http://www.drf.com/blogs/california-chrome-and-his-derby-beyer
If they (Beyer) were to add 3 to their figures, and Jake takes off 3 from theirs, everyone who uses those two services would be better off. Andy got it much closer than Jake (3 Rag points is 10 Beyer points). Fortunately for our guys the others didn\'t get it.
Meanwhile, there\'s that Jerardi column of a few days ago. The one where he says a) Beyer had CC much faster than other figure services, b) he ran much slower in the Derby EVEN ON BEYER than Beyer had him running coming in, c) so Beyer was right, they (we) were wrong.
fortunately how? I mean, even if rags gave cc a 4, I still wouldnt like him...and another 0 on tg makes him I would assume the same play against as he was in derby at what appears to be the 4/5 range. Its really a pointless argument being the reads are so subjective. Whether CC received a 4 or 7 on rags, I would bet any horse with a chance at a 5 or 6(if there are any).....same with tgs....any horse I think can run a 0-1 with odds is a bet....CC going back on rags or off a 4 as heavily raced as he is, is a bet against to me.....same goes with TGs.
Fortunately because our guys have numbers that are accurate for the Derby and will be betting against those who do not in lots of big races for the rest of the year.
And accurate not because I say so, but for all the other reasons discussed here over the last few days. I wrote two extensive posts about figure making which touched on Jake\'s Derby figures. Which aren\'t just wrong, but so obviously wrong it\'s funny.
Since apparently you use their stuff you may have kept the Derby, and they have now posted the figures they assigned for the race on the Jake site. Ask yourself this-- on their stuff (forgetting for a moment about any PRIOR errors) they had 10 horses with a top of better than 7 going into the race. As you handicapped the race, what did you think it would take to win? What would you have made the chance a 7 1/4 would win?
See if you can get Jake to explain how they got to those Derby figures, ask them on their board. Someone already asked them one question, and they ignored it.
Since they probably won\'t answer, let me say something I\'ve said here before-- Ragozin and the rest of the world have a different definition for what a figure being right is. The rest of the world means one that is correct, that reflects what took place, that is accurate. Ragozin (and now Jake) mean that it\'s what came out as the result of a process they have used for many years, period. If the process produced a 30 for the Derby, to them that figure would be \"right\".
Well, as I have stated before, I have used both, and still do for big days. And also, I am very fair I think in regards to my opinions of both. Hands down, commanding curve was all YOU, and for me, impossible to find on ragozin. As far as the derby itself and a 7 winning it, I am still in the I trust the figure makers and their numbers camp. I am not smart enough, nor interested enough to even attempt my own. On the surface, it does seem slow. And while I am still cashing using both, I find your approach has a lot more depth to it.
I think what is more important regarding derby weekend, is how pletcher was a non factor and tossing his horses was very rewarding. Obviously oaks aside. Ramsey too for that matter. Amazing how good either set of numbers were when you level playing field. Horses ran like they were supposed to. Do you know if pimlico is doing something similar?
Apparently Pimlico is not doing out of competition testing. But Pletcher got Sophie and Danza to pair up their tops at CD. And neither had to run well going in.
well I was referring mainly to the undercards both days....and distant second and thirds I ll take my chances with. It got to a point, we just tossed pletcher from top spot both days. Of course that was after many cocktails in sports book.
JB,
Just for the record a Rags 7.25 is equal to a Beyer of app 91(before any adj that may be necessary for ground/wind and scale weight, when applicable)
Also, it is noteworthy that:
1.Beyer originally came up with a figure of 91(matching RAGS)before adjusting upward 6 Beyer points to 97(wind/creative license, whatever)
2.If you use the clock and establish a two turn route variant for the day(assume that\'s what Rags did) the figures would be TG 3.75 Beyer 91 and Rags 7.25. That\'s strictly using the clock.
3.Another strong service had it ORIGINALLY at like Beyer 94, TG 3,Rags 6.50, and then made it faster by like 1.5-2 points.
