Just got back from playing St. Andrews (43 on the front, as good as I can play, blew up on the back, although the heat and 30 mph wind didn\'t help any).
More annoying stuff to deal with, mostly from Friedman.
1-- The study Len quotes is very old, from way back when we had hand written sheets. It was done by a guy with a Vegas newsletter. It featured several mechanically done studies (best last number, etc.), and Ragozin did better than we did, although as I remember, worse than others did (specifically, the old DRF figures based on track records, I believe). The guy who did the study, Jim Bayle, said himself that he was not satisfied with it and did not think it was meaningful. So he later gathered data from Ragozin, us, and several other figure makers, for six months, at something like 10 circuits. After doing all that he did not run the studies, because it was interfering with his betting (!!!).
2-- Let me get this straight, Len. You don\'t want to do Jimbo\'s study because it is purely mechanical and doesn\'t take into account patterns, but you quote the results of a decade-plus old study that was done purely mechanically and doesn\'t take into account patterns. Do I have that right?
I\'ll let the rest of Len\'s nonsense go. But I\'ll say that while we both use patterns, those will wash out over a long run-- meaning, in one race it will hurt one of us that we are not using patterns, in another it will hurt the other-- and, the patterns are always a matter of opinion and percentages (see the Thoro-Patterns). Numbers are numbers, and in the long run, faster horses will beat slower horses. There are lots of ways to do a study, but Jimbo\'s works for me, although I would do the scoring a little differently. I\'m willing to do it, there is really no reason that Len would not if he has confidence in his figures, except for marketing reasons.
But also-- Indulto, you are such a putz. In case you haven\'t noticed, the sheer number of posts about me and TG on the Rag board is staggering-- like, maybe half the posts there, more than that recently. Maybe 5% of the ones on this board are about Friedman or Ragozin, or even JJ. In that recent exchange, there were at least 5 times as many posts attacking me and calling me names as those going in the opposite direction. Did you even notice?
Jimbo can take care of himself (and you, without breaking a sweat), but one more thing you might want to think through: he is proposing an objective, purely mechanical test. While it may or may not be indicative, there is no way, especially since he wants to recruit a Ragozin guy to do it with him, that it can be biased in my favor. So how in that weak brain of yours do you come up with the idea that it is some nefarious plot? Objective tests of data are bad, and insidious TG doings? Do you read the stuff you write?
what\'s the big deal with this : \"2-- Let me get this straight, Len. You don\'t want to do Jimbo\'s study because it is purely mechanical and doesn\'t take into account patterns, but you quote the results of a decade-plus old study that was done purely mechanically and doesn\'t take into account patterns. Do I have that right?\"
He said no to doing it, but if he wanted to really know about doing something like it, there\'s already been a study done. Let me ask you this........Why would even any of you guys ( Len--Jerry ) want to do a test like this anyhow. This is not how you teach your people to use the product, what if one or the other did real bad, what would it do?? Nothing, that\'s why one of you would say what I just said, that\'s not how we use our product. The big studys should be done in pattern\'s and bounces and good stuff like that. Jerry you down for something like that anyways--the best fig. out of the last three crap?? Hell what if they threw in beyers number\'s and they did better, ouch.
Kev,
I think I was pretty clear on the other board in that I mentioned more than once that I was very open to suggestions on how to do the study. There has to be a way to compare the products, I would think that any user of either product would realize that. Of course, I know that patterns are part of how most of us use the products, but how exactly would that be factored into the study, without adding any level of subjectivity, which ruins the effectiveness of it.
It is also pretty clear with Friedman\'s dumb comments \"Sheets have no competition\", \"We don\'t do marketing\", etc.etc, that he has no interest in a comparison of the products. Last time I checked, we lived in the U.S. and it is a capitalistic society, all products have competition, even the \"Sheets\". The fact that he claims he does no marketing, yet apparently supplies his product free of charge to guys like Frankel in exchange for public testimonials, shows he is being more than a little disingenuous. By the way, I think what he does with Frankel and a few others is good solid marketing, but to make stupid statements that are misleading on his board is not honest.
