformUS, which uses algorithmic prediction and data visualisation to aid handicappers. Marc Attenberg, the company’s senior vice-president for handicapping and data, was quick to note that there is still room for human reasoning and intuition. “There’s some shit going on that just doesn’t show up in the algorithm,” he told me. “That’s why people still love it. There’s still so much upside attached to coming up with those clever opinions.”

阿滕伯格认为，一个单独使用计算机进行“猜头马”的人可以在赛马场上达到打平的效果。但是要持续获得巨额利润，需要大型CAW与赛马场协商的回扣。包括CAW的批评者在内的所有人都没有提到这种安排有任何非法之处。阿滕伯格说最优秀的玩家找到了将人类专业知识叠加在机器之上的方法。“赛马将你带入了这些微小的戏剧中，你可以将它们变成巨大的收益。”

Attenberg reckoned that a computer betting by itself could break even at the track. But consistently making enormous profits requires the rebates the big CAWs have negotiated for with the tracks. (No one I spoke to, including the CAWs’ critics, suggested there was anything illegal about this arrangement.) The best players, he said, find ways to layer human expertise on top of the machine. “Racing thrusts you into these miniature dramas that you can turn into huge scores.”

我欣赏了这个描述，并告诉阿滕伯格我是如何在普雷里梅多斯度过童年时光的。在我们的谈话中，我有一次对现代实证赛马“猜头马”状态感到失望，想念过去童年的夜晚，讲述即将到来的比赛。我认为“它们只是在圆圈里奔跑的倒霉动物(They’re goddamn animals running around in circles)”。

I appreciated this description, and told Attenberg how I’d cut my teeth as a kid at Prairie Meadows. At one point during our conversation, I became frustrated with the modern state of empirical horse betting, missing bygone childhood evenings, telling tales about the race to come. “They’re goddamn animals running around in circles,” I said.

阿滕伯格说：“这不仅仅是一群马的问题。你要评磅；你要做功课；你要看重播；你要看到微妙之处。你要使用最好的工具，并加以利用。”

“There’s more to this than just a bunch of horses,” Attenberg said. “You handicap; you do the work; you watch the replays; you see the subtleties. You use the best possible tools and you leverage them.”

详细的赛马“猜头马”数据很难得到，但加利福尼亚州赛马委员会（CHRB）的年度报告提供了一个很好的简要说明。对于该州的每个赛马场，一个主要的赛马中心，CHRB报告了来自每个注册地点的总交易额。这些包括赛道本身、赛马场外的“猜头马”设施、网站、本地的“猜头马”场所，以及Elite Turf Club 17和Elite Turf Club 2。根据这些报告，过去15年中，Elite Turf Club的成员将他们所有赛马投入金额从3%增加到30%。从加利福尼亚州的数据简单推算表明，Elite 17和Elite 2每年在美国赛马上的投入金额达到了10亿美元左右。

Detailed horse-betting data is hard to come by, but the annual reports of the California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) provide a good snapshot. For each track in the state, a major centre of the sport, the CHRB reports the total money handled from every registered location. These include the track itself, off-track betting facilities, websites, local betting parlours — and Elite Turf Club 17 and 2. According to these reports, over the past 15 years in California, members of Elite Turf Club have increased their wagering from 3 per cent to 30 per cent of all horse-betting dollars. A simple extrapolation from the California data suggests that Elite 17 and Elite 2 each wager on the order of $1bn a year on horses in the US.

“你怎么得到加州不同的Elite玩家信息的？”CAW集体的经理伯恩森问我，当我提到这个话题时。他听起来很惊讶。我还向伯恩森询问了更多关于这些巨额账户背后的人是谁的细节。“我不和人们讨论这个问题，”他说。“这有什么重要性吗？”

“How did you get information about different Elite players in California?” Bernsen, the manager of the CAW collective, asked me, when I mentioned this. He sounded surprised. I also asked Bernsen for more detail on who was behind these mega-accounts. “I don’t discuss it with people,” he said. “Why is that important?”

