Dimensionality
To a large extent, the debate about techne and metis, technical quantifiable knowledge versus embedded and tacit skill, is really about the curse of dimensionality.
The curse of dimensionality is about how doing things in complex (high-dimensional) spaces has different properties to doing things in simpler (low-dimensional) spaces.
Dan Davies again:
Really good racing analysts can systematically beat the odds by knowing a lot of these little rules of thumb, being really familiar with the form and having enough experience to know which statistical regularities are most salient for any given race.
That is, in complex spaces, it doesn’t matter how much techne you have, you need metis, too.
When you have enough metis you know when to rely on your techne. Davies:
They are also good at spotting which races are easiest to analyse and most likely to offer attractive odds, and good at not betting on the other ones.