TGJB-- Congrats on the 43. Sounds like you \"bounced\" on the back 9, but of course the wind should be taken into account.
Jimbo-- Since these various tools are used in different ways by different people, my belief is that it would be very difficult to rate these products(Beyer, Sheets, TGs) in any scientific way.
Possibly the most efficient way to undertake the comparison you mentioned would be for a single unbiased handicapper to use both products during a meet, alternate days or maybe alternate weeks. Considering the fact that Rags and TG are making figures for tracks all over the country all year round, a sample based on results from one short meet wouldn\'t be too convincing.
To this neophyte, the tools produced by The Guru Jerry Brown and the self proclaimed \"Father\" of all speed figures seem so similar in terms of methodology-identifying patterns, seeking animals ready to peak, avoiding animals ready to bounce.
These are both good products, IMO. I feel comfortable preferring to use one without disparaging the other. The long running feud between Rags and TGJB, the colorful vituperations of some of the posters on the other board, these are nothing more than sometimes entertaining distractions.
That\'s cool. I don\'t know if there could be a way of doing a pattern study vs. both companies. Take ten Rag. user\'s and ten TG user\'s and there would be so many ways people would look at each horses lines. I have tired this along time ago with both products, mostly on BC day. I could do it, because I know what pattern\'s look good to me, but they might have looked different to someone else. Why did all of this come about??
Kev,
I gave my honest motive on the other board. I am a gambler and am open to any theories or products that increase my ROI. I think that comparing the products would prove interesting. I did some less formal comparisons this summer with a few Rags users and it peaked my interest. The two companies disagree alot. It would be worth it to me to spend some time and money to compare them.
Patterns are of course important, but you must realize how different the patterns for the same horse can look on each of the products? Since you have used both products before at the same time, you would know that on one product, a horse could be sitting on 0-2 and be ready to \"x\", while on the other he may have paired up his top and be ready to move forward. That is why to me, the simple mathematical formula I proposed would provide a way to see whose figures are more accurate, despite the lack of pattern reading in the study. Reading and interpreting patterns is more style than substance, knowing which horses are the fastest before the race is more important to me. If I know that, I can start from there and figure it they can run back to it. But like I said in my post, that was just my opinion, I am open to alternative ways to measure the data.
RichieBee,
Respectfully disagree with your post. Sheets and Thorographs are not used in different ways. They are used in very similar ways. For this reason, the quality of the data is key. How we as handicappers interpret that, is our own issue. But the figures have to be as accurate as possible.
I dont how you intend to do an objective study.
If one set of figures more accurately depicts the truth regarding the efforts run, the pattern reads with that set should result in more reliable projections regarding the coming effort. However, the subjective human interpretations exist as well. Will the horse bounce, regress marginally, pair or move forward?
I don\'t think the Rags are nearly as good as TFigs, but even if they agreed to a study, I just don\'t think its possible to use a study to determine how accurate the projections were.
For horse racing there is only one machine that is nimble enough to take all the data and vary the weight assigned to it depending upon the scenario. Its the human mind.
I didn\'t see the proposed study. If someone has it in text please print it. I\'d like to review it.
CtC
I\'m no statistics major, and I didn\'t see Jim\'s proposal for the study. I\'m a lurker, and a very minor player, but this certainly piques my interest. My suggestion:
10 players, competently trained to each system, and with their own individual backgrounds of experience handicapping - obviously not novices. 5 use TG, 5 sheets. Heck, you could even add 5 more using Beyers.
Each handicaps all races on the card for one or two designated days a week, at a designated meet, throughout a 6-month period. At 13 weeks (halfway) into the study, they simply switch products and continue.
They handicap their usual way, watching simulcast, tote, track conditions, whatever additional adjuncts they normally use with the exception of the other product.
