Gee, don\'t you guys ever go out and enjoy the sun?
I\'m back from enjoying the Memorial Day weekend. No, I have not expired, but do have a day job.
A couple reply comments to Jerry on his latest reply to my last messages.
First, an overall comment: To a large extent these debates are stupid because Jerry, you have made it clear that your methodology makes certain unverified assumptions about equine behavior. Those users of yours who want to take your assumptions on faith are welcome to do so. But to me and many others, you have it backwards.
I stand by the creation/evolution comparison. The TG view reminds me of the creationists who argued that God had put the fossils there to test our faith and make it appear to non-believers that the earth was more than 6,000 years old. How do you argue against that? Maybe I\'m stupid but when I see fossils and see the carbon and radium dating results, I tend to believe my eyes.
Lastly, your constant harping on the 13th race at Pimlico is now just funny. An 8 point change in the variant between races? Okee dokey. BTW, in your book is there a consistent effect on track variant when it dries? When it gets wet? Does it sometimes get faster and slower as it dries on the same day? Ever wondered whether it might make sense to figure out whether you should test those assumptions?
On to a couple of specifics:
1) I do believe that Quixote clearly enjoys sprinting because I believe the Ragozin numbers. And I have seen open length wins when a horse \'x\'s. I remember Bayakoa winning in the slop at Santa Anita with a 19 once -- in a \'Graded\' Stakes race. Of course that was with Ragozin numbers so they probably had it wrong.
2) The turf course. Jerry -- your math here is just wrong. Unless you believe it is possible for a horse to run a time of 0:00, the difference is not 2%. If a turf course has a variability of plus or minus 10 seconds for a mile, then the 4 point (it looked more like 5 or 6) adjustment you made works out to an 8-10% improvement in the speed of the course in 2-3 hours. Given that they have a pretty good way of measuring the firmness of a course (that meter that they use in Europe a lot), you\'d think that you could do better than just the assertion that you made and use some real data.
3) The Schafer field -- I gave you a horse-by-horse breakdown of the race and you gave basically nothing in response except to repeat your previous post that \'graded\' horses run better than other horses. I will take your non-response as a concession.
While I grant that in general, \'graded\' horses run better, you need to look at the specific horses to determine what they are likely to do.
What is most entertaining is that you have changed your characterization of the race three times. Your initial post of May 23 asserted that it was not possible that \"an entire field of older graded stake horses bounced 6 points\". [direct quote]
Then, on May 24 you changed your argument to say that every horse \"RAN AT LEAST 6 POINTS OFF THEIR TOP\". [direct quote]
Then, your latest post on May 25 goes back to the assertion that they can\'t all \"bounce AT LEAST 6 POINTS\". [direct quote]
Please, make up your mind! My point was that, taking each horse one by one, almost every horse in the field figured to run at least 6 points if not more off of their top. That is not the same as claiming that each horse was going to bounce 6 points. And, incidentally, not every horse bounced 6 points on the Ragozin sheets.
4) Of course your figures will \'fit\' better because of your underlying assumptions about how horses run. No one is claiming that your numbers look perfect for every horse in every race. But once you have decided that horses can\'t do this or that, then you will by definition have a tighter range of numbers and a resulting \'prettier\' looking sheet for most horses. Which is exactly why I find your product less than helpful.
5) I admire your marketing aggressiveness. It\'s what you have to do to try to sell more product. Why do you think Pepsi is always dissing Coke but Coke never talks about Pepsi?
In many ways, Ragozin discourages having too many customers. Why? For one, they are not graduates of the \'The Customer Comes First\' school of business. Second, if too many people use their product, its value is diluted.
Coda: This kind of dialogue is fun for people like me but in the end it is pretty pointless. I have tried both products and found one to be the one I prefer based on the results I got. It is also based on a methodology that I agree with and is put out by the guys who were doing this stuff first.
My god, I can\'t believe my eyes, but here is this topic again. Patent says \"your methodology makes certain unverified assumptions about equine behavior\". OK, maybe I am really dense here, but somebody PLEASE explain to me what makes Ragozins assumptions any more verifiable or sceientific in nature? What \"carbon dating test\" of the Ragozin methodology are you referring to that proves his assumptions are any more valid? The whole first 2 paragraphs of your argument are completely ludicrous, and it makes it difficult to even concentrate on the rest of your response.
Here\'s a question for you, on a 80 degree day if the track is watered after every 3rd race, will the amount of moisture become less, then more, then less, then more, etc? Hmmmmm.....
Or it could be just less and then less and then less. Or it could be more and then more and then more. Depends on how much water is being added each time and how rapid the evaporation is taking place. And even more importantly what does less or more moisture mean to how fast the horses can run. I bet no one has ever measured any of these conditions.
Treadhead:
You would think that the addition or subtraction of moisture would have a consistent effect on the speed of the track, no? I\'ll bet that our friend Jerry often has moisture affecting the track differently depending on what he thinks the horses should have run -- i.e. a drying track sometimes gets faster, sometimes gets slower, with no consistent rules being applied. That\'s because he doesn\'t care about the track surface. He cares about making the numbers come out the way he wants them too. That is my point. Notice that Brown has been silent on this one.
The reason that Brown has the burden is that he often will assign a different variant when 1) there is no obvious outside influence on the track (e.g., he will change the variant even in the absence of watering or change in the weather) or 2) there is no basis for making the degree of adjustment that he makes. See the turf example from races 7 and 10 on Preakness day.
Well that\'s a great thought David, so how do you measure this constant effect of moisture? What is the scientific formula that Ragozin uses? Not to beat a dead horse, but is someone taking soil samples? As JimP mentioned, is there a formula that should be incorporated to adjust variants based on the amount of moisture. Intuitively, I agree that there probably is, but what proof is there that anyone has it right, or has even attempted to compute this?
Why do you need a significant event to change the track type (and thus variant)? What is evaporation? A track is constantly changing, wet or dry out, water trucks or not, harrowing between races or not. This to me is the most logical argument. Expecting that a track stays the same during an 80 degree, dry day, does not make sense to me. That would mean that soil samples are being taken and that water trucks are replacing the exact amount of lost moisture between races. That makes no sense at all.
The biggest question is which method do you want to go with. The one that assumes things are for the most part the same without a SIGNIFICANT change, or the one that attempts to make a determination of ANY possible track change. To be honest, I have no idea if Jerry does a good job of this or not. Perhaps he puts his figures and pattern making before variant making, I can\'t answer that. But I think at this point he is arguing his side of the variant story much better.
Can\'t you see or understand that your arguments don\'t make any sense from a bottom line standpoint because you\'ve only used TG a limited number of times & if my recollection is correct, only use Rags occasionally because of your day job or some other reason? Apparently, and surprisingly, I\'ve been able to compare both products on the same day before the races were actually run as much or more than anyone willing to post on the subject, and while I have a good idea of which one works better in the real world, I have to concede that the jury will remain out unless & until there is a test along the lines I have already suggested. The most basic tenet of science is that the way one determines the validity of any theory is by testing to determine if the theory can be refuted. An individual\'s limited experience with & knowledge of a theory can never be a substitute for such testing, any more than mind numbing repetition of the same arguments. It\'s time to give it a break.
I have always used Thorograph and haven\'t had much experience with Rags other than an occassional look at someone else\'s sheets and the major races that they post. Some of the numbers that they have given for the Derby and Preakness appear to be ridiculous especially for some of the midpack finishers.
I prefer the Thorograph product because of its price and easier to read format. Plus the new info on sires and trainer statistics has led me to a few winners that I would not have had otherwise. I find the Ragozin sheets to be almost illegible in their current format.
I am somewhat disturbed by some of Jerry Brown\'s recent posts. I can understand a minor track variant change from race to race or morning to afternoon but 8 points from one race to another seems to stretch the bounds of credibility. I know that there is a fair amount of educated subjectivity that goes into making figures but this seems beyond what would be considered logical. I have only a rudimentary understanding of figure making so maybe you can help a long time fan of your product understand how you knew that the last race at Pimlico on Preakness day wasn\'t just slower especially considering that the horses were lightly raced and had not established somewhat predictable patterns. How did you know that it was an 8 point variant instead of a 2,4 or 6 point variant?
I wonder if any of the above posters have considered the effect of wind and its variations on a race. For example, I was at Belmont Thurs, Fri, Sat and Sun. On one day, during one race (which day and race I am not sure, but think it was Sunday, mid card), I noticed an interesting phenominon: there are 3 sets of flags. The set in the middle of the infield showed a mild wind blowing from right to left, while the outside two had no wind at all.