精明而资本雄厚的“马迷”并不是什么新鲜事物。上世纪90年代，一个名叫比尔•本特（Bill Benter）的“马迷”和他的团队在香港的赛马比赛中获得了近十亿美元的回报，而关于神秘大玩家的报道偶尔会出现在赛马新闻中。但他们在美国的突出地位是一个相对较新的现象。伯恩森将这归因于美国税法的最近变化，使“猜头马”变得更加有利可图。

Sophisticated, well-capitalised horseplayers aren’t brand new. A bettor named Bill Benter and his team made close to a billion dollars betting on horses in Hong Kong in the 1990s, and references to mysterious Australian whales occasionally punctuate the horseracing press. But their outsize prominence in the US is a relatively recent phenomenon. Bernsen attributed this in part to recent changes in the American tax code that made gambling more profitable.

虽然目前这些大玩家使用的确切策略都是严格保密的，就像量化公司的交易策略一样，但我采访了一些相关专家，以了解他们的运作方式和“猜头马”方式。克里斯•拉米(Chris Larmey)今年62岁，是一名从事风险管理和战略规划的国家实验室工作的赛马玩家。他曾与CAW团队合作，但他说自己被“年轻人”和他们的“黑匣子AI建模”抛在了后面。拉米在大学时是一个数学专业的学生，他手动输入比赛结果到打孔卡上，并借用大学的大型计算机进行分析。这项艰苦的工作使他能够挑选出1982年肯塔基德比的前两名，即21-1和18-1的冷门赢家Gato Del Sol和Laser Light。这是他的大学毕业论文。他已经不记得他赢了多少钱了。

While the exact strategies used by the current whales are closely guarded, like trading strategies at a quant firm, I spoke to some adjacent experts to get a sense of how they operate and how they bet. Chris Larmey, 62, is a horseplayer with a day job at a US national laboratory doing risk management and strategic planning. He has been involved with CAW teams, though he said he’s felt left behind by the “young guys” and their “black-box AI modelling”. Larmey started in the game as a maths major in university, manually entering race results on to punch cards and cadging time on the university’s mainframe computer to analyse them. This painstaking work equipped him to pick the first two runners at the 1982 Kentucky Derby, the 21-1 and 18-1 longshots Gato Del Sol and Laser Light. It was his senior-year project. He no longer remembers how much money he won.

Larmey提到了CAWs采用的两种广泛策略。一种是纯粹的套利(pure arbitrage)。通过密切监控投入池，有时可以发现直白的无效率，比如在WIN和EXACTA之间，然后利用它们。另一种策略是通过现有的数据库和网页抓取来收集大量数据，然后分析数据以计算马匹的真实概率，并将其与其公共概率进行比较。例如，如果一匹马有50%的赢的几率，概率是2-1，那么这是一个很好的投入。如果是3-5，那么这是一个很糟糕的投入。换句话说，当其他人的资金流向相反方向时，需要采取相反的策略。价格很重要，价格是普通人思想的反映。

Larmey described two broad strategies employed by CAWs. One is pure arbitrage. By closely monitoring the betting pools, one can sometimes spot naked inefficiencies — between the win and exacta pools, for example — and exploit them. The other is amassing gobs of data via existing databases and web-scraping, then analysing it to calculate a horse’s true odds and comparing that to its pari-mutuel price. For example, if a horse is expected to win 50 per cent of the time and it’s 2-1, that’s a great bet. If it’s 3-5, that’s a terrible bet. In other words, one wants to zig when the rest of the money zags. Price matters, and price is a reflection of the will of the people.

CAW的机器会将一堆有吸引力的投入捆绑在一起，有时会一次性投入数千次。“有些人编写程序并看管计算机系统，但它真的是自动化的投入，”Larmey说。CAW的玩家也以在最后一刻进行投入而闻名，就在马匹冲出门前的那一刻，以了解公众的意见和他们的投入价格。像Elite Turf Club这样的团体提供其会员以速度和规模做到这一点的技术能力。因此，当大笔投入涌入时，公众经常接受大幅的最后一刻的概率变化。

The CAWs’ machines bundle an attractive pile of bets together, sometimes thousands at a time, and ship them into the pool. “There are people that write the programs and babysit the computer systems, but it’s really automated wagering,” Larmey said. CAW players are also infamous for placing their bets at the last possible second, just before the horses dash out of the gate, to learn as much information as they can about the opinions of the general public and, therefore, the price of their bets. The technical ability to do this at speed and scale is what a group like Elite Turf Club offers its members. As a result, the public often swallows large, last-second odds changes as the big money comes flooding in.