They have to pick three horses: designated most likely winner, and two additional placers in no particular order. This has to be submitted somewhere (time/date stamped e-mail) before each race.
Players have to be dedicated enough to not be sloppy on the assigned handicapping day - offer the player at the end with the largest straight win percent $500 or something.
Will yield objective analysis by many different measures: % wins, % place/show, breakdown by type of race (turf, sprint, route, maiden, age, etc), \"quality\" of track/meet/horses/trainers, payoffs for variety of bet types placed on those three horses can be created in the lab later with ROI for each type of bet based upon real payoffs calculated, etc.
The working hypothesis is that there is no difference in results between products.
Alot of the \"statistical nightmare\" worries of individual user differences and style of handicapping or betting inherently and simply taken care of by the double-blind study design.
I\'d be willing to bet that the win percentage for both products will be very similar if the sample size is large enough. In fact, I\'d bet they will be so close you won\'t be able to tell whether the difference can be attributed to the quality of the product or randomness. The ROI result will at least partly be a function of whose figures are contributing more money to the pools - also not a matter of quality.
I\'ve done some smaller studies on different sets of speed figures that I thought were of high quality (never TG and RAG though) and they always produced very similar net results despite the fact that they often disagreed on who the fastest horse was. It was enough to convince me that very small differences in the figures don\'t matter much to the win percentage and that it\'s highly likely that no one has a monopoly on mistake free figures when we are talking about a length here or there.
I think the real trick is those occasional races where there is a huge discrepancy due to either methodology or interpretation. IMO, those don\'t show up often enough to infuence the aggregate results heavily, but if you have a preference for some reason, IMO that should probably decide whose figures you use.
The problem with any type of comparison is the person interpreting the figs. I\'m friends with many RAG users and we compare figs and opinions all the time. Sometimes they are right and sometimes I\'m right. I win more often than my RAG friends BUT I\'m more into \"spot\"shots and they are into spreading and stabbing in the exotics and multi wagers. Not a fair comparison.
One way to compare would be to get a few experienced sheet players from both camps and give them both sets of data. Let them handicap a card with TG and make their selections. Next,let them handicap the same card using Rags and make their selections.I think after 30 cards in should be fairly evident how successful each person is with both sets of data.
Of course, TG and RAGS could put together a serious, legal, \"buy in\" type contest where everyone could put there serious money where their big...err opinion is.The results of such a contest may give some indication as to which data is more solid. On the other hand, it may only prove who is the best interpreter.
Listen JB. Listen I may have to settle the score once and for all aand buy your selections everyday for a couple of weeks and pick my selections using the oh so very ACCURATE SHEETS. Yes I know you don\'t make the selections but it is your product and you obviously have faith in him/her. I am sure I could just track the results of your selection and that would be just as good. Better yet how about me and you have a contest. I\'ll put up a thousand bucks, chump change to you thanks to your endless promoting.
Beau-- I have a better idea. Talk Friedman into taking me up on one of my ten or so challenges to a long-term handicapping contest, and you and I can bet on that. And more than a thousand.
Assuming Friedman and the Rags powers that be are not going to acquiesce to a \"study\", why don\'t you guys accept Horsegoers challenge for a period of two weeks?
Equal Number of Raggies vs. equal number of TFig devotees.
They can pick their Rags winners and TGraph users can pick their TFig winners.
Saratoga and Belmont, winners for the card selected by pre offtime postings. One winner selected per race scores two points for a win, one point for a place. (Reliability is the issue, so the 100 dollar winner shouldn\'t skew the contest/study.)
Its more contest than study, but contest is the only way to prove the superiority of the figure in the long run.
One player might get lucky. But with 10 on each side that probability lessens. Total wins, total points determine winning team and figures.
Kinda a group contest
That might be an interesting handicapping contest but it wouldn\'t say much about the figures. It would say something about the skill of the handicappers. The only way to measure the figures is to remove all human/subjective elements from the selections - like best figure last time out, best of last 2, average of last 2 etc....