Look at it anyway you want, the raw time of 2.03.66 is so out of whack on the day, on the day(wind/water et al noted) it gave me a headache.I reached out to the \"guru\" of track speed to see what he thought...will let you know.
Mike
First of all, the only \"guru\" of track speed is a machine with a drop hammer (see Changing Track Speeds). Everyone else is using past figure histories, one way or another.
For the rest, EXACTLY. Jake used an average track speed based on horses that ran the whole day-- he did NOT go off the Derby horses (obviously). There\'s no chance they\'ll say that because by now even they know how ridiculous it is and how many holes there are in what they do, but it\'s their process and if they were to change it would mean they\'re conceding YEARS of figures made that way are wrong. They\'ll never do it, they won\'t answer questions about it, they can\'t. Psychologically they can\'t even think it.
After the 2004 Expo, when I first presented Changing Track Speeds, the Beyer guys started being more willing to break races out, do variant slides etc., with no weather changes. Andy was smart enough to do so here, though not quite enough, but close.
\"First of all, the only \"guru\" of track speed is a machine with a drop hammer\"
...correct, thats what the nameless guy uses and other new technologies. He is on retainer by NYRA and several other venues to investigate the safety/speed of surfaces re breakdowns, etc
Then pretty sure he\'s one of the guys I corresponded with for the presentation. He gave me a good quote, saying (roughly) the method we use is the best available to judge track speed.
Andy was on a local radio show this weekend in the Seattle area -- the reasons he changed the figure were as follows, first he said the 91 looked ridiculously low, then suggested the wind affected the final time adversely and even though it was an arbitrary change it was warranted and represents what the race was, it was a weak race.
He claimed the surfacing changing speed between the last dirt race and the derby was bogus.. he said the surface for the race before the derby and the two races after all the derby was exactly the same in terms of the inherent speed of the surface.
http://www.sportsradiokjr.com/media/podcast-win-place-show-ondemand-win_place_show/the-win-place-show-511-24752216/
That last bit is basically true but not necessarily relevant. If the rate water is evaporating is X per hour, and they are adding X per race, moisture content will stay the same as long as the races are an hour apart. If in the middle of that you have 2 hours instead of one, and they only add X, the track will be drier for that one.
That\'s another thing I covered in the slide show. Watchmaker touches on it in his piece too, and one of the books in \"History Lesson\" in the Archives does as well-- the last one.
TGJB Wrote:
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> That last bit is basically true but not
> necessarily relevant. If the rate water is
> evaporating is X per hour, and they are adding X
> per race, moisture content will stay the same as
> long as the races are an hour apart. If in the
> middle of that you have 2 hours instead of one,
> and they only add X, the track will be drier for
> that one.
>
> That\'s another thing I covered in the slide show.
> Watchmaker touches on it in his piece too, and one
> of the books in \"History Lesson\" in the Archives
> does as well-- the last one.
Now you\'ve promped me to read these treatises, took my first look at History Lesson I. Would figure you\'ve been thoroghly filled in on the topic since that piece was originated, but Turf and Sport Digest was Baltimore based (going back to the 30s, I believe), and was a long-term general-interest mag targeting horse players/fans (unlike the breeding-slanted mags). They were anything but tout-crazy (unlike the majority of parallel publications), but would run one or two handicapping pieces a month. Sold a few items to them \'way back when, when I was in high school, breaking in . . .
The other \"History\" concerns the book you gave me, actually.
Re Turf and Field, I would love to get my hands on other stuff that Donaldson wrote. It\'s pretty clear that\'s where Ragozin went to school.
Don\'t answer if it\'s going to open a can of worms, but How did you learn your method of figure making?
I started at Ragozin, but didn\'t make figures for him, and argued with him about methodology even when I was there in my early 20\'s. When I left there I didn\'t know too much, it was mostly trial and error over a period of time.
You must have known SOMETHING to have argued with them/him over methodology.
Tomorrow, when I\'m back in the office. Mets-Yanks, Nets-Heat. Big night.
tommyG Wrote:
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> You must have known SOMETHING to have argued with
> them/him over methodology.
