Figure Handicapping

James Quinn

It's inevitable in the career of any prolific writer that you're bound to tail off once in a while. (Look at Stephen King.) This is just as true of nonfiction authors as it is of fiction authors, and Jim Quinn's nadir is Figure Handicapping. Not to say it's a bad book, but if you've read a lot of Quinn in the past, you'll want to get this one from the library instead.

Quinn comes right out at the outset and tells you you've seen most of this before. The only thing new in the book is his chapter on figure handicapping on the turf (which, I should probably not mention, is covered in far fewer words in Michael Pizzolla's wonderful book Handicapping Magic; far more bang for your buck there). In other words, you're better off with Quinn's other books (especially Class of the Field, High-Tech Handicapping in the Information Age, and The Handicapper's Condition Book) and Pizzolla's Handicapping Magic. But if you want it all in one place and haven't read it before, you can get the basic ideas from here.