I mentioned in an earlier post that Ragozin had the relationship between the first two Derby finishers (!!!!) wrong. We have Nehro a total of two paths wider (both turns combined), which is close to what he was beaten at the wire, giving him and Animal Kingdom almost the same number. Ragozin has Animal Kingdom outside Nehro on the turns, resulting in him getting a much better figure than Nehro.
So for the hell of it I checked Trakus. They have Nehro traveling 27 feet further, very close to what we have (and in fact a little wider).
I love reading Friedman and the others on the Rag board talk about half point condition moves...
And that\'s the Derby. The mind reels when thinking about the \"accuracy\" in claiming races.
Did you find this somewhere on the CD website?
No. Michael D from this site was able to get it directly from the company. CD doesn\'t publish them yet, other tracks do.
I watched the overhead view of the race on NBC (it\'s posted on the web site). Nehro and AK were in the same path first turn -- watch closely, as the pan shot is deceptive -- it does make Nehro appear to be outside AK, but take a pencil and some paper and mark off how far each horse is from the rail at several points on the turn -- they are in the same path.
AK was slightly outside Nehro briefly on the 2nd turn. AK beat Nehro by 2.75 lengths, which equates to 1.38 points, assuming 1 point = 1 length @ 5 furlongs. Tack on a few feet for being slightly wider 2nd turn and you\'re at about 1.5 points, not quite the 1.75 on Ragozin, but a LOT closer than the difference TG has (.25 points).
I have no idea how Trakus figured that Nehro traveled 27 feet more.
Also, and more interesting, looking at the entire field, if you compare the Ragozin figures for the horses that finished 2-19, TG apparently has every single horse being wider than AK.
For instance, Ragozin has AK beating Nehro by 1.75 points. TG by .25 points, a difference of 1.5. In every instance, the delta between AK\'s number and the beaten horse\'s number is greater with Ragozin than with Brown, which would indicate that TG sees every other horse as being wider than AK, unless their is another variable at play. It cannot be weight or wind or track condition, so what is it?
For the horses that finished 12th and higher, the difference between their figure and AK\'s versus Ragozin\'s is 2.25 - 2.50 points! For the 8-11 finishers, it\'s 1.50 to 1.75 points, and for 1-7 it is .50 to 1.50 points. So, the more lengths each horse was beaten, the greater the discrepancy. And in every instance, TG has the beaten horse\'s number closer to AK\'s than Ragozin.
This is a very consistent pattern of bunching the numbers together so that there is a smaller difference in figure between the 2-19 finishers and the winner. 18 out of 18. How does that make sense?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLVDp_EHANk
I concur. Nehro was not a full path wide both turns. Truth is somewhere in the middle of you guys.
I watched that race myself, twice. I got exactly the same as our TWO ground guys who did the race independently, and almost exactly the same as Trakus-- Nehro was a path wider on each turn. If you actually do each horse individually rather than try to look where they are relative to each other at the same time (i.e. 34, 434, etc.) you will see what I mean.
As for the horses that are further back, yes David, there is another variable of some kind. If you go back and look at all the figures for past big races you will see this always happens-- I believe I pointed it out way back in the discussion of SJ\'s Derby, and of the mistake they made with the beaten lengths from third to fourth. I have no idea what those guys are doing, but my guess is it has to do with frame counting or some other nonsense that\'s just one of the many things those guys do in not seeing the forest for the trees. You can of course ask them questions about figure making on their site, I\'m sure they will be forthcoming.
And by the way, with a fast look at the chart I counted 12 horses that were inside AK on the turns.
JB: I agree with you about the first turn. As to the second turn, do you disagree with any of the following?
1) The final turn is run from approximately 1:26 through 1:50 on the tape.
2) At 1:29, 1:32, 1:35, 1:38, 1:41, 1:44 and 1:47 AK\'s and Nehro\'s relative positions are as follows, rounded to the half-path:
AK: 4w, 4w, 4w, 4w, 4w, 4w, 4.5w. Average 4.1
Nehro: 5w, 5w, 4w, 3.5w, 3w, 3w, 3.5w. Average 3.8
3) Even if you quibbble with one or more of those judgments, at best you get to the conclusion that Nehro and AK were on average essentially in the same path on the final turn, not that Nehro was one path wider.
If they are inside AK, why are their numbers closer to his? Shouldn\'t they have slower numbers since they traveled a shorter distance and thus a greater delta from AK?
My point was that the delta between AK and beaten horses is -- for TG -- smaller than on Ragozin and the more lengths beaten, the more this is true, in general.
Apparently, the difference is the mystery variable.
Correct.
Nehro is 54 second turn, AK is 34. Keep in mind that the inside horses are not always on the rail.
I was about to ask where those measurements were taken then realized this is going to get tedious very fast. Those are reasonable measurements if taken at points during the first half of the turn, but no later than halfway through the turn (by 1:38 on the overhead), Nehro gets to the 3-path, and is either in the same path or inside AK\'s path for the remainder of the turn.
Certainly not asking for any proprietary info, but I was under the impression that ground loss/weight/wind/track condition were all the variables considered.
This is the first time I\'ve ever heard about some other \"mystery variable\"? Is this mentioned elsewhere in archives or sheet explanations?
Just trying to understand the process.