“我们只是在使用大量的信息，在‘猜头马’业务中这就是我们所做的事情，” Bernsen说。“构建我们的投入，利用技术在尽可能晚的时间提交大量的投入。这是因为我们需要公众的意见。投入池的最佳预测器就是大众——众人的智慧。”

“We’re just using an enormous amount of information, that’s what we do in the pari-mutuel business,” said Bernsen. “Construct our wagers and use technology to submit a large number of wagers as late as possible. That’s because we need the public’s input. The best predictor of the win pool is the general public — just wisdom of the crowds.”

原文这里有4张图，很好地展示了CAW在开赛前几秒是如何“猜头马”并获利的，但不方便放到文章里，大家可以直接去看原文。

CAWs不会抱怀旧情怀，这一点毫不含糊。“计算机的一个好处就是它们没有任何情感，” Larmey说。“你不会有任何后悔或恐惧，它只会按照算法执行。”

CAWs have no quarter for the romantic notions of bygone childhood evenings at the track. “That’s one of the nice things about computers: they don’t have any emotions,” Larmey said. “You don’t have any of that regret or fear; it just executes according to the algorithms.”

我与一位现代派电脑玩家交换了信息，他同意匿名谈话。一位业内人士形容他为“非常聪明的家伙”(“fucking genius guy”)。他学习了应用数学和金融，并在对冲基金量化团队工作。他通过研究扑克机器人和“阅读晦涩的机器学习论文”，以及花时间在赛马场上学习来学习“猜头马”。他说他最近“离开了华尔街，全职用于“猜头马”个人资本，同时分配于赛马和金融证券的系统化交易”。他并非独自一人。赛马和它所提出的量化难题对于那些喜欢这种事的人来说“真的很诱人，” Larmey说。“但现在在赛马界，它根本没有被推销成那样。现在，一切都是关于时尚和酷炫的，穿着时髦的帽子和西装去赛马场，进行愚蠢的‘猜头马’。”

I exchanged messages with a current computer player, one from the modern school, who agreed to talk anonymously. He was described to me by an industry insider as a “fucking genius guy”. He studied applied maths and finance and worked as a hedge fund quant. He learnt how to gamble by studying poker bots and “reading obscure machine-learning papers” and, to his credit, by spending time at the racetrack. He said he left Wall Street recently “to bet my personal capital full-time, split between horseracing and systematic trading of financial securities”. He’s not alone. Horseracing and the quantitative puzzles it presents are “really seductive for people who like that kind of thing,” Larmey said. “But it’s not marketed that way at all. Currently, in racing, it’s all about being hip and cool and going to the races in your fancy hat and your suit and making stupid bets.”

然而，如果一般公众在赛马场上一直处于劣势地位，他们就会停止来到赛场，赛马运动也将失去支持。智囊团主任Cummings说：“这在我们与赛马组织、马主团体、赛场经营者的私人对话中经常被提及，比如‘你们对此有何行动？’” 赛马业可以采取一些手段来限制联合“马迷”团体的行为。例如，赛场可以在比赛开始前几分钟停止联合“马迷”团体的“猜头马”’。有些赛场也限制了联合“马迷”团体的回扣金额。

Still, if the general public consistently gets creamed at the track, they’ll stop coming to the track, and there’ll be no tracks. “It comes up a lot in our private conversations with racing organisations, horsemen’s groups, track operators, like, ‘What are you doing about this?’” Cummings, the think-tank director, said. There are levers the industry can pull to rein in the syndicates. Tracks can, and some have, cut off CAWs’ bets a few minutes before the beginning of the race, for example. Others have limited the size of CAW rebates.

