Has anyone noticed the trends that I have? First off doing a ROTW at Woodbine is ridiculous. Thorograph seems to be all about marketing these days, not client based.
What\'s good for TVG comes first, not that anyone one bets Woodbine. Second there seems to be a preponderance of gossip and innuendo. Who\'s on a milkshake, etc etc. How about concentrating on the numbers or on any mistakes that might be made?
I have seen many, many mistakes the last few months, but have not notified Jerry of them as he will never admit that Thorograph makes a mistake, ONLY THE OTHER SERVICE IS CAPABLE OF THAT!
Another example is releasing a speed point service without testing whether they are accurate. I actually asked Jerry about this and he informed me that they are only a \"guide\".
I am sick and tired of paying for information that is not accurate, I don\'t care who produces it. Anyway that\'s my beef for this week.
JB is away for the weekend. He knows you High Roller, I don\'t. Frankly I don\'t know whether to respond to this or just leave it. I guess I\'m responding. JB will address you at a later time if he chooses to do so.
It\'s true we have a business relationship w/TVG and that\'s a major factor in determining the ROTW lately. But let\'s consider how that\'s played out. The Preakness--free. The Belmont--free. The Metropolitan Mile--free-. The Californian--free. The Derby Trial--free. The Coolmore Lexington--free. The Wood--free. The lineup here really isn\'t that bad,is it ? Now I know other services provide a ROTW as well. Do you know why? Because we, THORO-GRAPH, started it in 1996. Others followed. Seems to me that\'s been good for all of us for the last 12 years.
This week the Queen\'s Plate is the ROTW--15 horses, $1 Million purse. Any other $1 Million races around this weekend? Virtually all North American racing jurisdictions are taking the race. Why is it \"ridculous\" What does that mean? And if you have a criticism--explain the nature of the beef so we can have discourse rather than name calling. Why is it ridiculous? Can you get Woodbine? Can you bet Woodbine? Is it the polytrack? Canadian? Not American? I mean, what\'s the beef?
What are the mistakes? We can\'t fix them, if we don\'t know what they are.
As for the speed points system, I believe you\'re talking about race shapes--now available electronically on our website. We made known that we were beta testing them and asked that any people noticing inconsistencies or perceived mistakes, inform us. We did not charge for the product at that time. We were trying to elicit comments, observations, and get a feel for the market from the people for which the product was designed. That seems logical and appropriate, doesn\'t it? You apprarently contributed to this dialgoue, so thanks for your input.
We certainly can\'t claim 100% accuracy interminably. Mistakes do get through on occasion. But we do claim to make a 100% effort to make sure it doesn\'t happen.
Queens Plate Day is the Canadian Derby Day. The Card is outstanding. Full fields and 5-6 Stakes races. One of the Satellite/Cable crews carry the races and TwinSpires has a DSL Link.
Stop Bitching and Start Betting.
the only errors I ever find remotely consistent (is that possible?) are that the # are wrong on the analysis...so unless you triple check it, you\'re kind of screwed...othere than that, not much to ponder for me. They tell you to check the damn things.
On a side note, Stein\'s show called TG a \"copycat\" or something of that nature a few weeks back..I\'ve never read the competition, never been on their board...my counter info is Trackmaster.
I couldn\'t have asked for a better race for the ROTW than the Queen\'s Plate. 15 entered and some big odds potentials. Can\'t wait to disect it once it is posted. Thanks. You can\'t please everyone.
I can\'t believe that anyone complains at all about getting free data for one of the big races each week let alone a million dollar race with 15 entries.
Complaining about this is ridiculous.
Sorry if you had a bad day at the office/windows (which is what I would guess lead to this silly post) but this criticism is misplaced.
TG, thanks for the free data which has made me alot of money this year (and in years past).
whatever the merits - or lack thereof - of the initial complaint posted, the selection of the Plate as the ROW can not be seriously questioned - what a race!
but perhaps you should have selected the Grade II NY Handicap with a field of five - with one hopelessly over-matched.....
I don\'t listen to Stein\'s show on a regular basis, but the times that I have, Jon Hardoon was on there touting horses. Hardoon is The Sheets rep in California. So Stein might be a little biased in his opinions on this matter.
Pete
Plus, saying \"it\'s all about TVG\"...they don\'t carry Woodbine, or at least they don\'t show the races on their channel. So scratch that complaint off the list.
Woodbine is a wasted week for me. Vegas won\'t take a bet. I bitch every time Woodbine is ROTW. The Queen\'s Plate is a great choice,but I\'d prefer something to bet on. Stop kissing up, Brown doesn\'t need it.......
For this I come back from vacation.
1-- We\'ve done the Queen\'s Plate almost every year, maybe every year, since 1997. It\'s their Kentucky derby. I guess this is news to you.
2-- During that time we\'ve given away data for around 500 races. You also use Ragozin, what has he given you? We give you free ice cream, you complain it\'s not mint chocolate chip.
3-- Feel free to show us any mistakes we make, we\'ll be glad to take a look at them. We always do (ask Miff), and we always report back here. This is another major difference between us and the boys on 11th st.-- we have pointed out many outright mistakes they have made in big races, and demonstrated publicly that they are definitely actual mistakes (like getting the beaten lengths wrong by a lot in the SJ Derby). The Ragozin office refused to acknowledge OR CORRECT the errors.
4-- You are right, I am very interested in getting the game cleaned up, and I am using this board, my position, and my leverage with bettors to accomplish that. Sue me.
5-- Race Shapes--
a) At the point we had that conversation they were being tested, and were free.
b) They are not \"speed points\". That\'s your thing, not ours.
c) They are a guide. By definition. Which does not mean they are not accurate. But when you use an average interesting things can happen. Like-- if you look at last week\'s ROTW, you\'ll see that for Tres Borrachos, his graph was thrown off by his previous start, in the Preakness, where he had a lot of trouble early. His adjusted quarter time for that race was about 3 seconds (from memory) slower than the two that preceded it, and it dragged down his average. With a clean break he figured to show more speed and be closer to the lead than the Shape showed, and he was. That\'s why we show the individual times. Get it?
5-- Today\'s post-- I know you won\'t get this, but having horses repeat figures is a sign of accuracy of your data base. All projection-style figures (us, Ragozin, Beyer, Time-Form) are based on using past figures as a guide, which in turn is based on the idea that horses run back to previous figures. As long as you don\'t play around with the relationships within a race (like Friedman admitted to with Pyro\'s number earlier this year), repeaters are good sign.
6-- Delaware-- ah, Delaware. In my meeting with the Jockey Club Committee about drugs I called that place \"Dodge City\", the worst in the country. I told them that from what I had heard, the drug of choice there was raceday Clenbuterol.
In an unrelated story, they announced yesterday that Larry Jones just got a Clenbuterol positive at Delaware. He\'s been getting some AMAZING jumpups down there, with horses that weren\'t running nearly as fast elsewhere.
NO, I don\'t think those fast Delaware horses of Jones, Lake, et al will carry their form to tracks outside the Mid-Atlantic states.