Any thoughts on that one?
MO
Let me take a shot at this while everyone else is asleep.
David Patent: \"I\'m back from enjoying the Memorial Day weekend. \"No, I have not expired, but do have a day job.\"
Translation: You\'re implying that you didn\'t have time to reply until now. How did you find the time to discuss the O2X pattern Sunday and Monday on the Sheets board?
Patent: \"...Jerry, you have made it clear that your methodology makes certain unverified assumptions about equine behavior.\"
Equine behavior? Good God, David. Anyway, you\'re wrong. JB assesses the speed of the track based on the performances of the horses who run over it. And these assessments are verified by the pairs, trios, and tight cycles that you detest. Love them or loathe them, tight cycles are not sustainable unless the numbers are accurate. Barring fudging within a race, which JB doesn\'t do, bad numbers will perpetuate themselves and eventually result in loose cycles, jagged edges, and grotesque-looking patterns. You\'ll have lots of different patterns to read, but the patterns will have no basis in reality.
Let me ask you a question, David. You believe that watering and other maintenance can affect the speed of the track from race to race. You have made that clear. What do you think of this quote from Ragozin\'s book?
\"I set tougher standards: the horses\' lines must look as reasonable as possible--BUT ALL THE FIGURES MUST USE THE SAME VARIANT UNLESS RAIN OR A FREEZE OR A THAW CHANGES THINGS.\"
Doesn\'t this sentence \"invalidate\" Ragozin\'s figures in your eyes? What do you think of Ragozin\'s boast that his figures are \"accurate to a few inches\" at some tracks. Is this a lie? Leaving everything else aside, isn\'t the rounding to .25 by itself sufficient to make this one of the biggest whoppers ever told? Is your faith in Ragozin blind? Remember Springsteen\'s \"War\" on the live album: \"Blind faith will get you killed.\"
Patent: \"I stand by the creation/evolution comparison.\"
Stand by it as long as you wish, but at some point, please get around to presenting some evidence for it.
Patent: \"I do believe that Quixote clearly enjoys sprinting because I believe the Ragozin numbers.\"
David, David, David: Besides classically begging the question, this seems teleological: \"Quixote prefers sprinting because if Quixote doesn\'t prefer sprinting, Ragozin\'s numbers look even worse.\"
Patent: \"The turf course. Jerry--your math here is just wrong. Unless you believe it is possible for a horse to run a time of 0:00, the difference is not 2 percent.\"
On page 64 of his book, Ragozin uses the same math that JB did. JB wrote that he was discussing \"final time,\" not variant ranges. David, this is where your habit of starting new strings to reply to old statements is beginning to grate.
Patent: \"The Schafer field--I gave you a horse-by-horse breakdown of the race and you gave basically nothing in response except to repeat your previous post that \'graded\' horses run better than other horses. I will take your non-response as a concession.\"
This is total nonsense, David. JB replied to this, but you ducked it and started a new string. JB didn\'t say graded horses run better than other horses. He said they are treated better and their races are exceedingly unlikely to collapse as if on cue. In truth, Ragozin \"collapsed\" this race by tying it to the Preakness.
Patent: \"Of course your figures will \'fit\' better because of your underlying assumptions about how horses run.\"
See above. Whether they \"fit\" or not, inaccurate numbers boomerang on their maker because horses run back against different competition. Inaccurate numbers lead to ugly, contorted patterns in the future, not to the pretty numbers you find so off-putting. Have you ever made figures, David?
Patent: \"In many ways, Ragozin discourages having too many customers. Why? For one, they are not graduates of the \'The Customer Comes First\' school of business. Second, if too many people use their product, its value is diluted.\"
To write that paragraph is to prove oneself capable of writing anything. Let\'s pretend for a second that it\'s not completely ludicrous. If this is Ragozin\'s philosophy, how should he proceed? Should he raise his prices, which would reduce his sales and hassles but increase his profit-per-sale? Or should he allow his employees to get caught on tape telling flat-out lies about TG in order to gain more customers and hurt his own odds?
Patent: \"That\'s because he [JB] doesn\'t care about the track surface. He cares about making the numbers come out the way he wants them too.\"
Now you\'re into motive, David, and with all due respect, your reasoning is idiotic. Of course he cares about track surface. The whole premise of the projection method is that looking at previous performances is the best way to assess today\'s track surface. Think about what you are saying. You\'re saying that JB intentionally makes inaccurate figures because he wants pretty numbers. And you\'re saying that he knowingly sells inaccurate numbers and knowingly uses inaccurate numbers for buying and placing horses. To be honest, I\'ve always respected you. That\'s one reason I never replied to you--on either board--until the other day. But this is a descent into madness.
Patent on the Sheets board, possibly deleted by Wednesday morning: \"I have heard that you guys blew 2 of the 7 variants at Havre de Grace April 12 1948--the day Citation lost before winning 16 in a row. Please post all numbers for that day. I\'ll give you 1000 dollars.\"
Felicitous comparison. I can see you\'re itching to see the numbers for the 13th race. Personally, I\'ll be happy to wait until Patrick Morgan begs for all the numbers.
I think anyone who is of the mindset that
the track speed remains constant from race 1
til the end of the card even on days when there is no wind, no humidity, and no drastic
change in temperature is only fooling themselves. Making the assumption that
conditions are identical throughout a card
is naive. Next time you head out to the races pay speciall attention to the racing surface throughout the day, it is an eye-opening experience.
Nunzio
Patent: \"In many ways, Ragozin discourages having too many customers.\"
David, if he wanted to, Ragozin could fix it so he didn\'t have ANY customers and stop selling his figures altogether. If the figures are SO valuable, and selling them is dilutive to their real value, why does he sell them? I\'ve heard this kind of thing before and it\'s a lot of self-serving nonsense. Keep the figures to yourself and clean out the pools. Go ahead. I guess all they need now is an ad that says, \"these figures are so valuable, we tried to keep them under wraps, but we can\'t stop ourselves from selling them!\"
Maybe that moisture evaporating from the track (at varying speeds) is affecting your brain. Ragozin sells figures because there\'s money in it. In fact, it\'s steady money and judging by their massive sales, it\'s a nice business, especially if you like the ponies. Simple. If they\'re worried about diluting the value of their figures, they\'re a little late! Maybe Ragozin likes the money he makes selling sheets better than the money he could make wiping out the track every day. Bigger minds than mine will have to figure this out.
Now you\'re trying to justify Ragozin\'s policies and business practices by saying \"they\'re in business, but not really. They sell their figures, but they\'re trying to discourage too many people from buying them.\" You\'re making a fool of yourself.
You\'re on firmer ground (maybe) debating figure making methodology. Let the people who run the Sheets business speak (or not) for themselves. HP
Same way you always do--by looking at the horses. The Preakness Day sheets are still in ROTW--look at the last race, and see what different corrrections do to the race.
That\'s the effect of wind coming around/bouncing off the Grandstand, and another reason why relying on raw data is silly. The effect is unquantifiable.
I\'m glad you brought this up. The following is one of my posts following last year\'s B.C.
TGJB
Changing Track Speeds
Posted by TGJB on November 17, 2001 at 20:52:56:
One of the few reasonable questions posted amid all the recent noise was, in effect, what would cause a track to change speeds during the day?
Track speed is to a large degree a function of moisture. The variables include: composition of track relative to holding water, amount of water added, when the water is added (before the races, between the races, between some of the races), proximity to large bodies of water (Bay Meadows and Monmouth are examples of tracks where tracks change speed regulary, presumably because of the tides), temperature (in terms of freeze, thaws, and general drying out on hot days), and wind (evaporation).
Even if water is added each race, in equal amounts, the track can change speed. If x is added, it may be cancelled out by evaporation, At 3x, it gets a lot wetter throughout the day. At 1/2x, it gets dryer. At track A, it may get faster as it gets wetter, while at track B it may get slower. At track C, it may get faster until it reaches a certain degree of wetness, and then gets slower.
If a lot of water is added before the races, but not between them, you get a gradual drying, perhaps with the track speed getting faster or slower, but then leveling off at some point when the water has evaporated. Unless the temperature is below freezing, in which case you get a gradual freeze, and the track gets faster; except, for example, at Turfway, where the chemicals in the track keep it from freezing, so it just gets thick and slow.
Keep in mind how small a change in speed we\'re talking about. One fifth of a second equals one point. Lets say a race goes in 1:10, or 350 fifths of a second. A 1% change change in track speed means a difference of 3.5 fifths, or 3.5 points and that was, in fact, about the amount the track changed on Breeders Cup day.