还有一个限制就是CAWs本身。如果它们变得太大，赛马运动就只是算法对抗算法。“每个人都意识到我们必须在这里达成平衡，”Elite Turf Club总裁Daruty说。“为了确保长期成功，这对每个人都有好处。”

There is another limit: the CAWs themselves. If they get too big, the sport will be just algorithms betting against algorithms. “Everybody realises we’ve got to have equilibrium here,” said Daruty, the Elite Turf Club president. “It’s got to be good for everyone to make sure this succeeds in the long run.”

克基弗（McKeever）给了我使用EquinEdge的权限，一晚上我在公寓里使用了这个软件。我还在一个“猜头马”网站上存入了100美元，并打开了一个全国范围内的现场比赛多播。我打算按照EquinEdge的建议来“猜头马。我首先在西弗吉尼亚州查尔斯敦（Charles Town）开始，一匹名叫Change The World的栗毛小马让我中了TRIFECTA。那真是太容易了！我又跑到明尼苏达州坎特伯雷公园（Canterbury Park），一匹名叫Ruby's Red Devil的阉马让我中了EXACTA。回到查尔斯敦，Full Moon Lover的表现也非常出色。在比赛结束前，我又飞速赶往德克萨斯州的Retama公园（Retama Park），Electric Cartel同样也帮我赚到了不少。

McKeever gave me access to EquinEdge, and I fired it up one night in my apartment. I also deposited $100 on a betting site and pulled up a multicast of live races around the country. I intended to follow EquinEdge’s suggestions to make my wagers. I began in Charles Town, West Virginia, where a chestnut filly named Change The World led me to a trifecta. That was easy! I hopped north to Canterbury Park, in Minnesota, where a gelding called Ruby’s Red Devil won me an exacta. Back over in Charles Town, Full Moon Lover paid off handsomely at the top of my ticket. And just before the day’s racing was done, I sped down to Retama Park, in Texas, where Electric Cartel did the same.

我已经连续大赚四次，而且在不到半小时的时间里翻倍了。我保持着非常安静和静止的状态，感觉就像我发现了神秘的真相一样。这感觉就像我想象中的顿悟式宗教体验。

I’d cashed four juicy tickets in a row and, within less than half an hour, doubled my money. I remained very quiet and still; it felt like I had discovered The Secret Truth. It felt like what I imagine an epiphanic religious experience feels like.

第二个晚上就很不一样了。一次又一次冷门，全都在我的关注范围或算法范畴之外，最终都在最后直道的时候跑输了。有一次，我连续输了三场比赛，还都是在终点计时(photo finish)的时候输了。我的盈利迅速消失，我惨了。上帝已死。

The next night was different. Longshot after longshot, none of them on my radar or the algorithm’s, pulled away down the stretch. At one point, I lost three consecutive races on photo finishes. My winnings evaporated and I went bust. God is dead.

这并不是我第一次面临信仰危机。几天后，在佛罗里达的Gulfstream赛场，我的口袋越来越空。我不确定是要归咎于技术还是我的故事叙述。我和麦克弗休息了一下，坐下来吃了一顿芝士汉堡。我们就在看台旁边，可以看到每场比赛前马匹展示的亮相圈。我问麦克弗他对CAW玩家有什么看法，这些机构就像是他的客户与大卫打战的巨人。“这些大的机构，他们在赚钱，大量的钱，”麦克弗说，“但是CAW玩家因为他们往池子里注入大量的资金而不会离开。如果没有他们，赛马运动就不会存在了。那么小人物如何有机会呢？嗯，他需要这些算法。他需要指标来对抗这些复杂的系统，这样才有半个机会赢得胜利。”

It wouldn’t be the only time I’d faced a crisis of faith. A few days later, down in Florida at Gulfstream, my pockets were becoming lighter still. I wasn’t sure whether to blame the tech or my storytelling. McKeever and I took a break and sat down for a cheeseburger lunch. We were within sight of the parade ring, where the horses are exhibited before each race. I asked McKeever what he thought of the CAW players, the Goliaths to his customers’ Davids. “These big ones, they’re printing money, printing,” McKeever said. “But the CAW players aren’t going anywhere because they’re putting so much money into the pools. If it wasn’t for that, horseracing would be done. So how does the little guy have a chance? Well, he needs these algorithms. He needs the metrics to have a half a chance to win against these sophisticated systems.”

