I understand the premise of picking gate spots. It's a good premise. The premise is to put blind luck in its proper place, which is as an element and not the whole show.
Blind luck picks the order in which people pick the post positions.
Numbers are shaken at random from a bottle. These numbers are assigned to a horse and establish the order of the post position selection process. The list of horses awaiting numbers seemed to start out alphabetically before becoming scrambled. Here's how I get in the proper frame of mind to pick the Derby. First I got play a few dozen games of Keeno.