Again, I refer anyone who wants to know more to my post of 5/2/00.
TGJB
First of all -- GET OUT YOUR CHECKBOOK, JERRY.
Hey Alydar -- See below. My comments are in brackets.
Let me take a shot at this while everyone else is asleep.
David Patent: \"I\'m back from enjoying the Memorial Day weekend. \"No, I have not expired, but do have a day job.\"
Translation: You\'re implying that you didn\'t have time to reply until now. How did you find the time to discuss the O2X pattern Sunday and Monday on the Sheets board?
[No, I am implying that I chose not to venture over to this board because I had better and more fun things to do. Problem?]
Patent: \"...Jerry, you have made it clear that your methodology makes certain unverified assumptions about equine behavior.\"
Equine behavior? Good God, David. Anyway, you\'re wrong. JB assesses the speed of the track based on the performances of the horses who run over it. And these assessments are verified by the pairs, trios, and tight cycles that you detest. Love them or loathe them, tight cycles are not sustainable unless the numbers are accurate. Barring fudging within a race, which JB doesn\'t do, bad numbers will perpetuate themselves and eventually result in loose cycles, jagged edges, and grotesque-looking patterns. You\'ll have lots of different patterns to read, but the patterns will have no basis in reality.
[Alydar -- Just ask Jerry. Jerry\'s figs are based upon his views that horses run more predictable patterns (tight cycles) than Ragzin believes. As a result he changes his variants to reflect his views about what number the horses should have run. That\'s how he \'verifies\' them. He has his variants going up and down like yo-yos on any given day. If he was using the actual track condition as a basis for the numbers you would have seen some kind of consistent results based on the maintenance or weather conditions. I\'m sorry but just as a coin will eventually come down every time I flip it (physics at work), a track has certain characteristics that are consistent depending on the amount of moisture, depth, granularity, etc. If the same conditions prevail, the track should be the same speed. Changing the conditions in the same direction will result in the same change in track speed. It does not go both ways. But Jerry\'s variants go all over the place. A drying track gets faster, slower, and faster depending on what needs to happen to it for Jerry\'s numbers to work. There is no consistency to his adjustments. Ask to see a sample of 50 racing cards or so at the same track. And you know what, a \'grotesque\' pattern is just what a lot of these horses run. Just because it\'s ugly doesn\'t make it wrong, unless you a priori believe that ugly patterns are wrong -- here we go with that whole creationism problem again.]
Let me ask you a question, David. You believe that watering and other maintenance can affect the speed of the track from race to race. You have made that clear. What do you think of this quote from Ragozin\'s book?
[Alydar -- I do not believe that routine maintenance like watering has any measurable effect on the track speed. That\'s what my last post said. Certain conditions can change the conditions of the track but the water truck passing over the track does not make the next race significantly faster than the previous one. Though it would be interesting to know whether the amount of water that a water truck dumps is equal to or more than the amount of water that evaporated from the Pimlico track between the Preakness and 13th race. If so, don\'t you think that the watering affect could slow the track down or speed it up (Jerry doesn\'t have it straight either) 8 points every time? Hmmm?]
\"I set tougher standards: the horses\' lines must look as reasonable as possible--BUT ALL THE FIGURES MUST USE THE SAME VARIANT UNLESS RAIN OR A FREEZE OR A THAW CHANGES THINGS.\"
Doesn\'t this sentence \"invalidate\" Ragozin\'s figures in your eyes? What do you think of Ragozin\'s boast that his figures are \"accurate to a few inches\" at some tracks. Is this a lie? Leaving everything else aside, isn\'t the rounding to .25 by itself sufficient to make this one of the biggest whoppers ever told? Is your faith in Ragozin blind? Remember Springsteen\'s \"War\" on the live album: \"Blind faith will get you killed.\"
[No blind faith here. I\'m sure that Ragozin blows a fig from time to time. But I\'m talking about an overall methodology here. Like I said, I will take science over faith anytime].
Patent: \"I stand by the creation/evolution comparison.\"
Stand by it as long as you wish, but at some point, please get around to presenting some evidence for it.
[See my previous posts. See physics. See chemistry. See meteorology. To be a bit less glib, at the risk of repeating myself -- the kinds of things we are talking about -- firmness of a turf course, resiliency of a dirt surface, are all eminently understandable physical things. They will react consistently under the same sets of conditions. Brown has been able to watch tens of thousands of races; thousands at each track. If he was serious about getting the track condition right he should be able to back up his variants with some kind of experience like -- \"on 5 different occasions I have seen horses run 8 points faster on the Pimlico track when the track has dried out for an additional hour when the track had been drying out \'x\' amount of hours . . . . I mean, wouldn\'t you think he\'d have some kind of matrix by now? I wouldn\'t expect him to share the whole thing but I\'d ask if he could share some part of it with us to see if it makes any sense. Jerry\'s been rattling the pipes about THE 13TH RACE!! for so long now. How about letting us see where he pulls some of his variants out of? He can\'t because he pulls them out of his mind, Alydar and he admits it. Again, if I saw some kind of consistency to Brown\'s adjustment I might have more respect but it\'s just goofy what he does sometimes.
Bottom line, Alyday -- Wouldn\'t you want some kind of empirical physical support from the guy who you pay all of this money to? I don\'t expect to \'prove\' you wrong, but at least admit that you are making a leap of faith -- one that is very different than the one I am making. I am simply agreeing that I believe what I see. If you read the whole book \'The Odds Must Be Crazy\' you will get a much better idea about how Ragozin makes variants than Brown represents on this board.]
Patent: \"I do believe that Quixote clearly enjoys sprinting because I believe the Ragozin numbers.\"
David, David, David: Besides classically begging the question, this seems teleological: \"Quixote prefers sprinting because if Quixote doesn\'t prefer sprinting, Ragozin\'s numbers look even worse.\"
[Alydar -- I think you mean tautological. Teleology is just the study of knowledge. Tautology is a circular argument or truism. BTW, of course it\'s a tautology. So is Jerry\'s point on this. That\'s why so much of this stuff is just running around in circles].
Patent: \"The turf course. Jerry--your math here is just wrong. Unless you believe it is possible for a horse to run a time of 0:00, the difference is not 2 percent.\"
On page 64 of his book, Ragozin uses the same math that JB did. JB wrote that he was discussing \"final time,\" not variant ranges. David, this is where your habit of starting new strings to reply to old statements is beginning to grate.
[Alydar. Sorry, wrong again. While a 4 point change might represent 2% of the final time (I\'m not disagreeing with that math, nor would Ragozin), that is not the same as saying that the turf course only dried out by 2%, which is what Brown suggested. The question is whether a course can really get 1.4 seconds faster in 2-3 hours under the conditions that prevailed that day. My sense is no way -- not even close. And Brown\'s \'answer\' -- which is part of his interesting habit of changing his argument or trying to rephrase the question (see his triple change of point on the Schafer) -- was nonexistent. Again, don\'t you think that with all of the races he\'s watched he\'d have some empirical support for his adjustment??]
Patent: \"The Schafer field--I gave you a horse-by-horse breakdown of the race and you gave basically nothing in response except to repeat your previous post that \'graded\' horses run better than other horses. I will take your non-response as a concession.\"
This is total nonsense, David. JB replied to this, but you ducked it and started a new string. JB didn\'t say graded horses run better than other horses. He said they are treated better and their races are exceedingly unlikely to collapse as if on cue. In truth, Ragozin \"collapsed\" this race by tying it to the Preakness.
[Alydar. No, he did not respond to my horse-by-horse analysis. He did, of course, flip flop on his point for the third time. He didn\'t respond specifically because he can\'t refute that those individual horses in that individual race were almost all a bunch of ouchy pigs recently coming off of big races or layoffs. If he did, please cut and paste it into a message on a string. If he did not, please stop throwing around big words like \'nonsense\' when what I wrote was exactly the opposite of nonsense.]
Patent: \"Of course your figures will \'fit\' better because of your underlying assumptions about how horses run.\"
See above. Whether they \"fit\" or not, inaccurate numbers boomerang on their maker because horses run back against different competition. Inaccurate numbers lead to ugly, contorted patterns in the future, not to the pretty numbers you find so off-putting. Have you ever made figures, David?
[Alydar. Again, I have no problem with a pretty pattern, as long as it\'s based on what the horse ran not on what JB thinks horses run. And yes, I have made figures in the past. Way back when I went to the races a lot more, but found the Sheets to be a lot more accurate and that they saved me a bunch of time].
