My mistake - the second place horse was 10-1 and the 3rd place horse was 5-1.

I hit a tri with a 68-1 shot on top, a 6-1 shot for second and a 15-1 shot for third in a 12 horse field at Calder.  The $1 exacta paid almost $500 and I was expecting a $6,000 tri.  Much to my surprise and chagrin it came back under $1,500.  Did other sheet players whack this exacta?

Did anyone watch the DQ of the six horse at even money at Gulfstream this Saturday?  A horse that was clear of everyone on the outside took a bad step and the jockey fell off.  The six horse was in the 2 hole and went between 2 horses and he had plenty of space between him on either side.  He went on to win the race easily.  None of the horses interfered with the outside horse that stumbled yet they took the six down.  It was one of the worst DQ\'s since the Allemeuse incident in NY.  It\'s hard to believe that the stewards are professionals when they do something like this. A handicapper might as well pick random numbers if they can take a horse down for no reason.  They showed the replay over a dozen times and none of the 8 guys sitting around me could even remotely figure out why the horse was taken down.  I think a rule that would improve racing would be if one of the stewards had to go on-screen and explain while using a John Madden pointer why they took the horse down.  I believe that if they had to do it for this race that they would have kept the proper horse up.

Maybe I was wrong - did anyone else think the DQ was justified?

Alan,

Thanks for the quick response.  As usual, the customer service is excellent.

I purchased the Turfway sheets for the past two Saturdays and the card was cancelled each time.  How do I get a credit for these two days?

Thanks

Jerry,

I would like you to estimate numbers for horses that flip over the railing, horses that act up before the gate and exert energy prior to the race especially if they have to be run down by a lead pony (those lengths should be included in the number - can\'t wait to see those negative 33 and 1/5ths!), horses that bear out should get faster numbers particularly if they run sideways at some point in time and if a horse breaks down during the race but still makes it across the finish line you should estimate what number it would have run if it had remained healthy during the race.  It would also be helpful if you could determine if a trainer and/or jockey was really sincere in wanting the horse to run its best number - if not you should make the number faster to reflect the horse\'s true potential.

The day Thorograph adjusts numbers to reflect the op is the day I stop being a customer.  There is no real way to adjust the number due to several reasons.  If a front running horse is left in the gate the jockey may not choose to push the horse or the horse may not run well when in the unusual position of being behind the whole field.  Perhaps the jockey feels he must rush the horse up to the lead and the horse tires from the extra effort.  Maybe the horse is a come from behind horse and actually prefers to lag the field and runs well despite the off poorly (Ferdinand winning the Derby would be a good example).  Maybe the horse is going op due to being green or being injured and will continue to go op in the future.  I believe the current system of op-, op, op+, op++, etc. combined with the real number run is the appropriate way to deal with op races.  

By the way, I continue to cash more tickets as I learn how to best utilize the trainer stats and TG breeding stats.

I unfortunately did not play the ponies on Sunday and missed Is It True Mex.  How did this horse go off at 40-1?  One bad race at Hollywood and there are no takers?  How did all the sheet players pass on this horse?

I think you both have valid points.  An unknown trainer with a firster that is bet fairly strong might be telegraphing intent.  However, sometimes the public goes crazy in their zeal to bet on a firster when a tip gets widespread.  This Wednesday at Hollywood they bet down a firster to 4/5 when the trainer was 2 for 51 with first time out horses!  I bet against the horse and it finished out of the money after fading from the lead.  You have to end up long term loser betting horses like this.

I only bet a horse blindly if I am pretty sure that it will be at least 5-1 and I think it should be the favorite.  That means it is at least 8-1 on the morning line, no favorites are early scratches and almost no one in the form has picked the horse.  I have bet way too many horses that I thought were 3-1 and better and then saw on equibase that they went off at 3/2.  I occassionally miss a $28 payoff but think I am ahead in the long run.  Of course, I try to only bet when I am a casino or track and can see current odds.

JB,

Is this now officially stalking?  Can you get a restraining order against him?  Can you sue him for using your name and posting negative comments about him?  Do you maybe think he is in love with you and is acting the Glenn Close part of the spurned lover?  Lock-up your pet rabbit now!

Bryan & Chris,

Bryan makes a great point about whether you would have willing to give a patron 5-1 on Raging Fever.  The horse certainly seemed to be by far the logical favorite with a line of 0\'s and a one.  I always look forward to you posting your line and admire the work.  I think there may be variables that you weight too heavily.  The Derby is an excellent example - you took the unorthodox position of penalizing horses for early speed.  If you had left the speed bias out you would have had War Emblem as a much bigger overlay.

Your points about line vs pure fast numbers is dead on.  A horse with a bad looking line that has run 3 ones and two x\'s is much more likely to win a race then a horse with a 6,4,2 or a 5,5,3,3,2 pattern (last number is most recent number in my example).  I usually only improve horses when there is a clear reason (i.e., a horse running for the third time in a maiden that has a line that says poor start, hustled to lead, angled in and tired last furlong).  I guess what I\'m saying is that I love the model and wish I was smart enough and industrious enough to do one of my own but since that won\'t happen I would like to know a little more about some of the variables and how you weight them.

Thanks,

Tegger

Phil,

I certainly never expect to get any decent odds on this horse in the near future and will probably never end up betting on him - I\'m interested in him as a horse that appears to have a chance to be a great sprinter.  