We all knew something in the 70\'s. We know a lot more now. So by comparison, to be fair, we knew very little.
Wind derby day was WSW at 10 mph with 25 mph gusts and max gust of 31 mph. The stretch run would have been straight into the wind. Would it be telling to much to reveal what the wind speed was during the stretch run? Seems like a 31 mph gust would slow things down a bit.
Re arguing with Ragozin over figure making (more correct than saying about methodology, I wasn\'t making figures there and had very little idea how it was done):
The basic setup at that point was I was a young kid doing work in exchange for using the sheets to bet, and a lot of what I did was pull the file cards alphabetically from entries, and put them back after they ran (there were no computers, a sheet actually was a cardboard graph, and only a couple of people worked there). This worked out well for me because I handicapped all those races (Ragozin was only covering 4-5 circuits back then as \"hard\" figures), and as I put them back I would look at each sheet and get to see what they had run, to learn.
Anyway, I know I raised issues a few times, but there\'s only one I remember clearly. As I was putting this NY day back I became more and more puzzled because nobody on the whole day had run a top-- it was clear the whole day was off, 2-3 slow. I went to Len and said you got this one wrong, it\'s not close. He said no, track\'s been the same speed the whole week. I said, I don\'t know about the rest of the week and it doesn\'t matter. That day is wrong.
So he didn\'t say anything, but the next day I came in and he said you\'re right, it was wrong. The track changed speed. But when? So he changed the day, and went off to review the rest of the week.
I didn\'t really think about that conversation until much later when I went out on my own and started making figures. But essentially, Len was making an assumption-- that track speed stays the same unless you actually know of a reason why it changed, not only during a day but from day to day, EVEN IF IT MAKES THE FIGURES YOU ASSIGN VERY UNLIKELY. He makes a similar point in his book by implication, when he says you need to know what day of the week the track superintendent does his work so you\'re not fooled when the track changes speed. That particular line of thought is so ----ed logically I could do a whole post on it. I had been making figures for quite a while by the time the book came out (1996?), and I was shocked to read that-- it had never even crossed my mind while I was learning my trade to make crazy assumptions like that. And in the one situation I remember from back then it caused Len to get a whole day wrong by a lot.
I don\'t ever remember even being tempted to conclude that every day was the \'same\' , even in the early days.
What would have promoted such a conclusion? How can you be so sophisticated as to include run ups and wind, but fail on that front?
Sounds implausible, no?
It goes to the whole large population/small population study thing, and a reliance on pars (and other averages).
On the one hand, Len thought in those terms by using one track speed for the day (let alone for several days). On the other, as he says in his book, he would sometimes base an entire day on one horse-- in other words, his own judgment about what a certain horse should run and an assumption about nothing else changing would determine the figures for all the horses that ran on a day. Which might be the dictionary definition of chutzpah.
Mike-- Did you ever hear back from the drop hammer man?
Dr.MP is such a busy man, active college professor. I sometimes get a reply a week later, but he\'ll answer. I\'m guessing he may be looking into the background details of derby day, esp weather.He knows just about every track super at the major venues.
Have you seen the comments of the CD track super stating that he was well aware of weather and added extra watering.He stated the derby was not run on a surface with diminished moisture content i.e. The track did not slow down for the derby.
Wind seems to be the only possible culprit for an unimaginable 2.03.66 on a fairly glib surface.
Mike
It\'s good the track super was conscious of the moisture issue, but unless he tested for moisture content (which can be done) he doesn\'t know for a fact that it was the same. Slight differences can make a significant one in track \"speed\", a point we covered in Changing Track Speeds.
In the end the way you know how fast the track is, is by how fast horses run over it. And this is not a situation with a 5 horse field of maidens that was rained off grass.
Agree but it does not explain the 2 subsequent dirt races which went way fast relative to the derby. One a sprint, the last a route. Track was fast, slow for the derby, then fast again.....far out there.