Patent: \"In many ways, Ragozin discourages having too many customers. Why? For one, they are not graduates of the \'The Customer Comes First\' school of business. Second, if too many people use their product, its value is diluted.\"
To write that paragraph is to prove oneself capable of writing anything. Let\'s pretend for a second that it\'s not completely ludicrous. If this is Ragozin\'s philosophy, how should he proceed? Should he raise his prices, which would reduce his sales and hassles but increase his profit-per-sale? Or should he allow his employees to get caught on tape telling flat-out lies about TG in order to gain more customers and hurt his own odds?
[Again with the unsupported adjectives. You\'re trying to analyze Ragozin as if it is a publicly traded profit maximizing firm, which it isn\'t. It\'s a bunch of communist/socialists who use their profits for God knows what. But you cannot dispute that 1) Their customer service is lousy -- that was my first point. Not ludicrous. Or 2) that if too many people use the product that its value is diluted. Are you really arguing with that?]
Patent: \"That\'s because he [JB] doesn\'t care about the track surface. He cares about making the numbers come out the way he wants them too.\"
Now you\'re into motive, David, and with all due respect, your reasoning is idiotic. Of course he cares about track surface. The whole premise of the projection method is that looking at previous performances is the best way to assess today\'s track surface. Think about what you are saying. You\'re saying that JB intentionally makes inaccurate figures because he wants pretty numbers. And you\'re saying that he knowingly sells inaccurate numbers and knowingly uses inaccurate numbers for buying and placing horses. To be honest, I\'ve always respected you. That\'s one reason I never replied to you--on either board--until the other day. But this is a descent into madness.
[Alydar. It\'s not about motive, it\'s about philosophy. Brown changes the variant because he doesn\'t think that horses do this or that. As a result, in my belief, he ends up with inaccurate numbers. I don\'t think its intentional. But he will do some pretty interesting gymnastics (e.g., an 8 point variant change) to make his numbers come out the way he thinks they should. This doesn\'t happen every race, of course, but when the pre-ordained \'ranges\' are in jeopardy of being exceeded, you will see some pretty eye-opening variant changes.]
Patent on the Sheets board, possibly deleted by Wednesday morning: \"I have heard that you guys blew 2 of the 7 variants at Havre de Grace April 12 1948--the day Citation lost before winning 16 in a row. Please post all numbers for that day. I\'ll give you 1000 dollars.\"
Felicitous comparison. I can see you\'re itching to see the numbers for the 13th race. Personally, I\'ll be happy to wait until Patrick Morgan begs for all the numbers.
[Just saw the numbers. And guess what -- they look about right. Is that a surprise? Let me guess. Jerry\'s going to post some hyperbole-laden diatribe about how bad Ragozin blew the number. And on we go. . . .]
David: I have exactly 30 seconds. The rest of my reply will come late tonight. For now, \"epistemology\" is the study of knowledge. \"Teleology\" is the study of design or purpose in natural phenomena, hence my Quixote comment. How the hell can someone who keeps talking about creationism and evolution not know that? What do you have to say for yourself, David?
Alydar, I\'ve since moved from Washington to California and can\'t wait to meet you at the track some day. Going forward, leave me out of your comments.
Why? You want to beg for figures from me, too? Or do you have something else in mind? Do you remember the vulgar term you used to describe this board? Why not repeat it?
Alydar,
You are 100% correct on the epistemology/teleology issue. My mistake. It has been 18 years since my \'Justice\' class with Sandel.
Because it would be a great pleasure to meet you. Though your definition of begging is much different than most, I do have something else in mind.
Unlike you, I do not memorize what other people on this board have to say. It seems far too unhealthy. I just move and keep my eyes and ears open. You\'ll notice I\'ve not said anything on this board until you brought up my name so, please, find someone else to talk to/about as I have only one use for you and it is not conversation.
Alydar did a good job with this, which saves me some work. And of course, again, it’s not really you I’m speaking to, since you have no real interest in getting to the truth—if you did you would have joined the chorus asking Friedman to post the 13th (which they now have, and which I will be addressing shortly).
Numbered points are mine, not yours, except where indicated.
1- I make no assumptions, other than that prior figures of horses can be used to determine future figures horses run, and outcomes of races. I do this because it’s the premise, and that it works out in practice. Because you don’t make figures, this point eludes you, but Alydar did a pretty good job of explaining it. You can’t assign artificial (incorrect) figures for horses running in different races, at different distances, and different tracks, to have them run in a tight range, and ALSO have them running in a tight range when they come out of those different races and run against each other. It’s physically impossible unless you screw around with the relationships WITHIN the race, and the “tightness” confirms both the numbers you are assigning today and they numbers they are based upon. Spend one week making figures and you’ll get it.
2- Ragozin was first, and has tons of dogmatic rules concerning sprints/routes, changing tracks, etc. I came along, disavowed that stuff, and only make the one assumption, above. Good luck convincing anybody I’m the creationist.
3- (your 1)- Yeah, Bayakoa probably won a FM graded stake with a 19. Do you ever actually listen to yourself?
4- (your 2)- Pure nonsense, and you know it. The point is not the percentage of variability, but of net effect on final time, and re-casting the argument is disingenuous. The actual difference between variants was 3.6 points (not 5 or 6) for the grass races—a difference of right around 1% of the final time. That’s not a lot, and in this case we’re talking about a course that had been soaked by rain, and was now drying. Regardless of all underlying logic, however, everyone should look at the 5th and 7th races on Preakness day on Ragozin and TG, and draw their own conclusions.
5- (your 3)- Again, disingenuous, especially your granting “graded horses run better”. Not just better—more consistently near their tops. If you actually don’t know this, you’re a very bad handicapper.
What I said (and BOTH statements are in the 5/24 post) was, “every horse, in a graded stake race, ran at least 6 points off their top”, and “every horse in the field but one ran at least 6 points worse than his previous race.” i.e., bounced. BOTH ARE TRUE ON RAGOZIN—everyone can look at Ragozin’s Schaefer sheets and see for themselves. Again, even if you think any one older stake horse is 50/50 to run 6 points off his top (or bounce 6 points, either way)—and 50% is an astronomically high number considering how close to their tops stake horses run—the chance of all 6 doing it is 2%. Rather than taking a position that can’t be proved (like saying each one had an 80% chance) why not try one that can—take me up on the bet I offered.
6- (your 5)- As has been documented here (my lawyers letter to Ragozin after we taped Ragozin employees lying about us) the “dissing” that takes place is almost all by them, in the field, in private, where we are almost never in a position to respond. The only reason they don’t do it here is because we can respond. And calling my raising questions of figure methodology “dissing” is diss-ingenuous. You know better.
I\'ll leave most of this to Alydar, and I answered all that needs answering in another post. But to your last point--on the contrary. Because they used a different variant than the previous race (Preakness), they came close to getting it right.
Actually, Jerry, they used the same variant. See Friedman\'s post on the subject.
To your other points:
1) I have made figures before so I don\'t need a lecture on the subject. Your first sentence reveals exactly what I have been saying all along -- that the past determines the future; and that\'s why you get into trouble messing with variants, making them faster, slower, faster to so that the \'tight ranges\' are not violated.
2) The dead horse is beaten.
3) Jerry, all I know is what the number was -- it was a 19. It was early in the year 1990 or 1991 I think. I\'m sure you think Ragozin got the number wrong, so what\'s the point of discussing this?
4) However you want to characterize the % change -- and I still believe that it is more meaningful to deal with realistic ranges -- I asked for some historical data to back up your adjustment. You gave none. Zippo. Zilch. And we both know why, don\'t we?
5) You are still failing to engage on the specific horses involved. Yes, graded horses tend to run better, yes they tend to run more close to their tops. But my point was, and is still unrefuted by you that the specific horses in the Schafer all figured to bounce and all but 1 of them (Bowman\'s Band) were not typical graded stakes horses but allowance-types who happened to be entered in a graded stake race whose particular patterns were awful going into the race. Now, you can always claim that Ragozin\'s numbers in the prior races for these horses were all wrong, but if I look at the Rag. sheets and try to say what percent chance those horses had of running well, it was about 80/90% to run bad for most of them. You arbitrarily pick 50/50 but 1) look at the percentage of good numbers most of those horses were running and 2) the % of the time they bounced off big efforts. That will give you a clue that 50/50 was wildly optimistic for that bunch. And even if the chance of all running bad was 2% that\'s still 1 race in 50, which happens 2-3 times a day in America.