麦克弗对赛马运动的迷恋与我开始时相似，年轻时他在当地赛场Fairplex（现已关闭）开始了他的赛马生涯，位于加利福尼亚州波莫纳市。他的朋友在一位名叫梅尔文•斯图特（Melvin Stute）的著名马练马师那里工作，斯图特在Fairplex赛场占据了主导地位。麦克弗在两匹斯图特训练的马上投入，赢得了200美元。“那是一大笔钱，”他告诉我，“我只记得感觉到一种压倒性的感觉，像是兴奋，像是很有趣。我当时有点害羞，没有现在这么外向。我只记得感觉到一种能量和感觉，以前从未有过。”

McKeever’s fascination with the game began much as mine had, as a young man at his local track, the now defunct Fairplex in Pomona, California. His friend worked for a famous horse trainer named Melvin Stute, who dominated Fairplex. McKeever bet an exacta on two Stute horses and won $200. “That was a crapload of money,” he told me. “I just remember feeling this overwhelming sensation, like excitement, like it was fun. I was kind of shy. I wasn’t as outgoing as I am now. And I just remember feeling a sensation and energy that I had never felt before.”

McKeever除了从事供应航空工业金属的公司业务之外，他的热情是赛马运动。2015年，他最终在赛马网络TVG担任了一个镜头前的工作。他现在是这项运动的积极倡导者和传道者。他于2018年推出了EquinEdge，提供每月50美元的订阅或每日6美元的服务。McKeever坚定地奉行“授人以渔”的教学理念。他教授评磅，并每个周末在YouTube上免费直播“猜头马”。“本质上来说，我在教你如何阅读一种外语”他说。他不希望或指望他的门徒盲目地跟随AI的建议。

McKeever’s other professional life is running a company that supplies metals to the aerospace industry, but horseracing is what animates him. He eventually got a gig on camera at TVG, a horseracing network, in 2015. He is now an outspoken advocate and evangelist of the sport. He launched EquinEdge, which offers monthly subscriptions starting at $50 or day passes for $6, in 2018. McKeever is solidly in the teach-a-man-to-fish school. He teaches handicapping classes and hosts a horse-betting livestream each weekend, free to watch on YouTube. “I’m trying to teach you how to read a foreign language, essentially,” he said. And he doesn’t expect or want his acolytes to follow the AI blindly.

我最近花了一个下午在麦克弗的位于劳德代尔堡的顶层公寓，观看他的直播。他从一间备用卧室里播出比赛，房间里挂着20世纪70年代冠军马「秘书处」(Secretariat)的海报。在比赛间隙，他调整自己的算法，并加入自己的人类智慧。值得赞扬的是，麦克弗将真实的投入与他和他的系统的选择放在一起。他的观众经常跟随他的选择，人类聚集在机器学习算法周围，就像我们的祖先围绕着篝火聚集一样。

I spent a recent afternoon at McKeever’s penthouse condo in Fort Lauderdale during his broadcast. He broadcasts from a spare bedroom beneath a poster of the champion 1970s horse Secretariat. Between the racing, he fiddles with his algorithms and mixes in his own human wisdom. And to McKeever’s credit, he puts his money where his mouth is, placing real bets alongside his and his system’s picks. His viewers often follow along, a club of humans gathering around a machine-learning algorithm the way our ancestors gathered around a fire.

他观众的士气感染力很强。每当麦克弗赢得一注“猜头马”时，聊天室里就会响起“BOOM”的合唱声。这个场景让我想起了国际象棋中正在经历着一次惊人的繁荣的流媒体教育社区。 “EquinEdge的目的是帮助人们过上更有生活的日子，帮助他们更享受赛马的评，吸引新人进入这项运动，”麦克弗说。

His viewers’ esprit de corps was contagious. A chorus of “BOOM” filled the chat whenever McKeever won a bet. The scene reminded me of burgeoning streaming-meets-education communities in chess, which is undergoing a remarkable boom of its own. “What EquinEdge is supposed to do is help people have a life,” McKeever said, “help them enjoy horseracing handicapping more and get new people to the game.”

