400
PARTISAN REVIEW
sheets. Then you wouldn't know anything," Nachman would agree. He
would even confess that he felt hypocritical, pretending that he didn't
know more than the next guy. But Nachman was fascinated by the
Racing
Form
and tip sheets. The information, the innocent scholarship, the whole
idea of such literature was fascinating to Nachman. The whole idea was
that you could publish a tremendous amount of statistical information
about the horses and yet not reveal the name of the horse that would
almos t always win the race.
People believed too many indeterminable factors enter into a horse
race. Nachman was aware of this belief, and he also knew that skeptical
philosophers, including the genius Hume, said the same thing as people
who bet on horse races. Regardless of statistics, the future is a mystery. You
can't even be sure the sun will rise tomorrow. Nachman wished it were
true. He was confident that it was mainly untrue.
A jockey could ride badly, or a horse could get sick, or a race could
even be fixed, but it was mainly untrue that the winner couldn't be pre–
dicted much of the time, if not always. Nachman wasn't a man who turned
his back on truth, but he only played the horses, betting intuitively, mak–
ing his choices by the look of a horse, the reputation of the jockey, the
prevailing odds, and other considerations, what Nachman called "deep
imponderables." What a horse eats, for example, can affect performance,
and who knows if a horse feels depressed? In short, Nachman had respect
for the unknown. But he'd been born with a mind, and it had a great
potential to know the truth. The truth was that many races were over
before they started.
In today's last race, a horse named Frenchy was listed at twenty to one.
Such pessimistic odds were embarrassing. Why had Frenchy been entered
at all?
As usual, Nachman looked at the
Racing Form
and tip sheets, and then
looked at the magnificent horses, particularly Frenchy. His color was
mahogany with a strong reddish tint. He was big, with a deep chest and
long legs. There was exceptional snap and vibrancy in the muscles of his
flanks and shoulders. If you laid your ear against him, thought Nachman,
you'd hear a humming. What a pity that such a grand horse was a loser.
Even as he thought this, Nachman's system pressed into mind with strange
information. Frenchy would win. Nachman hadn't wanted to know, but,
willy-nilly, his system said Frenchy would win, though it was statistically
impossible. Nachman knew about the horse. Frenchy was clocked at record
breaking speed during workouts, but after a few early wins he'd come in
fourth and fifth, out of the money. He'd lost heart for winning. This hap–
pens to a horse, Nachman believed, just as it happens to a person. There
were gifted mathematicians who never achieved what was expected of