From a management standpoint, I have mixed feelings about running very fast horses through all their allowances.  One group would say that this is the proper way to bring a horse along in his development.  Another group, such as Lukas, would probably tell you that horse flesh is fragile and you better take a shot at the big races while you are healthy.  Lukas appears to ruin a lot of high end horses but at the same time his strategy might benefit the owner financially.  By getting a graded stakes win or two under the horse not only does the owner collect more purse money but the horse becomes valuable for breeding.  If Greatness runs 4 0\'s to 2\'s and wins nothing but his maiden and allowance races his breeding stock worth will be less (I did not notice but I am assuming he is not a gelding)and the owner will have spent more in training and boarding to win less money than if the horse won a big stakes race or two and then was retired for breeding.  Just a thought in a racing world where there don\'t seem to be many quality horses that last too long.

Jerry,

I miss Soup - can you let him back on the board?  Only kidding.

It\'s now our responsibility to keep some handicapping strings alive now that we will no longer have 20 Soup postings.  Any chance of picking a track or a few races to discuss for Saturday?

Did anyone watch Jerkens\' horse Greatness run 6.5 furlongs this past Saturday?  This 3 year old making just his second start was about 2/5 of a second off the track record although he was running on what appeared to a be a speed favoring muddy track.  Jerkens works these horses so hard that it seems a shame that this one might run his best races in conditional allowance races and never make it to a major stakes race.  Jerry, if you had a 3 year old that ran a 2 in his first race would you point him towards a sprinting stakes race for his second start or would you run him in a non-winners of 1 allowance?  I know that it also depends on what stakes are available.  Just curious.

Jerry,

This is my exact point - Soup n\' Nuts has posted his circular and one-sided arguments 166 times in a short period and his other Rag buddies have probably posted another 300 to 400 times.

He then has the nerve to ask about my background and to ask if there is any point to my \"masturbation\"!  What is your background oh genius of the boards that has all this free time to post?   Between undergraduate and graduate school I took 1.5 years of statistics and a year of logic along with many other finance/analytical classes.  Obviously I am not in your PhD/Stephen Hawkins league but I hope to at least try to tag along and understand your thesis like arguments by breaking them into small pieces and studying and diagramming them for hours!

I now find myself going to the Sheets board where there is more conversation about actual handicapping.  At least I might learn something new about handicapping from the discussion there.  No handicapping string can survive the Rag attacks on this board!

Perhaps, you might consider that the Rags have won since they now officially own this board!

Jerry,

It\'s your company and your board and I have to respect your agenda since you have succeeded for over 2 decades in a very tough business.  However, I think TG\'s online sales are way up because more people are learning that they are available, your pricing policy and your additional statistics.  I was a diehard user of TG in NY but stopped using them (and stopped betting the ponies) when I moved to Vegas because I could not buy them locally.  Once I found out they were available online I became a very regular user as you well know.

I have to admit that sometimes these arguments have made me curious about purchasing Rags to see if their numbers are superior.  This probably works both ways and since Rags has more customers (due to being first in the market)it probably benefits TG more when there are dual crossover sales.  Your addition of statistics, legible format and more logical arguments for figure making have kept me with the TG product.  The arguments have allowed me to understand that figure making while basically logical when done correctly is also somewhat subjective.  I have always questioned races where 3 or 4 horses in a cheap to mid-level claimer have all jumped to 3 to 5 point tops and now I understand that it is not necessarily correct and may have occurred to make a race fit with a changing variable for races around it.  I have adjusted my handicapping accordingly.

However, I am confused by those such as David (sometimes G) Patent that claim that you force horses into smooth patterns.  Statistics tells us that patterns within 2 standard deviations are the most common.  Rags would seem to make the statistical anomalies that are outside this 2 standard deviation range more common which logically does not make sense.  The asymptote figures becomes almost as common as the 1 standard deviation figures and this defies logic.  Also, assuming that you could ignore your convincing argument that horses in forced tight patterns would be exposed due to horses travelling from track to track, how do the detractors explain instances such as War Emblem or Proud Citizen where you have the horses exploding to new tops?  I cashed War Emblem in the Derby because of the big top to the one (I figured that fair odds on the horse were about 6-1 based on a possible bounce or another horse running a new top)and he then ran another 2 races that were very tight with that number.  How can the Rag agenda boys argue that you are forcing the tight cycles no matter what the evidence when there are daily examples to the contrary.

Jerry,

This board has just gotten silly.  Obviously, some of these posters are agents of Rags or else they wouldn\'t spend so many hours posting this one-sided crap.  Jerry Jr\'s post about no one doing ground live at Calder comes from insiders in the figures game.  I really wouldn\'t care if you wathced it on tape or not.  I assume it is easier to focus on all the horses using tape then watching them only during the race.  What a poster without ties to Rags would gain by slamming this board with negative posts is beyond me so I must assume you are right about their agenda and their unrelenting zeal must logically carry over to the track where they must spend hours bad mouthing the TG product.  It must make it hard to handicap when they spend so much time blasting a competitors numbers.

I will probably always be a TG user because Rags does not offer downloads of his product, does not give multiple track discounts, offer the multitude of statistics that TG does and I find his sheets to be nearly illegible.  However, I would never bother blasting his product to anyone and couldn\'t care less if someone likes Rags more.  However, this board should be renamed, \"ask the Rags\' Sycophants\".  This board will never be able to sustain handicapping threads as long as you allow a few zealots to monopolize the board and run off legitimate posters with insults and illogical arguments.  Use your new software for its intended purpose and ban Soupie Sales and Jerry Jr and let the grown-ups talk for a while.  I do have to admit that at least Soup seems to want to discuss handicapping occassionally as opposed to Jerry Jr\'s unrelenting terrorist attacks.