6) Fair enough. However, I think it\'s fair to say that the content on this board is more confrontational to the competitor than vice versa, which I don\'t have a problem with in theory, though the substance of most of the posts is, shall we say, less than enlightened.
In the ongoing dissing contest, David wrote:
\'Your first sentence reveals exactly what I have been saying all along -- that the past determines the future; and that\'s why you get into trouble messing with variants,...\'
Hey guys, as best I can understand the TG and Rags processes, they both depend on the ASSUMPTION that past is predictive of the future. TG uses the \'past\' of the specific horses in a particular upcoming race to predict the time of that race and then builds a variant from that prediction. Rags uses the \'past\' of groups of similar horses running at the distance at the track to predict the time for that upcoming race and then builds the variant from that prediction. They both rely on the past to predict the future in much the same way. As I understand the major difference in approach is that TG adjusts the variant between races on a single card and Rags does not do that (except for rare instances). The reason that one adjusts and the other does not is based on unproven assumptions in each case. One assumes that the track and other conditions can change in unobserved ways and the other assumes it can\'t.
I think I have summed up the basics of the two views. Both views seem to be deeply held. Both views are based on assumptions. Both parties seem to have equal disdain for the approach of the other. Until one party or the other offers some factual basis for their assumptions, one has to choose which assumptions to accept on faith and then decide with personal experience whether those assumptions lead to a product that works.
They used the same variant (roughly) as the other sprints--not as the Preakness. See my reply to Friedman.
1) You don\'t read very carefully, or to be more precise, are very selective about choosing what points to reply to. Your posts say a lot more about you than they do about me or the subject.
2) You ain\'t kiddin\'.
3) Please think. Do you think it\'s likely she really won with a 19? If you blindly accept their figures as right, what\'s the point of discussing figure making at all?
4) Historical data on what? Until someone comes up with a machine to measure moisture content, rate of drying, and its effect on time of racehorses, the only way you can do it is by looking at the past figures of the horses. That\'s why we all do it this way. By the way, it looks like they actually have the grass course getting SLOWER that day. What do you make of that?
5) It\'s not about running well or not (as you again fail to answer directly, and attempt to recast the argument), it\'s about their chances of going back 6 POINTS OR MORE, or RUNNING 6 POINTS WORSE THAN THEIR TOPS. And you know it. I repeat--take me up on my bet. In any event, now that you know they were sliding the variant, do you still think they should have tied it to the Preakness?
6) As I just said, in this forum they clam up--they don\'t want an open dialogue. As you have seen in the posts from the lunatic fringe (Jim, Howard Dennis, etc., who unlike the Ragozin office don\'t realize how this stuff plays) there is a lot of really poisonous stuff out there about us, and me. Guess where it came from? I\'ll give you a hint--who would have a motive?
Two questions, David:
(i) If figure-makers shouldn\'t use \'the past to determine the future,\' why should figure-users? If TG\'s approach is so wrong then more fool anyone who has ever bought the Sheets, DRF, ThoroGraph or any other horse-racing data-source. I presume that includes you?
(ii) If \'the past doesn\'t determine the future,\' then why did you \'look at the Rag. sheets and try to say what percent chance those horses had of running well\' and decide \'it was about 80/90% to run bad for most of them?\' I guess not all history is bunk, is it?
Mandown:
I was a bit imprecise with my language re: the past and the future. The difference I see b/wn Rag. and TG is that with Rag. the past gives you a probabilistic range of outcomes. With TG, that range is highly constrained by a particular viewpoint about what a horse will or will not do on that day, and that view is constrained only by the mind of Jerry Brown and is not tied to any measurable data.
Jerry,
So as not to be accused of ignoring your questions again:
4) I don\'t know what they did with the variant for race 10. Friedman can address that. If they had the turf getting slower, then that would be interesting, now wouldn\'t it?
5) All I can say is that when I look at the probable ranges I assigned to the horses in Race 11 I had everyone running between a 7 and 12 -- most of them a 9 or worse -- except Bowman\'s Band. That put them all at 6 points or more below their top. BB was a huge question mark for me. I figured he\'d bounce 2-5 points. He bounced 6. That kind of result doesn\'t make me want to tear up the variant.
David,
\'Imprecise with your language??!!\' - you just gotta be a politician.
And is there that much difference between a \'probalistic range of outcomes\' - another magnificent fence-sitting phrase that would do a politician proud - and a viewpoint? Are you saying Jerry has only one view? If so you haven\'t read his posts. The whole point of his approach is that he \'fits\' a race to reflect the \'probalistic range of outcomes.\'
Does Ragozin do any different? He says the track was drying out on Preakness Day and so they adjusted the variant. Was there \'measurable data\' for that (scientific analysis of a track sample?) and a rigid formula based on the measured moisture content - or was it a viewpoint based on the times recorded and the horses that recorded them? And whatever vague terms - \'a light use in exotics\' etc - Friedman might use in previewing a race as far as I\'m aware
they only put one figure into their database after the race, not a \'probalistic range of outcomes.\' In other words they form a viewpoint just the same as Jerry does.
And what\'s the difference between a viewpoint that sprint and route variants should be split and one that says they shouldn\'t? Forget the dogma. Logic says there\'s an argument for both. Which you subscribe to reflects only your opinion.
In your reply to Jerry you refer to how you used a \'probalistic range of outcomes\' based on your interpretation of the Sheets for Preakness Day Race 11. You formed the viewpoint(?) that Bowman\'s Band would bounce 2-5 points. Doubtless the fact that you were wrong - according to the Sheets he bounced 6 you say - in your mind proves Jerry is also wrong.
Now how about this for a thought? By your own admissions (in the HP challenge string) you don\'t get much time for handicapping these days. Possibly it was operator error? Jerry makes figures seven days a week, 52 weeks a year and has done so for the past 20 years. To equate your judgment with his would not, I suggest, encompass a logical \'probalistic range of outcomes.\'
Horses aren\'t machines and tracks aren\'t uniform. Figure-making is subjective. That\'s the whole point. To quote an old saw, it\'s the difference of opinion that makes horse-racing.
You may not subscribe to Jerry\'s methodology but why do you want to dissuade others? Surely the more people being \'misled\' the less the Ragozin product is being \'diluted?\' That is what you said, isn\'t it? And if they really would be happier with lower sales why do they censor all of Jerry\'s posts? But then are they a \'bunch of communists/socialists,\' to quote one of your posts, or \'Coke not talking about Pepsi\' to paraphrase another?
No wonder you have trouble with the concept of horses being consistent.
Mandown:
I agree with almost everything you say. The big difference is that JB assigns a probability of 0% to a number of outcomes that I think have a significantly higher probability of occuring.
BTW, I\'m not a politician, though I used to be an attorney. How\'s that for leading with my chin?
Finally, I am gratified to see that the level of discourse on these boards has improved dramatically in the last week. Whereas before a high percentage of comments here were on the order of: \"Ragizin sux,\" now we are debating the meaning of tautology, teleology, and epistomology; and uncovering some interesting assumptions about figure-making.
JB has already handled much of this. What\'s left?
David Patent writes: \"Alydar, you are 100 percent correct on the epistemology/teleology issue. My mistake.\"
Thank you for admitting your error, David.
Patent writes: \"It has been 18 years since my justice class with Sandel.\"
Why did you write this sentence, David? There is a Sandel who teaches at Harvard. He is fairly well known. And on a different string, you wrote that you went to law school. Are you trying to tell us that you are a Harvard-educated lawyer? Why tell us? Why not prove it with the logic of your arguments?
Patent writes: \"I have already dealt with your and Alydar\'s point on how you get a tight range without changing variants within a race. All you need is to start with the hypothesis that you start with--the tight range hypothesis. As long as you apply it to every race then your ranges will work out nicely.\"
This is illogical crap. You have never made figures using the projection method, David. If you start making figures in a phony tight range, and if those figures are inaccurate, your figures will come apart at the seams. HP was right. You are making a fool out of yourself. See if you can follow this: A phony tight range means inaccurate numbers. When projecting figures, inaccurate numbers have the same effect as inaccurate result charts--everything goes to hell. THE HORSES ARE COMING OUT OF DIFFERENT RACES.
Patent writes: \"I\'m not disagreeing with that math.\"
Earlier, on the identical question, Patent wrote: \"Jerry--your math here is just wrong.\"
Patent writes some BS about not remembering the bet JB proposed to him:
David. You split the strings to cover your own ineptitude. Look the damn thing up. It \"invalidates\" half of your latest argument.
Patent writes that he has bought Thoro-Graph twice and is convinced Rags is better.
Why am I not surprised?