That\'s a little unusual but not extreme, especially when you\'re talking about a long gap before the first one.
There doesn\'t even need to be a debate right? How many times did the water truck go by in between each race?
Thanks. That is an interesting story. I guess mathematically we can express your roots as a function of (opportunity + observation + questioning the status quo) times (a little common sense)--maybe (common sense) squared???
Maybe I\'m not getting this. But watch the replays of the earlier dirt races and the dirt races after the Derby. Then watch the Derby replay. Look at the dust blowing around the track during the Derby vs the others.
Moisture content the same??
I don\'t need a \"hammer guy\" to tell me the moisture content was different.
I\'m surprised this wasn\'t mentioned more (hiding in plain sight?), I watched the race a few times in HD and the dust was amazing. Not normal.
Agreed. That\'s why you have go off the colts in derby to make a figure. To my eye Jerry is the only one who got it right out of the big three, and I\'m saying that for brownie points. On TG you could make an argument to make the race a point slower, but i think a pair is reasonable.
Now imagine the differences in form cycle appearances between rags and tg moving forward for these colts rest of the year given the way rags did the race.
MJ-- First of all yeah, not only for handicapping races using Jake\'s Derby figures, but for making figures using them. People who don\'t make figures don\'t understand it but this truly is an area of garbage in, garbage out. They\'re screwed.
As I mentioned here before, I actually gave some thought to making the race one point better, not worse. If it had been at 1 1/8th and less horses had trouble I might well have, and it would have resulted in a very high percentage of tops for a Derby. I think it\'s about 80-90% that it\'s right where it is.
One more minor point-- I happened to catch a replay of the race today on NYRA, and they were focusing on Borel\'s ride on ROC. Usually we don\'t pay attention to anything that happens on straightaways re ground loss because if you look at the math it\'s insignificant, but that left turn he made to get to the rail was so severe you actually could credit the horse with a little better figure. As a practical matter it doesn\'t really affect the way you handicap him going forward regardless.
Just noticed my post said and I\'m saying that for brownie points. Should have said not saying that for brownie points. That\'s what I get for trying to post from my phone.
Re: ROC, trainer had a big problem with the way Borel rode him. Dunno why he put Borel on the mount. Only one way that guy is going to ride that colt from the 19 post. Same ride he gave Dennis of Cork from the 16 post 6 years ago. I would give him more credit for the trouble that ensued than additional ground loss for the left turn, but it\'s splitting hairs either way.
I\'m torn on the draw for Preakness. Part of me wants to see Chrome draw the 1 or 2 post- in which case I will bet against him (I still don\'t think he will run his race if he gets anything other than an outside stalking or front running trip). And part of me wants to see him draw outside and win the thing, in which case I will pass the race and wait for the Belmont. Guess I figure either way I win as long as if he wins the Preakness he makes to the Belmont.
mjellish Wrote:
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> Just noticed my post said and I\'m saying that for
> brownie points. Should have said not saying that
> for brownie points. That\'s what I get for trying
> to post from my phone.
\"Brownie points\" a rather droll double entendre, intentional or not.
Yup Richie. I\'ll leave the wit and writing to you.
mjellish Wrote:
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> Yup Richie. I\'ll leave the wit and writing to
> you.
You think I\'m funny? What makes me funny? Funny how? How the f--k am I funny?
You really are a funny guy.
But...
Bing, what are you still doing here?
richiebee Wrote:
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> mjellish Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Yup Richie. I\'ll leave the wit and writing to
> > you.
>
>
> You think I\'m funny? What makes me funny? Funny
> how? How the f--k am I funny?
Like a clown. Please don\'t aim at my foot.
Do you remember who played the kid who got shot?
Horseplayer, friend of mine.
Michael Imperio, Christopher on the Soprano\'s.
FrankD. Wrote:
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> Michael Imperio, Christopher on the Soprano\'s.
Also a recent \"Chopped\" champion. The guy can cook.
Holybull,
He\'s Italian we all can cook !