By the way, that wouldn\'t be true if you were comparing figures other than RAG and TG because Beyer, Bris etc... don\'t incorporate ground loss and weight.
If you compared anyone other than TG and Rags, you would be measuring both the quality and whether or not adding those things into the figure is a net plus or minus whithout really being able to tell whether quality or content was the reason for the performance.
Kev-- let me make the point clearly. The single most important handicapping decision you make is about what data you use to make your decisions, since all decisions that follow are based on that one. That doesn\'t just go for which sheets to use, it applies to whether one should use sheets at all, and for that matter whether one should look for patterns.
With that in mind, trying to determine which data is better should be of paramount importance to all sheet players, as it is to Jimbo-- especially if you are looking for patterns, where those small difference can make a BIG difference.
I like the last 3 numbers, toss the worst, average the other 2 approach, in terms of giving an overall power rating. It\'s not perfect, Len and I would undoubtedly bet against the top rated horse often. But as I said, over a large sampling those pattern questions would wash out, from a statistical point of view, leaving it to a simple question of who is fastest, next fastest, etc.. It eliminates all judgment questions and arguments.
I would score it this way-- rate all the horses in every race that way, for both of us, in order. If the winning horse was number 2 on theirs and 4 on ours, they win. You could also do other studies-- top rated horse for both in every race, in terms of win % and ROI, for example. And if Len wants to go farther back with the figures, you could take best 3 of last 5 or something like that, or best top, although I think the original idea is most reflective of horses\' current abilty.
Class there is no way to tell what the \"best\" figure is. The issue is whether the figures are accurate enough to isolate winners. The only way to tell that is to determine success rates using them.
Unless I\'m missing what you\'re implying.
classhandicapper Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> That might be an interesting handicapping contest
> but it wouldn\'t say much about the figures. It
> would say something about the skill of the
> handicappers. The only way to measure the figures
> is to remove all human/subjective elements from
> the selections - like best figure last time out,
> best of last 2, average of last 2 etc....
>
How you can get a good idea on which product is better is to look at them race by race and see a sheet for a particular horse and say well on thoro this horse is backward moving and on the sheets he is forward moving and see hoe he runs. or he is off a top on one sheet and looks , to most sheet readers, like he should regress but on the other the pattern is entirely different...more positive, and see hoe he runs. I am should there are major differences in the patterns of some horse between the two products. And, for the most part, there is general agreement between most sheet readers about a pattern of a horse and whether it is postive, negative or nuetral.
CTC,
If you are trying to get at who is producing the most accurate figures, you have to remove the handicapping skill from the results and it has to be an apples to apples comparison.
You can\'t isolate the quality of the figures using handicappers that might have different skill levels. I could probably get better results than my grandmother using raw final times no matter what set of figures you gave her. :)
You can\'t compare speed figures with weight and ground loss to those without because you can\'t tell if the different results are because of the quality of the figures or the incremental information included in one set vs. the other.
To determine if incremental information is better you have to compare the results using the same set of figures with and without the incremental information.
Class,
Put me down for a thousand on your grandmother........ ;)
She likes Zito\'s horse in the 2nd at Saratoga. She just called me. She\'s looking for a big forward move. :)
She likes Zito again in the 6th for the same reason, but I think she\'s steaming a little because she in the hole for the day.
Okay, here we go again. Len has this time not just taken a shot at me, but at a customer of mine. Again, Jimbo can handle it, but I\'m going to make a couple of points:
1-- \"I\'ve generally been pretty good at ignoring the lies about the SHEETS and myself that appear regularly elsewhere...\"
Len, don\'t hold back. Please do everybody a favor, and respond directly to my \"lies\" next time. For once. You can even do it here.
2-- Not that it matters, but Jimbo\'s comments characterized your comments, not you. See above for what he actually said, and context. Some of that context is that this started with Jimbo politely proposing that Ragozin guys join him in an objective test of both data services. Readers can draw their own conclusions as to why that struck a nerve.
