Still laughing over the dog racing stories! I had a dog that chased birds for 11 years then finally caught one. Just about scared him half to death.

To answer EI, Woodbine is dirt and turf. It's claim to fame is it's the only track in North America that runs thoroughbred and harness (standardbred) racing in the same day.

To respond to thevig, thanks for the lead. I only expect to use factor analysis to determine useful factors, not continue with that each race. I also want to do an analysis on 'soft facts' such as comments. One of my favourite books is Marketing Analysis: Methodological Foundations (a big, heavy statistics book -- isn't that sad?). It has some great stuff I have used successfully in other projects (this stuff is my day job too, isn't that even MORE sad?).

Then I expect to do some clustering to create deterministic functions that I can turn into rules -- or whatever. And if it all doesn't work I'll try something else. I enjoy the journey as much as the outcome.

If you come across anything else like this I would certainly look forward to those leads as well. Thanks!

Duck