然而，这场节目一开始并不顺利。“猜头马”接连输掉，为它们提供的详细实证案例全部落空。每次失败后，麦克弗迅速在“猜头马”网站上再存入1000美元并重新尝试。我担心我正在目睹一场崩溃。但到了最后，一张高额的EXACTA投入胜出了。麦克维尔和他的观众们很可能都赚了点小钱。麦克弗看起来毫不在意，带着我去了他最喜欢的雪茄酒吧，我们喝了几杯苏格兰威士忌。

This show, however, did not start well. Bet after bet came up short, the detailed empirical cases that had been made for them all for nought. After each loss, McKeever quickly deposited another $1,000 on a betting site and tried again. I worried that I was witnessing a meltdown. But at the very end of the day, a rich exacta came home. McKeever, and presumably many of his viewers, turned a small profit. McKeever, seemingly no worse for wear, took me to his favourite cigar bar where we had a few Scotches.

当我们走出去时，麦克弗停下来抓住了我的手臂。“我完全疯了，”他说。“你认为我疯了吗？”随后是在潮湿的佛罗里达人行道上进行的20分钟谈话，大部分内容都是麦基弗担心EquinEdge让他离开家人的时间太久，他认为这样可行吗，他认为自己疯了吗？最终，我向他保证，我并不认为他疯了。他或许是个狂想者(Quixotic)。

As we walked out, McKeever stopped and grabbed my arm. “I’m totally fucking crazy,” he said. “Do you think I’m crazy?” What ensued was a 20-minute conversation on a muggy Florida sidewalk, mostly consisting of McKeever worrying about the amount of time that EquinEdge took him away from his family, and what did I think of that, and would it work, and did I think he was crazy? I eventually assured him that I didn’t think he was crazy. Quixotic, perhaps.

我第二天独自回到了Gulfstream。当天下着雨，赛道潮湿，使得让分析变得更加困难。无论何时，赛马都是个变幻莫测的游戏。正是在这个赛道上，Beyer曾因为一次不公正的判决导致他钟爱的小母马被取消比赛资格，他愤怒地用拳头给墙砸了个洞(punched a hole in a wall)。

I went back to Gulfstream alone the next day. It was raining, and a wet track makes handicapping even more difficult. Horseracing is a fickle game at the best of times. It was at this track that Beyer once punched a hole in a wall in anger following an unjust ruling that disqualified his favoured filly.

当我盯着雨水打在泥地上的水坑时，我想象着CAW团队在他们的高科技交易大厅里，盯着赛马彭博终端，当马匹进入闸箱时，他们的算法以百万计流入Gulfstream赛场。我坐在一个便宜的酒吧里，可以看到终点线。我关闭了AI应用，收起了手机，打开了《每日赛马报》。我在边角处仔细做笔记。我试图想象每场比赛，讲述它的故事，找到每个节目页面上的诗意，就像我祖父教给我的那样。

As I stared at the rain pelting puddles in the dirt, I imagined the CAW teams on their high-tech trading floors, staring at equine Bloomberg terminals, their algorithmic millions flowing into Gulfstream as the horses loaded into the gate. I sat down at a bar with cheap drinks and a view of the finish line. I closed the AI app, put away my phone and cracked open the Daily Racing Form. I took careful notes in the margins. I was trying to picture each race, to tell its story, to find the poetry on every page of the programme, as my grandfather had taught me.

一个老人坐在我旁边，对我露出了一个巨大的微笑。“你看起来真的知道你在做什么，”他说。

An old man sat down next to me and gave me an enormous grin. “You really look like you know what you’re doing,” he said.

我道歉道：“我恐怕一点也不知道。”

I apologised: “I’m afraid I have no idea.”

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