3-- Oh, Len. I don\'t know whether you give the data to Frankel for free, but I doubt it. I think you give it to him and others for very little, which has the same effect. In fact, I have asked you publicly to tell us your rates for horsemen a couple of times, so the public can have some context in comparing the policies of the two companies. Since you are OUTRAGED at Jimbo\'s suggestion, how about clearing things up once and for all? I went through the math once on this site, and I think it worked out that even if I gave Frankel a 50% discount for bulk, I would charge him something like 250k a year. What do you charge him? What does he get?
4-- We have a conundrum. You say you don\'t give your data to any media/track employee for free in exchange for any testimonials. Yet Harvey Pack has gone on record publicly many times saying he gets your data for free, and he not only pushed your data and ripped TG while wearing a NYRA jacket at the \"Paddock Club\" a few dozen times (he used to call us the \"cheap sheets\", until I called the NYRA head of marketing and put a stop to it), he also quoted your figures and barred anyone from saying \"Thoro-Graph\" on the NYRA replay show for years, and made them re-tape a segment when Phil Johnson quoted one of our figures.
Was Harvey lying? Does he pay for your sheets?
5-- \"I\'ve posted this here where it can\'t be directly replied to as there is nothing here that needs any comment or debate pro or con...\"
Of course that\'s why you did it.
Jerry,
Where is the message that you are responding to? I don\'t see it on the \"other board\".
Under \"Len Friedman says\". They gave it it\'s own section so it could not be replied to, because it does not rate a reply. You\'ll probably disagree.
Try not to burst a blood vessel. I\'m about running out of them, myself, although some were from laughing.
I can\'t believe the shiny- headed stooge took a shot at the TG product. HIS schtick was tired 15 years ago.
Just a question for Bill Spillane or TGJB. Is there any track or simulcast facility where one product or the other (Rags or TGs) has exclusive distribution rights? Where one is sold and not the other?
There have been some over the years. Garden State wouldn\'t let us in when a certain individual was calling the shot, giving Ragozin an exclusive. Ragozin doesn\'t sell at the OTB teletheaters, I don\'t know whether they want to or not.
A certain Raggie got a job at Calder and tried to get us tossed last year, but I called Ken Dunn and got it straightened out. There could be others, I would have to think about it. But at this point all the action is here on the web, so it doesn\'t matter that much.
Harvey\'s OK.Why he plugs RAGS, I don\'t know but Jan Rushton frequently references TG figs in her pre race analysis.
Jan gets free data from us, and when we do it, with her and others, we demand no quid pro quo-- we assume that if people are using it they think it has value, and will eventually say so.
I didn\'t have a problem with Harvey saying he liked Ragozin, I had a problem with the way he treated us, and those guests who used our data. It was particularly annoying because NYRA didn\'t (and I believe still does not) make a dime on Ragozin sales, which are from a privately owned stand, while we sell from a NYRA stand, which made Harvey\'s acts something of a conflict of interest.
My problem with what Ragozin does with horsemen (give them bulk data dirt cheap, like DRF customer service) is that it accomplishes it\'s intent-- which, as Jimbo says, is marketing. They do not have any kind of serious record with horsemen, unlike us. But by charging (literally) less than 5% of what we do, they are able to get horsemen using their product, and talking about it. Ragozin figures have all the exclusivity of Beyers, with horsemen.
I can\'t even get mad. I certainly didn\'t call him stupid or dumb. It has been a number of years since namecalling was \"in\". About 3rd grade, from what I remember.
His comments on his board were dumb and disingenuous. As anybody that runs any kind of business will tell you, every business has competitors and marketing is part of any business model. Even us \"dumb gamblers\" realize that. For Len to say he has no competitors, doesn\'t market, doesn\'t need to market, etc.etc. was just a sermon on the mount to appear \"above it all\" for his customer base. I am sure he has a customer base that is smart enough to see through that kind of BS, but none of them apparently post on his board.