Going against the thrust of his previous statement, Patent writes that track maintenance doesn\'t significantly change the speed of the track.
Read Bruno De Julio in the archives. Read Jack Kaenal in \"A Breed Apart.\" Lose your blind faith. Open your eyes.
Patent writes that Ragozin\'s office is \"a bunch of communist/socialists.\"
Nonsense, David. If you read the Sheets board, you would know that Friedman wrote that Ragozin\'s office had conservatives and mushy liberals, too.
Patent writes: \"[JB] doesn\'t care about the track surface.\"
Later, Patent writes: \"It\'s not about motive, it\'s about philosophy.\"
David, I still have a soft spot for you, but I have to tell you that you have become a damn joke. If you disagree with this assessment, please let me know. I will happily argue this with you until there is nothing left to argue about. Never have I been so confident.
Patrick Morgan: \"I have one use for you and it\'s not conversation.\"
I have one use for you, Patrick, and that is to get this string back on top of the board--where David Patent will not miss it. Because of his intelligence, arguing with him is a pleasure.
Intelligent? Probably. Logical,I don\'t think so. But the thing that I didn\'t understand was why you took him to task for disclosing that he graduated from Harvard Law School. The image I have now is the stereotyical one, funny looking bowtie with matching suspenders, Brooks Brothers, wing tips,etc, & all in the Vegas heat no less. I had my suspicions, but what threw me was that unlike every other Harvard law grad, DP took longer than the customary 10 mins(5 for undergrads) to make the announcement. Perhaps that has something to do with cyberspace, or perhaps DP\'s not part of the group that an entrepeneur I knew (who only made it to the 10th grade but who hired & fired quite a few Harvard Law grads over the yrs) was talking about when he told me wistfully: \"If there was only some way I could buy them for what they\'re actually worth, and then sell them for what they think they\'re worth, then I could get out of the plastics business and make some serious money.\"
Mall: This is very funny.
I believe David is intelligent and logical. His problem here is that he\'s an advocate, and his client is guilty as hell. His only hope is jury nullification of logic, and he knows that.
The only reason I teased him about Harvard is that he is an inveterate teaser himself.
Alydar, Alydar, you just don\'t know how to change leads, do you?
Rolling up the shirtsleeves for another go-round here.
First, however, some preliminaries.
1) Yes, you have correctly identified Sandel. I\'m shocked that anyone would have picked that up here. He may be well known in political philosophy circles but 99.9% of the people in this country think Sandel is summer walking footwear. I have not tried to tell anyone that I\'m a Harvard-educated anything. I will always let my points speak for themselves. BTW, I said I used to be a lawyer. I haven\'t practiced in 5 years. I have had three other careers, including an entrepreneur who ran a business for two years, so no wing tips, no bowtie.
2) Re: my views of Ragozin. Yes they are sometimes wrong on a variant. To err is human. I\'m not claiming perfection, I\'m claiming superior underlying methodology. Do I ever take them to task? Yes, I have, esp. on customer service and their failure to make their product available online. Luckily I can get it emailed to me now so the latter problem has been solved. Do I like their editorial policy? As a rule, No. Specifically, I think it was dumb to delete Jerry\'s responses. Will whining about it help anything? No. They delete most of my posts when I raise the issue of JB -- one recent exception being the Havre de Grace variant joke. Am I grateful for this forum over here? Yes. Will it make me buy JB\'s product? No.
2) Your advocacy on behalf of JB must surely be clouding your judgment. Your boy has humiliated himself at least 3 times now in his spat with Rag\'s Pimlico numbers:
Exhibit A:
JB Assertion: Ragozin blew the 13th race.
Fact: Even JB admits they got the 13th race about right.
Exhibit A1:
JB Assertion: \'I had to use a variant eight (8) points slower than the previous race, which happened to be the Preakness...
If they are consistent with their avowed methodology, the figures will come up ridiculously slow.
Fact: Ragozin used the same variant and got the right number.
Exhbit B:
JB Assertion: Ragozin can\'t post the 13th race because it will expose him as the scoundrel that he is. $1,000 bounty offered.
Fact: Race posted. Now JB has to pay $1,000 to his sworn and deadly enemy. What a revoltin\' development.
Exhibit C:
JB Assertion: They split the route/sprint variant.
Fact: They did not split the route/sprint variant -- \"There was no short/long on Preakness day--the first two races (where the likelihood of a short/long would be the highest) have the same relationship to each other as the last two races have to each other.\" -- Len Friedman
Alydar, don\'t you ever ask yourself why JB is so obsessed with not only Ragozin, but 5 races on a card; actually 1 race on a card -- a race it turns out he was completely wrong in his assumptions on? Shouldn\'t he be spending his valuable time making those great figures? If Jason Kidd wasted as much time talking trash and getting in the face of his opponents as Jerry does, he\'d be playing in a pick up game at the \'Y\' real soon.
Now, onto your latest missive.
The tight range hypothesis.
Sorry, Alydar, but I am right here unless you are taking my general statement to a ridiculous extreme (my money\'s on that one since that is the pattern I see in these strings). I am not claiming that every horse in every race gets a nice pretty number. Obviously I can see that TG gave MDO a 10 (or something like that) in the Preakness. The theory behind TG is that horses don\'t do certain things or are unbelievably unlikely to do certain things, like run 6 points off a top (just an example here, don\'t jump down my throat for using this illustration). If you start with that or a similar assumption about the volatility of equine performance then your numbers will always be in a tighter range than someone who believes that horses can and do run 6 points worse. That\'s just the basic math. Yes you will have outliers, usually for horses beaten by 10, 15 or 20 lengths. But overall your patterns will be tighter. Are you disputing that? And the repetition of tight patterns does not prove that your numbers are right, it only proves that you are applying your methodology consistently.
The only way to \'prove\' that I\'m right is to sit down with you and draw up some mock sheets using various assumptions. If you want to fly to Vegas, I\'ll be happy to do that.
The Math
Alydar, you either missed the distinction between the two math questions or are just trying to score easy points with the crowd. My point was that I would not dispute that 3.6 points was about 2% of the final time. The math I disputed was whether 2% was the proper way to analyze the change in track speed. But, to get around the point of disagreement I asked JB to show some history showing that a similar turf course under similar conditions will always or almost always get faster by 3.6 points. So far, no response.
The Bet
Thanks to JB for reposting the bet. Maybe I am inept but I got lost in the strings -- that\'s why I like to start new ones -- avoids the digging.
So, I will gladly accept the bet but don\'t hold your breath. I go to the races maybe 7 or 8 times a year now -- KY Derby, Preakness, Belmont, BC, and whenever my wife goes home to visit her folks. Sorry if that sounds like a copout but I think Brown would probably just say that Ragozin blew the variant once we do find such a race and I am proven right. That\'s his M.O. (see the 13th race debate).
TG vs. Ragozin
Once I learned what JB\'s methodology was, I didn\'t need to do much more comparing. As I have said over and over and over again, I think that the underlying assumptions and resulting behavior (changing a variant several points up then 8 points down one race later) will result in a product that is not useful to me.
Track maintenance
Alydar, read my post again. I said routine watering of the track does not, in my view, change the variant from one race to the next. Track maintenance can and does. My point was and is that the superficial watering done in between races does not change the variant. If it did, wouldn\'t we see a consistent pattern that JB could identify for us. After all, it\'s routine -- it\'s done pretty much the same way on pretty much the same schedule at a given track. Given the number of similar weather, wind, sun, etc. days at any track over a number of years, you\'d think that JB would have an automatic number he could plug in -- the \'water truck\' change. But I will bet you (gentleman\'s wager) that JB moves the variant up and down due to water truck maintenance depending on the situation.
The political make-up of Ragozin\'s office
True but I\'m not speaking of the hired help here.
Motive and Philosophy
The term \'motive\' as it was used by the poster to whom I was responding, was given a sinister tint, as in \'motive for a murder\'. My response was simply that JB has a philosophy about equine performance. That is what drives his variants. The track surface is malleable, assumptions about equine performance are not. Thus, it is accurate to say that he does not care about the track surface. Any adjustments made are in service to his ideology about \'tight ranges\'. Does that not make sense? Is that at all inconsistent? No, I didn\'t think so.
Your assessment of me
Gosh, Alydar, please don\'t call me a joke. A \'damn\' one at that. I might just go throw myself from the Eiffel Tower (the local one).
Looking forward to the next one.
Okay, David. This reply takes the [expletive deleted] cake. Please do me a favor. Go through the old strings, which you have intentionally spread out all over the place, and answer my (and JB\'s) questions. Please do it before midnight. Ignoring them ain\'t cutting it.
