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General Category => Ask the Experts => Topic started by: TGJB on June 13, 2016, 10:38:57 AM

Title: Touchgold
Post by: TGJB on June 13, 2016, 10:38:57 AM
I\'ve decided I\'ll deal with you privately, people here don\'t want to read any more of this right now. Meanwhile, stay off this board unless you are willing to call out Jake as hard and often on the far more frequent \"discrepancies\" that make them look bad. Until you do, you will be deleted and blocked here.
Title: Re: Touchgold
Post by: Paolo on June 14, 2016, 11:20:20 AM
TGJB Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> people here don\'t want to read any more of this right now.

Considering all of the other nonsense posted in the last few days, I\'d say people here do want to read more of this. Might be a first for TGJB, as I don\'t recall him ever backing down before.
Title: Re: Touchgold
Post by: TGJB on June 14, 2016, 11:32:35 AM
Jeez, really? I was just getting ready to put together a private email to the guy. Okay, today or tomorrow.
Title: Re: Touchgold
Post by: P-Dub on June 14, 2016, 12:01:38 PM
Paolo-Dub agrees with Paolo. Would find it very entertaining.
Title: Re: Touchgold
Post by: richiebee on June 14, 2016, 02:12:56 PM
I disagree with Paolo, who posted after the Derby that he was \"sore\" at JB for
his stand on Nyquist (and I would imagine the TG #s which didn\'t make Nyquist
fastest going in).

I do not need to hear more from Touch Gold or from Nathan Prather, who had a
commercial agenda, though NP made a very good point about never letting
someone talk you off a horse.

I\'ve learned a lot from JB and AB, at seminars at the Spa and on this board,
but when I buy a product from TG such as Analysis (rarely buy) or Big Day
seminar (always buy), I am buying an OPINION, not a guarantee.

The seminar was neutral/negative on Flintshire. I was not surprised by this,
because Flintshire is what I half jokingly call a \"routine T-generate toss
out\":  weight, wide, short price. YET, he was a single on all my
(losing) horizontal tickets. Yes first time Chad. Yes first time Lasix. What
really stuck in my mind was how at Saratoga Flinty looked like Baryshnikov on
a stage with a bunch of amateur rap video dancers. Will only bet against him v
American turf horses if he is laden with a Forego like impost, which never
happens anymore.

Seems like lots of folks (some who should know better) are pressing whine from
sour grapes. Live, learn, move on.

JB invited Touchgold and Patrick Morgan to join in the conversation; both have
declined. Would love to hear more from Patrick, who mentioned the notion of a
searchable database, because the first performance figure database which offers
Formulator like interactivity (while still being able to offer an affordable
daily product) will be moving into the future.
Title: Re: Touchgold
Post by: TGJB on June 14, 2016, 02:41:42 PM
Okay, to review.

This started back on Preakness day, when you (Touchgold) cherry picked one horse that won, after the fact, that looked better on Jake than TG-- point being that he was faster than his competition on what he had already done. That horse, Justin Squared, a) was 4/5, b) was a 3yo with two lifetime starts and just one this year, c) won a race where half the field was wiped out.

On the other hand, I pointed out two examples on that card where there were far more extreme differences, in our favor. The 3yo that won the grass stake and Takeover Target looked far better on TG-- where Justin was a lightly raced horse that could easily run a new top, both of those were not. The 3yo was a total toss on Jake and a strong use on TG, TT was a very strong contender on TG without any improvement. In point of fact, neither of them ran a new top, Justin ran a big new one-- on TG.

So I brought that stuff up, and said you should raise those other two with Jake. And I think you did, and he gave a quick reply that one of their guys had bet TT, and that was good enough for you. Where you have posted 15 times here, you were in and out with one over there, despite the results (especially with the grass 3yo) providing evidence (there is never proof) that their figures weren\'t just wrong, but egregiously so. But that wasn\'t serious enough issue for you to make an issue of.

Which brings us to Saturday at Belmont. Where you leaped to show Kid Cruz didn\'t look as good on Jake, then brought up a couple of opinions from the seminar that didn\'t work out so good. Well, I now have Jake for that day, so let\'s take a look at a few things that you, in your great intellectual honesty, neglected to mention

1-- Justin Squared, again. He ran back. We had him running a big top at Pim, I gave him to Christina Blacker as the horse to discuss on TVG to show what a bad favorite looked like, one that wasn\'t fast AND figured to bounce. On Jake the horse was fast in the race AND had a good pattern, a 1 point forward move. Len liked him in his comments on their board. Horse bounced to the sky, which supports my position going into Pimlico-- he wasn\'t that fast going in. If he was, logic indicates that last one wouldn\'t have hurt so much.