He was very very quick to react negatively to my post regarding a study of the products. As most objective people know, there is no way to predict what would have happened in that study. I am sure that Jerry is confident his product is better and the guys over there should feel confident that theirs is better. But Len\'s reaction to the study, as well as his lack of reaction to various handicapping contests, is a telling sign.
Interesting how he tried to make the study that I proposed into an issue about paying for his product. What the heck is that all about? Having a daily user of his product work with me (a daily user of the Tgraph product), and compare the numbers to see which numbers hold up better was a proposal to compare the figures. Not some longwinded scheme for me to avoid paying $25 for his product or for the RAgs user to avoid the $25 for the Tgraph product. How stupid is that?
For the record, it is very clear in the study that Len sent me (12 years old) that the figures from all providers in the study were given free of charge. Not that I was asking for that, but I just want to point out how he tried to create some type of octopus ink cloud to avoid the real topics.
TGJB,
There is nothing wrong with Jan getting free data and referencing it on the air.Don\'t know if you and Old Harvey have back history but he did say on the DRF seminar show that Len and Andy belong in the Racing Hall Of Fame as the Fathers of Speed Figures.
Miff- Don\'t get me started.
Anyway, if you saw the speed figure panel, you saw the Donaldson book from the 1930s. If not, check out \"History lesson\" in the archives here.
IMO, all this \"father of speed figures\" stuff is silly. The first day I bought the DRF I was comparing the final times of horses at the same distance. I knew absolutely nothing, but it was an obvious place to start. I\'d be willing to bet that people have been making basic speed figures since the very first day gambling on horses began. They just didn\'t publish their work. I remember reading Ray Talbout\'s book in the mid 70s (and it was a pretty old book then) and it had a parallel time chart for speed \"and pace figure\" calculations in it etc... Tom Ainsle had speed figure charts in his book from the 60s.
Along the way the process has clearly been refined and people have set aside comparative class handicapping in favor of numbers, but that\'s about it. Speed handicappers have been around since day 1. It\'s too obvious a place to start.
CH-- you are right, and if you haven\'t done so already, \"History Lesson\" is required reading. That book (\"Consistent Handicapping Profits\") was a real eye opener.
I heard from old timers when I first went to the track 40 years ago that Julie Fink and the speed boys were the sharpest fig guys at the track.
Horse, are you a TG user?? If so this wouldn\'t work, that\'s just silly( little bias maybe?). I don\'t think were ever going to fine whose better, also that little thing about throwing out the worse and avg. the best 2 of the 3. Ok this is a study done by the guys at HTR--They use a speed fig. from Jim Cramer. This is on the best last race speed fig. won at 27.9%, now they did one where they threw out the 2 best speed figs in the last three ( which left the worse one ) and whatever horse had the highest worse fig. won at 25.0% the ROI was about the same. The DRF speed ( no Variant ) won 24.6% best last race and the DRF + Var. won at 25.0%. 9,604 races were tested. Point is any of this BS is a waste of time. The top Beyer fig. wins at 25.4% based on a 16,450 race study. That\'s why pattern\'s should be study, like TG does, somewhat.
\"Len Friedman says\" .. is that like \"Soupy Sez\" from the old Soupy Sales TV show?
My favorite \"Soupy Sez\" of all time: \"Early to bed,early to rise, and you won\'t have red in the whites of your eyes\".
Sorry to read the obituary of Paul Fout in this week\'s Blood Horse (his son, Doug, trains Hirapour, who is running in the NY Turf Writers Cap today). Paul Fout was a top notch \'chase trainer who at least once a summer seemed to put over a runner on the flat at a decent mutuel at the Spa. He trained the only female ever to be named steeplechase champion (Life\'s Illusion).
Was going to drive to Spa for one day, but the $80 it would have cost me in gas will be sent through the (cyber)windows instead.