JB,
That was a lousy post by you on a number of fronts.
1. You are running a company. I know gambling customers are not treated like real customers by a lot of people in this industry, but still being insulting instead of gracious is just poor business. Yes, I realize that there are people waiting in line after every race cashing tickets, sometimes even your analysis customers....
2. You were wrong on the Travers period, and about Lionheart specifically. I read your analysis, you said box Lionheart, Sir Shackelton and Birdstone. One ran last, one ran 3rd to last. The other won, but he wasn\'t your \"key\" horse. You are now saying after the fact that both favorites were vulnerable. Then why use Lionheart? I know you threw out Purge, but why use a \"vulnerable\" favorite? Isn\'t that what we as bettors hope to find and try to beat. You identified him as a vulnerable favorite, then used him? That is actually worse. Better off sticking to the fact that he was fast on your numbers.
3. I don\'t care about Ragozin, but it is really ridiculous for you to criticize them for using Eddington. He ran a mediocre 3rd, but that is still better than 2 of your 3 picks. If you \"crush\" the race, like the Haskell, then gloat a little, but when you blow the race, don\'t criticize him blowing the race. It makes your other points against Ragozin carry less weight with anybody that isn\'t a T-Graph cultist, but rather an independent horse player.
4. You are posting about your good day and getting the race of the week right. Hurrah. You got the 9-5 favorite correct and the $16 exacta. THis comes on the heels of a ROTW in which you liked even money Pleasantly Perfect. I could give you credit for hitting a 9 to 5 shot. It is good to be right, even without getting a price. But not when you belittle the analysis I put on the board for the Travers, where I laid out why LH and Purge were throwouts and I put Birdstone on top and gave out the exacta and your pompous response is \"the ticket lines are filled with winners after every race\".
5. Gotta love people who craft an analysis/hypothesis and then when it is wrong, they justify the result within their own original analysis somehow. That sucks JB and at least some of the people on this board see that. Sure there are a bunch of people who post how they have made so much money using T-Graph and how the sun rises because of T-Graph every day. But increasing your market share and making your business successful isn\'t going to happen just because of that select few. There are a lot more of us that are open to theories and discussions, have no allegiance to any company or product, but are willing to listen to reasonable discussion and possibly be \"sold\" or swayed. When you go over the edge on credibility, you lose us. Maybe you don\'t care. That is your choice.
Like I said. A lousy post.
Forgot a last comment.
Losing by a scant nose, I don\'t think makes Sarafan the worst 5-2 to shot this summer in a big race.
I would say LH was worse?
Would you agree?
hehehe...
3rd choice at 3-1, beaten a neck.
hehehe....
(btw, I believe it was the entire year)
edit:
ps
jerry used lion heart because he had given him very fast #\'s for his last 2, I believe.
he blew those races --- they weren\'t that fast.
let\'s face it, snookie isn\'t going to run 2nd or 3rd in the derby.
what happened was that lion heart was drastically off his peak form of earlier in the year, and many people spotted it.
jerry thought he should have been running faster -- maybe projecting from earlier this year, so he inflicted a different variant on him a couple back to reflect this opinion.
this erroneously gives snookie a big new top which prompts jerry to make that \'likely bounce\' comment in the haskell, when projecting #\'s for that one.
apparently, snookie didn\'t realize he had just run a big new top, or read jerry\'s comments, so he runs 2nd again to a lion heart who, while still off form, manages to improve on the previous race (off the break).
once again, jerry projects from the previous race, and makes the haskell too fast, making lion heart the fastest horse coming into the travers and a use.
in actuality, his last 2 were somewhat comparable to eddington, while eddington was in much better form at 3 or 4 times the price.
like I said, snookie\'s not catching the tri in any ky derby.
Post Edited (08-29-04 22:35)
Lucy,
When are you going to start selling your figures? Does Jimbo really need your help?
Jimbo,
I don\'t know what you want Jerry to do. He had an opinion and he expressed it. It\'s a horse racing bulletin board, not a sensitivity workshop.