Now I need someone to do me a favor. Can someone, anyone, please tell me what buttons I need to push in order to reply sentence by sentence, right under David\'s words? This is going to be one of the longest replies in message board history, and retyping his words will take me forever and be extremely confusing. I can be reached at: LindsayD88&yahoo.com
Thank you.
Make that LindsayD88@yahoo.com
I can\'t tell these symbols apart late at night.
You really do believe that Ragozin was on the grassy knoll, don\'t you?
Oh, and Alydar, give me a break. Brown has ducked every single substantive issue I have put in front of him (his usual way is just to throw something back at Ragozin and not deal with my question to him) and you haven\'t answered many if any of my questions to you. I have dealt with every issue that it is possible to deal with on the board, or that deserves a response, to my best recollection. Maybe you don\'t like the substance of my responses but I have been a heck of a lot more responsive than you and JB.
Sorry for the multiple consecutive postings:
Alydar, I\'m in San Diego until Monday so take your time with your post; and please try to stop oversimplifying for the sake of making a point just to play to the partisan crowd that lives over here. You are not, from what I can tell, a simpleton, so please don\'t post like one.
(Crowd of reporters milling around. David Patent, Alydar and TGJB are at the podium. Robespierre is giving his analysis of an upcoming race, and when TGJB speaks, he holds up an airhorn and drowns him out, and then continues his analysis to the Rag Partisan Crowd. Police barricades separate the Partisan Crowds, and several officers struggle with Jerry Jr., who is yelling about censorship and hypocrisy. Patrick Morgan is looking to get up on the podium to reach Alydar, but he is distracted and stops by Robespierre to ask for some numbers. HP is listening to the Crazy Cabbie - Stuttering John fight on Howard Stern on his Walkman at the bar).
Reporter #12: (Winded from getting banged around in the press moshpit). David, David Patent, what about the weasel issue that\'s been raised? Why don\'t you think this is worth responding to? Isn\'t this getting lost in all this figure making stuff? Isn\'t this really is a separate issue?
TG Partisan Crowd: Yeah, what about that hey.
HP: Yeah, what about that hey. (Looks at a piece of paper. On the paper it says - Loaf of bread. Whole milk. Buy lottery ticket and pick up shirts). How about a beer down here huh, I gotta get going. (To himself) Harvard. (Spits).
I’m going to leave most of this to Alydar. Briefly:
Your A—I predicted 3 possible things they could do with the race, the third of which was hedge. That’s what they did, and that’s why it was almost right—meaning almost in line with his too-slow Maryland numbers. Your misrepresentation of my position is intentional.
A1---They did not use the same sprint/route relationship as earlier in the card—if they had the 13th would have come up too slow. They had the right idea (completely contrary to what they posted several times in defense of Wood Memorial and other numbers, which hypocrisy was the second of the 3 possibilities I laid out), they just didn’t go far enough—they hedged. If they had applied the same logic to the relationships between the 11th and 12th they wouldn’t have blown the Schaefer figure, at least not that badly.
B---I didn’t say it would expose him as a scoundrel, just as either dogmatic in the face of strong evidence or a hypocrite. I would say I got my money’s worth, especially since Friedman conceded that there is no fixed relationship between sprints and routes, which by itself undermines most of the “logic” underpinning your comments of the last 2 weeks.
C---“Fact”: Friedman made a statement. Fact: The relationship between the 6th race (route) and the 8th and 9th (the next two dirt races, sprints) on Ragozin is almost 3 points different than that between the first and second, and the 13th to the 11th and 12th.
That would be me, responding directly to your points. You could try that some time. Whoops, I forgot—they taught you at Harvard Law that it is better to be “right” than right.
alydar --
are you seriously retyping everything you reply to????
dude..........
have you thought about maybe copy/pasting?
(ordinarily I wouldn\'t help you prolong this bs, but I\'m sure you\'d do it w/or w/o me.)
Tell you what , slick. You make a list of the questions I\'ve \"ducked\", and I\'ll do the same, and we\'ll both answer them point by point, deal? Bet you shift the ground.
you\'re ducking the belmont day contest.
FYI, it is not a \'contest\'. I challenged David Patent to post his picks here and said I would do the same for Belmont day. A gentleman\'s bet. It was never a \'contest\'. If other people (including Jerry) want to post their picks, I think it\'s fine. Don\'t turn my challenge into something it wasn\'t meant to be. You won\'t be seeing any picks from Len Friedman up here, and he\'s not \'ducking\' anything either.
I think you also misunderstood yesterday\'s post on this. I didn\'t mean to say Jerry would do the Belmont on Belmont day (Saturday). There are days where Jerry does the analysis, and days where others do it. Sometimes on a major card, like Belmont Stakes day, Jerry will write the \'analysis\' himself (in this case, on Fri., so it could be posted for sale). If that\'s the case here, Jerry\'s picks will appear in the Red Board room the following day (Sunday). If it isn\'t, it isn\'t.
Besides, I know much more about using the TG data than Jerry. My picks will be a much better representation of TG use by the general public. There have been ample opportunities for \'contests\' and unanswered challenges (from Jerry to the Sheets) over the years, and this thing with Patent and I is probably as close as its going to get. Just a couple of know-it-alls making fools of themselves.
If you want to have a \'contest\', go ahead and devise one, but remember \'contest\' implies a prize for winning, and there\'s nothing like that going on here. HP
Jerry,
In 1 hour I will be jumping into a car to go to San Diego for the weekend.
I am now printing every post from every string I can find since your \'Maryland My Maryland\' started all of this -- so far it is running almost 80 pages.
Over the weekend and on Monday, I will be hitching up the old suspenders and polishing the wingtips.
I will go through the posts and provide a summary (with citations and word for word quotes) pointing out where you and/or Alydar have:
1) Failed to answer a question
2) Given a spurious nonresponse
3) Changed the argument
4) Pulled some other trick (e.g., calling Friedman a liar without having the guts to call him a liar) to avoid admitting something you find unpleasant to admit.
I look forward to the same from you.
This is going to be fun!
Go get \'em Dave! It\'s about time someone brought those guys down to earth. Have a great trip. HP
I now request that david patent be banned.
HP --
\"You won\'t be seeing any picks from Len Friedman up here, and he\'s not \'ducking\' anything either.\"
it ain\'t his site.
so, are you telling me that there\'s such a thing as a gentlemen\'s bet, but not a gentlemen\'s contest?
the prize is that you can lord it over the losers for as long as you like -- how about that?
...and I still say jerry will duck this.
ps
based on the public picks I\'ve seen, I have no doubt that you know how to use the data better than jerry.
but, considering how he makes his numbers, I find that a little disturbing....
I\'ve never heard of a Gentleman\'s Contest. Sounds fruity to me. What kind of contest doesn\'t have a prize? I already lord it over everyone I know (except at home) whether I win or lose, so that\'s not much incentive.
What difference does it make whose site it is? Friedman could post here if he wanted to.
I\'m bowing out here before this gets nuts. Jerry makes figures. He\'s no handicapper. If these guys were such good handicappers, they wouldn\'t need to sell figures, right? I figured this out awhile ago. Get with it.
My next post will be my picks/analysis, probably on Friday (Patent has said his will be up earlier). No one\'s paying attention to my devastating and clever posts anyway between these multi-page citings and cross citings. Eighty pages? Whew. I have a job. I can\'t keep up with these Ivy League types. They\'re like supermen!
In the meantime, everybody be nice and make money. HP
Superfreakicus: I don\'t know how to cut and paste. I don\'t really know how to type (secretarial work), either, but I have gotten fast with two fingers.
David: Your \"grassy knoll\" line is unbearably trite. I don\'t want to see anything that stale when you reply to me. If necessary, get someone to help you.
I look forward to your reply. Please answer all the questions. I will be happy to do the same.
I\'ll leave 2, 3, and 4 to Alydar, if he wants it. I\'ll deal with 1, and I bet you don\'t answer my questions directly this time either. I will say that you have done a good job distracting everyone from the original point, which was to compare the Ragozin and TG Preakness sheets.
So you figure I should post picks for free, while also charging for them, so that I can have a contest which if I win does nothing for me (after all, if I win all I did was beat David Patent), and if I lose he\'s beating Jerry Brown. Anticipating your next wisecrack--when I challenged Friedman there was an awful lot of potential customers on both sides at stake, and I was well known. Winning that one would have been big publicity for either of us. And if he wants to do it for Belmont day, I\'ll give up charging for the analysis for the day.