Don\'t forget creative license. I\'ve seen more slow races given fast figs and fast races given slow races than carters got liver pills.Check out Uncle Mo\'s 2011 first Rag and TG fig,totally irreconcilable by any realistic racing measuring stick.
Mike
Is there a correction for a dead rail?
Mike
I did think of Rags\' crazy \"slow pace\" (or should we just call The Zenyatta) adjustment. But I certainly don\'t think that wackiness occurs here.
Put a identical 5 HP lawnmower engines on a frame and have them go over a straight line for 100 yds. One travels on fluffy loose dirt, the other on more packed down dirt with a better friction coefficient. Do they both arrive at the same time? They both put forth identical effort/work, why did they not arrive at the same time?
JB
If you are going to quote Trakus, how about including the third place finisher in your discussion? Trakus has MMM running 52 feet less than AK. Does that get added to the 3 1/4 lengths that he was beaten by? If so,how does that translate to running only 1.5 points slower? Sorry for the novice questions.
I don\'t think there is a correction made. You are just notified via the X and then you do what you want with the number earned. Somebody else please confirm..
If Trakus has MMM running 52 feet less than AK, it does not translate into running 1.5 points slower. The approximate point differential for 3 lengths at 10f is 1.5 points. Based on JB\'s post to me last week regarding MMM\'s ground in the Derby, there was no (or insignificant) relative ground loss between AK and MMM in that race. TG had AK\'s ground at 4w/3.5w, rounded up to 4w4w on the sheet, while MMM\'s was 3w/4.5w, rounded up to 3w5w on the sheet. So, the bottom line is a 1.5 point difference. If what you wrote is correct, then TG and/or Trakus has MMM\'s ground wrong.
correct
No correction but you have noted something I discovered years ago.On dead rail days, why would horses in the outer firmer paths get extra credit(ground loss points) when that was a superior/firmer energy returning path?
The reason given is that fig makers cannot accurately quantify(in lengths) the bad rail vs the firmer outer path/s.Me thinks it better to give a reduced \"value\" to ground losers when the rail is dead.
When the rail is dead, and two horses going around the track in the one and two path and finish in a dead heat,the horse in the 2 path gets the faster figure. Thats plain wrong and science would conclude that.It\'s one of the few occasions when you can pickle the \"geometry\"
Mike
Maybe an X should be shown for every horse coming out of a dead rail race and then we should look to see where the horse was placed in the race through the performance line in the upper left or maybe have a different type of indicator for a horse that ran off the dead rail in a race. Interesting point Miff.
TG is there a way for us to find out if a horse ran in a \"dead rail\" race if he did not run on the rail?
Lost,
In the absence measurable path energy return, it\'s best to just look for horses who were disadvantaged being towards the inside on dead rail days.If you do not know,it\'s one of the stronger angles I have noted in the game.
Also,was is only the one path? or also the 2-3 paths.There are days when I\'m told the jocks call the inside dead, what then, how many paths??
Anyway, the point is moot, there is no such thing as a dead rail according to my Kool Aid drinking friends over Rags.
Mike
Phil-- to be clear, the mystery variable is not ours.
The ground we used for for MMM (3,45) is definitely right. Either Trakus is wrong or there is significant ground loss from zigging in and out on the straightaways, which is unlikely.
I\'ve been told that because of others broadcasting on Derby day there wa intereference and Trakus had some problems getting their data, don\'t know how this affected readings.
Are you saying that Trakus had the ground correct for AK, correct for Nehro, but for some reason way off for MMM?
Miff-- this is about the fourth time I\'ve gone through this. We DO NOT give extra credit to outside horses when there is a dead rail.
When we see a dead rail, we mark the horses that ran on it (most of whom ran terrible), AND DO NOT USE THEM IN MAKING FIGURES FOR THE DAY. This means we are only using the other horses, compared to each other, not to the rail horses. In effect, if you want to look at it that way, the whole day slides in a path-- horses in the 4 path are only 2 paths outside the most inside horses we use.
I have only seen one place where it actually looks like sometimes the outside paths are actually better than the middle paths (separate issue than dead rail). It may happen at Turfway sometimes, and in recent years I have tried to be more conservative in giving out good figures there because of that.
No. I\'m saying what I said-- those are the readings and information I\'ve got so far. I\'ve also now been told there are some other (different) readings for the race out there, which show Nehro wider than AK, but not by as much. In general we don\'t use this stuff, so I\'m figuring things out as I go along.
JB,
So in my example, 2 horses around the track at 5 f, one path and two path, dead heating, they get the same #. The outside path runner does NOT get a better fig by a point, thats news.
Mike
No. The outer horse will get a better number than the rail horse, the rail horse will get a dead rail mark (though it\'s unlikely we would give out the mark if the horse ran well enough to dead heat for the win). Outside horses get credit for how far they travel relative to those that save ground. But if those were the only two horses that ran that day (to simplify things), and they both run all 5\'s, we would give the outside horse a 5, and the inside horse a 6 with an X.
The point being, on dead rail days the horses that are on the rail get figures that average far worse than usual. The horses that are not on the rail get figures that average the same as usual, because those are the ones we look at when making the figures.
Got it. Figured I was getting something lost in translation there. Thanks for clarifying.