2-- You mentioned we didn\'t like Celestine and Frosted. You\'re right. What you neglected to mention was that on Jake they also not only weren\'t strong in their races, but where we had both off pairs, they had both off 2 point backward moves. They looked even worse.

3-- Grand Tito, the bomb I liked in the seminar (said to use 4 in the Manhattan, they ran 1-2-3-4). He was slow as s--t on Jake, hadn\'t broken 9 this year.

4-- Calculator. Now in all fairness some of Len\'s picks ran well, and his plays can only be as good as the data he uses. But his comments were \"He has strong number power, and a solid somewhat explosive pattern\". He was absolutely correct-- on Jake he was the clear play in the race.

Here\'s what I said-- \"We think a further regression is imminent, and a layoff is impending\". (I kept waiting for Miff or Rob to call me on the layoff so I could bet them). Anyway, the horse got beat 30 lengths.

The point is this. Anyone can cherry pick a result if you look for one, or call people names (which appears to be the intellectual ceiling over there). What I do is either pick things out in advance, or use examples to show why and how there are differences, not just in result but in methodology.

But that\'s not you.

I\'m heading out to the Met game so I have to cut this short, any response will be dealt with tomorrow.
Title: Re: Touchgold
Post by: miff on June 14, 2016, 02:53:06 PM
Hmmm, a red board shot.You have all my contact info.Dont hesitate to contact me for any head to head type bet.
Title: Re: Touchgold
Post by: TGJB on June 14, 2016, 03:31:54 PM
Hell no. I made the comment in advance, just like I said, in advance, that any time I did you could feel free to call me on it.
Title: Re: Touchgold
Post by: miff on June 14, 2016, 03:44:50 PM
Wrong again, you\'re due to be right.

I called you out on the nonsense that you, in advance,could predict that a horse would breakdown from looking at numbers on a piece of paper.Offered to lay 10-1 everytime. Interesting that since you predicted Eight Belles, you have not seen one single horse who\'s profile projects breakdown.

Save it for the Kool Aid drinkers.
Title: Re: Touchgold
Post by: touchgold on June 14, 2016, 03:47:08 PM
ok, wow, this has snowballed fast.....let me preface this by saying i am in no way trying to be disrespectful or a red boarder...
If i recall, and I could be dead wrong, is preakness day, you yourself called out a horse you guys had that won on turf with a fast last dirt number that you said jake had way slow..to me that was a cherry pick...then i responded with justin squared. If i initiated that, my apologies, but i dont think i did. But the bigger point I was trying to make is that playing the sheets for 20 years, and tg much less frequent, im pretty confident both have got races wrong. As far as saturday goes, again, i didnt mean to offend anyone, but KC looked how he looked and wasnt fastest on all numbers as was stated. From there it snowballed.I have stated here many times I have done well using Tg only. Really the only time you hear from me, is when someone with absolute certainty says how bad the sheets are. But ultimately, its your board, a TG board and I should just bite my tongue. As far as saturdays results go, yes there were good calls on the seminar. You did in fact get me on grand tito. And as i was stating saturday, its all about how you read patterns. Len liked calcualtor, i didnt. I liked stanford and amis flatter, not much better. I didnt care for justin squared either, but didnt come close in race. Lastly, ill add, im not sure if you have me confused with someone else or not, but I never have talked to jake...didnt talk about that race from preakness day, didnt post on their board regarding that race. Oh, id still like to dig into that SA race. Again, not to be disrespectful, but after reading countless ROW, and getting the last 8 or so seminars, where when horses are 4 points slower, you generally say horse is too slow. Im curious as to what that horse ran, and if you adjusted any previous numbers?...just trying to get as comfortable with tg as I am with sheets...
Title: Re: Touchgold
Post by: TGJB on June 14, 2016, 04:23:13 PM
One of us is. I told you a couple weeks ago-- any time I make that kind of prediction you can call me in it, and I\'ll bet the horse doesn\'t make more than two more starts this year. The offer stands. And I said both that and what I said about Calculator before the race.
Title: Re: Touchgold
Post by: miff on June 14, 2016, 04:28:05 PM
You\'re back tracking so fast a hole is forming behind you.Now, it\'s not predicting a breakdown on the day, like Eight Belles, it\'s \"doesn\'t make two more starts\"

....enough,Go Mets!
Title: Re: Touchgold
Post by: TGJB on June 14, 2016, 05:27:44 PM
I\'m repeating EXACTLY the offer I made.
Title: Re: Touchgold
Post by: TGJB on June 15, 2016, 10:30:02 AM
Just a quick two comments.