I think JB made it clear that he didn\'t love the race or consider it a strong betting proposition. If Jerry said, \"I love this horse in the Travers and you should bet the house\" and he blew it, that would be one thing. He didn\'t say anything of the kind. Quite the opposite. So I don\'t know why it\'s a big deal to point out that his choices didn\'t fare well. I\'m sure he didn\'t christen the race an \"A+\" bet.
Jerry liked Lion Heart and I think he\'s made it clear that he doesn\'t think an extra furlong is a big deal. I think the extra furlong IS a big deal and I would\'ve bet accordingly. If you had Birdstone and the exacta that should be adequete compensation. Light up a stogie. Living well is the best revenge.
HP
Lucy: \"jerry used lion heart because he had given him very fast #\'s for his last 2, I believe.
he blew those races --- they weren\'t that fast.
what happened was that lion heart was drastically off his peak form of earlier in the year, and many people spotted it.\"
Hey, look guys. Lion Heart broke his leg in the race. Now you might want to argue that he ran \"too fast\" in those last two races. But how can you use the breakdown to indicate that those prior figures were listed as higher than they should have been. Are you guys really saying that because he broke down, it means that the numbers in his prior races were wrong and that he wouldn\'t have been able to run that fast if he hadn\'t broken down? If so, I would like to hear how you arrive at that conclusion.
Jim P,
I am not saying his previous figures were incorrect at all. Actually, to the contrary. I believe they were correct BUT if you don\'t consider other factors, besides pure figures, you can wind up betting on the wrong horse. I think Lionheart was a very fast horse. He was great at 1 mile and maybe 1 1/16. I believe he had distance limitiations. Not because he broke his leg, but because he lost ground in the stretch to the winner in every 3 year old race except the Haskell, in which he enjoyed a loose lead over a speed favoring track.
Obviously, the Travers didn\'t prove that point, because he broke his leg. I would have preferred he not get hurt (obviously for more than my own selfish reasons) and run his normal race and backed up in the stretch to finish 4th or so, which is what I thought would happen.
My point was that I think T-Graph excludes some factors in their thinking. Like pace, distance limitations and race setup.
I was not criticizing LH\'s previous figures.
LH broke a bone in his foot while changing leads. Many horses break down or break bones just jogging.The fact that LH ran several hard races prior to this one may not have had anything to do with his breakdown, given his connections explanation.Sometimes just one bad step can make a horse breakdown, in some cases the horse never even raced yet.
Jimbo wrote
\"My point was that I think T-Graph excludes some factors in their thinking. Like pace, distance limitations and race setup.\"
This is totally wrong.
1. Pace - Lion Heart figured to save every inch of ground (goodbye Mike Smith!) and control the pace. Hypothetically, if Lion Heart runs a zero on the rail, another horse going three wide on BOTH turns would have to run off the chart (-3 or better) to beat him. There are many ocassions where you can see a horse saving ground beating \"faster\" horses. TG handicappers DO take pace into account, but it\'s not really a conventional \"pace handicapping\" approach, that\'s all.
As for pure \"pace handicapping\", since LH essentially makes his own rail trip, he forces the other riders to decide -- push or wait. He dictates the pace entirely and I think (based on what I read) that Jerry thought that would be a significant advantage. So I think \"TGraph\" included pace and decided that it was a plus for Lion Heart. This is not EXCLUDING pace!
2. Distance Limitations - Lion Heart missed winning the Derby by a few lengths. You thought that Lion Heart couldn\'t last the ten panels. Jerry thought he could win. That\'s not really EXCLUDING distance limitations, is it? Jerry disagreed with you. That\'s different.
3. Race Setup - Another thing that was obviously taken into account, given Point 1. The \"race setup\" was: they were going to have to catch and pass Lion Heart. None of the horses, including the winner, were a slam dunk to fire their best shot here. I would not run to the windows to bet Birdstone at 9/2. Again, this isn\'t EXCLUDING race setup. Judging by Jerry\'s \"play\" he thought Lion Heart was a decent bet to at least hang around for third. God knows we have all watched enough races where the fizzling speed hangs around for a piece, no? You thought he would hang around for FOURTH! That\'s cutting it a little close if you\'re playing the tri...