1. Presumably, the reason you have never addressed my statement that the one and only scientfic way to determine the validity of any theory is to test to determine if the theory can be refuted is because you recognize this basic truth.
2. The reason I bring this up is not to try to convince you to stop your efforts, either because Alydar is winning the debate or because I\'m not enjoying the exchange, which I am.
3. Likewise, I think your contest with HP was a great & has already been an entertaining idea, though I assume you would agree that all it\'s likely to \"prove\" is that one of you was a better handicapper on one particular day.
4. The 1st thing to think about, then, is how would one refute one or the other figure making theories which are under consideration?
5. The contests & challenges which have been suggested in the past all seem to suffer from the same problem, namely that they would test handicapping skill rather than figure making methodology.
6. I suggest one possible method for testing figure making methods would be for a TG user & a Rags\' user(it doesn\'t have to be you) to commit in advance to use both products for the entire length of this yr\'s Sar meet and post, in advance, the major differences between the two on a daily basis. By major differences I mean situations where, for example, one product has a horse going backwards in its most recent race & the other has the horse moving forward, or the horse lays over the field using one product & is 1 of 3 or 4 contenders using the other. There may be other major differences, but these are the two I saw most often doing this for approx 75 races in April. BTW, there are not as many major differences as you might think, and it does not take that much additional time if you\'re going to handicap the race anyway to spot them.
7. One possible drawback might be cost, so I suggest that the TG user buy the Rags & see if JB would be willing to supply TG gratis for the test, while the Rags user sets up a computer account and orders TG online and sees if Robes will supply rags gratis for the duration of the test. That way, neither service loses a sale.
8. The second thing you might want to think about are your comments about censorship on one Bd vs the other. Again, the results tell the tale, at least if you\'re willing to compare the number,variety, breadth, etc of the posts on this Bd vs Rags over just the last two weeks. When I 1st started posting on this Bd I used to think, wrongly I learned, that most were content to simply follow JB no matter what. Now I\'m convinced that it\'s the other Bd that is little more than a place where the truly devoted can ask Robes what he thinks about various patterns. Can anyone honestly imagine anything even remotely approaching what has taken place on this Bd over the last 2 weeks ever happening on the Rags Bd?
Guess What? Except for a few guys with too much time on their hands, nobody cares. Why not stop writing about this nonsence and do something important, like figuring out how to accept orders from us AmEx users?
Post your picks for free!!!! The horror.
The thing I think you have always failed to understand is that there is not a single experienced Ragozin user out there who would switch sheets because you beat Friedman in a handicapping contest. That is because we are smart enough to understand that answering who is a better handicapper (particularly on one particular day) has almost nothing to do with the quality of the sheets.
Other than some interest on what Friedman thinks of certain patterns, I have no use for his picks in any race. That is because I have spent the time to learn how to use the sheets on my own. Often, I disagree with him, and we are using the same numbers.
Your obsession with picking \"winners,\" instead of making accurate numbers, makes you appear to be just another tout instead of a serious sheet maker. That is why you will generally be relegated to those passing users (yes, I am sure there are also a few serious horse players who use Thorograph) who want someone to pick a winner for them instead of serious players looking for the best numbers. I don\'t think Ragozin skips any sleep over the fact that he loses these customers to you.
Jason,
How do you know that most \"serious players\" use the Ragozin sheets. Did you take a survey? I would be very interested in your method of observation.
That one\'s on me. We\'ll get it fixed by Tuesday or sooner.
Frankly, many of the serious horse players I know use neither, but the one\'s that use sheets use Ragozin. That is certainly not empirical, but I can infer the sophistication of the user by JB\'s marketing approach. Any serious user would not be overly concerned with getting his picks. Frankly, none of us should care who makes the numbers or what that person\'s opinion of a particular race is. What we should care about is that the numbers accurately reflect reality. That is my overriding goal in purchasing numbers. I do not contend that Ragozin is 100% accurate, but is the closest I have ever seen, and thus I use them.
Frankly, I don\'t want my sheet maker to be in the business of giving picks. Maybe some tips on how to read the sheets, but not picks in individual races. That only leads to laziness on the users part and hinders your own analysis of the race. JB constantly attacks Friedman for not being definitive on his selections. Any person who is definite on betting a horse without knowing the odds is destined to lose regardless of the quality of the numbers. Picking races in advance, gives the picker an incentive to pick winners and not maximize return, which is all a horseplayer should care about. Finally, the act of picking races provides an incentive to make the numbers conform to the picks. I am not accusing JB of doing this, but I think there is an inherent conflict of interest in having the same person make the numbers and then pick the races for marketing purposes.
I\'ll give my stuff to Ragozin customers for this test whether Friedman does or not, and whether my guys want to use their stuff or not, as long as the Ragozin guys post in advance.
Your last paragraph is not only 180 degrees off, but indicates you haven\'t been following this argument, which is SOLELY about differences in figure making methods.
Rumor has it that Jason L is under consideration to receive the first annual Bill Clinton Medallion of Merit. Bill Clinton has decided that as a means of giving back to his ardent supporters, he will set up a fund for this perpetual award. It will be dedicated annually to the individual demonstrating the most artful evasion techniques. Best of Luck Jason.
Tabi
\". Can anyone honestly imagine anything even remotely approaching what has taken place on this Bd over the last 2 weeks ever happening on the Rags Bd? \"
...and can anyone honestly imagine wishing for this...?
Yes, the prior debate was about how the numbers are generated, but I was not responding to that debate, I was responding to your resistance to give your picks away for free. My point is that if you want serious horse players to take you seriously you wouldn\'t worry about \"selling\" your picks at all.
My point also was not that there are no serious horse players that use TG. As I said before, I am sure there are some. But your recent marketing approach (providing analysis, selling through youbet) is geared not toward getting the serious horse player, but to the lazy user who wants someone to the handicapping work for them. Otherwise, you wouldn\'t care that were giving away picks for free in ONE race dat. You didn\'t say you would not be providing picks to the Belmont, only that you would not provide them for free. Thus, the comparison to Mr. Patent and anybody else can be made after the fact. Obviously, much of your motive for not posting your picks is that you feel that would preclude some of your target audience from buying your sheets at all. I think it is fair then to say that you provide picks as a means of attracting people who don\'t really care about your numbers, but care about your picks.
Look, I don\'t really care that as a means of making money, you sell your picks. But personally, as I said before, I really don\'t wany my sheet maker to become a tout. If Friedman provided his picks for more than just the triple crown and Breeder\'s Cup, I would be similarly suspicious. But, as it stands now, Friedman gives the picks on selected days for free and makes you pay for the numbers (And as you repeatedly point out, he really does not give picks as much as his analysis of each horse). I think that is telling about what he thinks is more valuable and what should be more valuable to a serious horse player.
I don\'t know where to begin with this, and I don\'t want to waste a lot of time on it.
1- Lots of serious players buy our data, many (I do mean many) are ex-Raggies.
2- Our \"recent marketing approach, providing analysis etc...\" has been going on a long time, and it\'s not a marketing approach, except in the sense that all business is. The picks represent a tiny portion (less than 5%) of our annual income, and we don\'t really push it.
3- The proof that we are more geared to the serious player than Ragozin is the huge amount of additional serious handicapping tools we offer at no additional price, and the constant improvements. That, by the way, is our marketing approach.
4- I have no problem with anyone comparing their published picks to mine, which will be in the Red Board Room.
5- Friedman charges for his opinions on Breeders Cup Day, and still won\'t make definitive picks. Jonathan Hardoon charges for his picks on a 900 line, and he is billed as \"of the Ragozin Sheets\".
In fairness, I do think a lot of the information you provide with your sheets (such as trainer stats) is valuable and your distribution system is far superior. Also, I also think that Hardoon is a joke (there is also the time a few years ago that he was giving picks in the LA Times). But Hardoon does not make the numbers, and I still stand by the fact that I think it is a bad idea for the number makers to become touts. Friedman does it so sparingly that it does not bother me too much.
I used to use rags sheets but in light of what i\'m reading here I won\'t touch them again.Iwas at Aqueduct when FuPeg won the Wood ,Iseen the track super change the track a few times that day ,first they had it sealed then they harrowed it again ,then resealed it .In a span of 3 races the track played significantly different .I don\'t know a whole lot about variances but if this is not reflected in a product I would have alot of trouble risking my hard earned money on it.
And because of your lack of.... arguing with you isn\'t. See you at the track, Alydar.
I will pick the time and place. Patrick Morgans cannot be choosers.