1-- When people here say (as Jimbo did) that the Jakes are not credible, they mean something specific. They are talking about differences in methodology that make no sense, figures that make no sense (even to a relatively informed lay person, let alone a figure maker), and the refusal of anyone over there to be transparent and even discuss the relevant issues. This is not my religion or soccer team is better because it\'s mine. There have been a million discussions here about the nuts and bolts of this subject, and there is informative stuff in the Archives section of this site (like \"Changing Track Speeds\", which even after all these years has not been addressed by anyone over there).

2-- I run a business. The market for my product and Jake\'s is the same. It\'s my JOB to try and point out their inadequacies and errors, and to try to get their customers. And believe me, it has worked. To paraphrase a guy named Sy Syms who used to have TV ads here in NY, \"An informed handicapper is our best customer.\"
Title: Re: Touchgold
Post by: touchgold on June 15, 2016, 11:10:08 AM
I do understand both points...and I do agree tracks change speeds...my question is how to measure it? and how to measure it 100% or even 80% accurately...
Title: Re: Touchgold
Post by: johnnym on June 15, 2016, 01:13:02 PM
That is a question I would like to here the answer.
Please don\'t guide him to the video I already watched it.
Title: Re: Touchgold
Post by: TGJB on June 15, 2016, 02:02:58 PM
The answer is the same as for determining track speed in general-- you look at how fast the horses run, relative to their figure histories. That\'s what the (misnamed) \"projection\" method is all about, and every single serious figure maker does it, from us to Beyer to TimeForm in the UK, and if you read \"History Lesson 1 and 2\" in the Archives you\'ll see it\'s been going on a lot longer than that. The difference is that Ragozin had made the assumption, with no basis in either science or logic, that tracks don\'t change speed during the card unless there is precipitation, a freeze, or a thaw.

That\'s a pretty ridiculous CONCLUSION to come to (let alone for Len R to say in his book he knows it for a fact), given that water is being added and evaporating during the day, and other work is sometimes done to the track. But the result of that illogic is, they use just one variant for the day (except when the specific conditions above exist). Which means when the track DOES change speeds, which happens about as often as it doesn\'t, they end up using what amounts to an average variant for the day, getting some races too fast and some too slow.

This is also true of their assumption that the relationship between one and two turn races is a constant. (On that note, Connie Merjos, first trackman for both TG and before that Ragozin, made his own figures for years before he met Len, and totally disagreed with him).

And if you want to see a perfect illustration of all this in practice, and you make figures, take a look at last Friday and Sunday at Monmouth. Track speed at that place has always moved around a crazy amount, presumably due to proximity to the ocean, and the tides. But not only are the routes there not tying to the sprints, the route variants themselves are extremely \"slow\" early, then getting much (like 8 points) faster late, with no weather. There was a lot of wind which may have dried the track, but whatever it is, if you blindly assume the track CAN\'T change speed and use one variant for those days, you are completely screwed, as are your customers.
Title: Re: Touchgold
Post by: Strike on June 16, 2016, 09:29:46 AM
Considering your logic in the last paragraph regarding Monmouth, do you feel the same about Del Mar (that begins in 1 month) regarding different track variants throughout the day? My friends think I am crazy for noting high tides and low tides affecting the dirt surface especially in the stretch. I know this is impossible, but it would be interesting to do a study (times/variants) to see if there is a correlation.
Title: Re: Touchgold
Post by: TGJB on June 16, 2016, 11:34:07 AM
The short answer re Del Mar is variants change a lot there when it has been dirt.
Title: Re: Touchgold
Post by: Boscar Obarra on June 16, 2016, 01:16:34 PM
It\'s almost impossible to believe he really thinks this. Maybe he just says it to throw off others in the hope they\'ll do it wrong.

;-)
Title: Re: Touchgold
Post by: TGJB on June 16, 2016, 01:17:42 PM
Well, the ones he threw off are Friedman and Jake.