All of these factors were taken into account in the analysis...
HP
Jim--
I\'ve been trying to be nice about this BECAUSE you are a good customer. If someone like Beavis had been taking this tack I would have been much rougher. I haven\'t attacked you at all, just replied to your comments about me (\"retrofitting\"), and what we do here. If you\'re going to pull a quote, do it in context.
1-- My points about the two favorites being vulnerable because of coming off big efforts were made right here, on this board, in the days BEFORE the race, in my comments about this being a bad race to have a strong opinion about.
2-- I made it clear I didn\'t like the race. The three horses I used were the winner, the horse who broke down, and the horse who bled (according to Thoroughbred Times).
3-- LH broke down. There is nothing to be learned about his ability to get a distance by what happened here, and I do agree that question has already been answered, by his Derby effort. We disagree on the answer. And nothing has happened to reinforce anyone\'s position since, because we both have vastly different views of what has transpired since. I\'m a numbers guy.
My thinking on LH in the Travers was this-- maybe 1 out of 3 to pair up, 1 out of 3 to go back a little, 1 out of 3 to X. This certainly made him vulnerable, but since he figured to save ground, that still made him one of the likeliest winners (25-30%), so I used him. Remember-- I didn\'t like the race, but I had to pick someone. An awful lot of people took that analysis, and if I passed the Travers I would have been killed.
4-- Eddington ran third by beating two horses who actually ran (one other broke down, one bled). But that\'s not the point, anyway. The point is that while you can certainly make the case that he would run his race off TG, he started out very slow compared to the others, and there was no reason to think he would jump. Ergo my question about what he looked like on Ragozin-- the horse was grossly overbet, and from postings on their board it could have been because of them.
5-- What I did in ROTW (which is still up) and the analysis was not just to identify NTL as the likely winner, but to identify several throwouts who were going to take money. I played only tris, and got about 5-1. I weighted ST heavier, which was probably clear from my ROTW comments. The idea was to expand the price on the short priced winner by expressing several opinions on the race-- some positive, some negative.
6-- I did not belittle your analysis. I applaud you for putting it up in advance, and I hope you continue to do so. But if I recall correctly, you posted afterward that LH lost BECAUSE he had distance limitations. I had a problem with that, and it turned out I was right-- the result proved nothing on that score.
7-- Sarafan lost. But if he had won, so what? Go through the ROTW (there are now several hundred) and find the many times we have taken a position against a short priced horse. Work out the ROI. I will bet you anything you want it is under $1 for every $2 bet.
HP --
It\'s a horse racing bulletin board, not a sensitivity workshop.
jerry --
I\'ll tell you what:
Sarafan running a neck better is irrelevant.
for the 3rd choice in a race to run 2nd by a neck is running WELL, as much as if he had gotten that extra neck.
it\'s not that you didn\'t like him that\'s funny, it\'s that you singled him out as the worst chalk in a stakes race ALL YEAR --- that\'s how sure you were of this one.
this sounds like one of those BEST BETS OF THE YEAR!!1 that we never hear about...
edit:
ps
had it been me, jerry, rather than one of your marks, you would have just deleted my post.
Post Edited (08-30-04 13:19)
Beav-- Jake just called. He wanted to make sure everybody knew you were Raggie Dave. They don\'t want to miss any chances to be associated with your insightful comments, and he said keep up the good work.
why is it that every time you make one of these \'the ragozin office just contacted me\' posts, I picture you rocking away in your rocking chair, wearing len\'s glasses and some clothes youstole from his closet?
You know what? He called me again to plead with me to leave that one up, so I will. They love you.
I\'m surprised he\'s not just on your instant messenger buddy list...
ps
forgot this --- that guy was just knocking you for posting up a 7-1 exacta as your race OF THE WEEK, and you defend it by saying you got 5-1 out of the race??
must\'ve diluted your play w/all those union place tix.