TGJB,
I wanted to follow up on your earlier post regarding changing moisture content.
Your post suggests that figures based on so-called \"objectively constructed variants\" are more likely to be inconsistent or misleading than figures which try to take into account changing track speeds within a card (e.g. Thoro-graph).
If this is the case, it implies that t-graph users might enjoy an advantage over other bettors when evaluating horses that have raced on certain track-changing days.
Have you, or any other sheet users, noticed more success when betting on or against horses that have previously raced over tracks which experienced radically changing speeds and therefore were given suspect numbers by the masses?
thanks,
charlie
I have brought up several examples of this over the years, often when I do the day in question, before the horses run back. I mostly do it for big race days where everyone knows and can follow the horses, and because Ragozin sometimes posts figures for those days, a practice he abandoned for last years Belmont after getting his clock cleaned several times.
Two examples that come to mind are the 00 Wood numbers leading to a completely different analysis of the first 2 finishers in the Derby, and the 01 BC, where I predicted that the horses who ran on the rail (Ragozin did not catch the dead rail that everyone else did) would go forward next out. I also had the track speeding up throughout that day where Ragozin used the same track speed, and said almost all the horses in the first 3 races would go forward on Ragozin figures, which they did. Details can be found in the archives on this site, and others may be able to come up with other examples I have forgotten, aside from the countless examples that come up day to day.
One more thing-- not all variant makers take the dogmatic approach Ragozin does. I will be addressing a recent Laurel day soon, and having seen what Beyer did with the day I can tell you he had the right idea. It will be very interesting and educational to see what Ragozin does with the day-- \"objective\" is not the same as objective.
Post Edited (02-26-03 15:09)
TGJB,
I\'m well aware of the 2000 Wood discrepancy, having been on this site over the past couple years.
I guess what I\'m really asking is the following: wouldn\'t TG users be better off focusing more of their efforts on those tracks, such as aqu, golden gate and monmouth, that would theoretically have more significant and frequent intra-day variant changes?
Maybe the inefficiencies at these tracks (assuming there are more cases of disparate figures) deserve increasing attention from handicappers, especially since, bounce and condition theories aren\'t, at least in the former case, as powerful in terms of provding value as they once were.
Your point regarding horses coming off the 01 BC dead rail is well taken, but it seems that if that NYRA superintendent is right, moisture content would be all over the place at a place like golden gate fields. As a result, it would seem that there are more opportunties at such ovals.
Or are such days where you have to split variants drastically just as common at less notorious tracks, which aren\'t near water or other havoc producing problems?
charley
Variants certainly slide all over the place at Bay area tracks. The phenomenom is almost universal, however-- just greater at some places than others. Off the top of my head, I can\'t think of one place where the 1-2 turn relationship is fixed.
Point being, if you use our data at almost any track you will be able to take advantage of the differences between the way we do our figures and Ragozin does, and to a lesser degree the way Beyer does (he is much more flexible, but obviously does not use weight or ground, which is a big disadvantage not only in using the figures to bet, but to make fine-tuned variants). There are now gigantic differences between us and Ragozin on some circuits (as I pointed out after last years Preakness), especially those that Ragozin himself does not do (NY and Fla), but there are some real big ones in NY too, such as the ones I used for examples.