ðŸ˜,

That\'s very good!

To be fair I have no interest in your mattress infused markets, EQ is trading at 5/2 or better at most serious bookmakers in Europe and that is more than enough to keep this simple.

You have the best horse by far figure wise, that does nothing but win, trained by the dirtiest trainer, owned by the hungriest connections, and you get twice the odds that you would in any other race. Still you all can\'t wait to bet against. This is why you all suck at betting the kentucky derby I\'ll throw in Hot Rod Charlie as 2nd for an extra laugh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNL0XODSMwU

This guy has spent the last 15 years looking for patterns in the first folio, and boy does he find them. Makes for good TV - he started doing these movies in Norwegian but he has made three of them now aimed at a more international crowd, this guy is going for it.

I wonder what he could\'ve accomplished with a set of TG sheets instead, though...

https://horseweigh.com/about-horse-weigh/reviews/

I guess it\'s not a great sign that not even the horse weigh-vendor could find much value to be added by having the horses weigh, publicly 🙃

I agree but not sure how one would build it into the figures. In Hong Kong the differences is often 20 pounds from the light weight to the top weight (carried weight i.e the jockey), so it would be even more of a factor.

Also, I believe I\'ve read somewhere here from you TGJB that you could make even more precise figures if you had the horses weights to go by - I believe regarding the weight carried adjustments? Would you mind explaining how you would use that info to make even better weight adjustment? In theory. Certainly something about the relative weight carried, but not quite sure about the details about how you would go about incorporating it into your figures.

My guess is that for US racing it\'s probably not worth the trouble, anyway, but for racing in countries with frequent handicap races and big weight discrepancies it is an interesting idea.

Thanks Dick, That\'s also partly why I ask as my attention is more on more on the races over there and it\'s so readily available. I\'m sure it could yield some important info if one could only learn to use it properly. I know human athletes who record this info about themselves constantly in their training journals, partially for being able to peak their form at the right times, etc, I\'ll bet some horse trainers do the same for their horses.

But do we know enough about how they do the actual weighing though, as I\'m sure equines fluctuates daily quite a lot as we humans do as well, do they weigh in at about the same time of day every time for instance?

It sure would be interesting to run some large data analysis on this to search for patterns, quite a lot of work though.

I couldn\'t help noticing that Thoro-Graph has started to post the Horses Weight at race day between the running lines from some tracks, I saw this when studying the form from Santa Anita on saturday.

I was curious as to how you guys factor this into your handicapping. When is it relevant, when is it not relevant, is it the difference from raceday to raceday that interests you the most or do we believe in an \"ideal weight\" that correlates with top form and that patterns could be identified with TG figures, simply put -
what are the working hypotheses out there?

TG\'s closest figure making relative would be Timeformus IMO, and I guess that\'s a compliment to them both. Many similarities in principles/philosophy, with the biggest difference as far as I have understood being in TG factoring in ground loss, and timeform trying to do the same with pace. That is - you will get a better timeform figure than the time suggest if you overraced early - while you will get a better TG figure than the time suggest if you have raced further. You could say that both attempts to credit extra effort. (As a handicapper you should probably try to think a little bit about both, no matter what you use)

Anyway, about a month ago Craig there gave an interesting lecture about a notorious controversial topic - \"the breakout race\". Find it here: https://timeformusblog.com/2019/12/27/the-breakout-race-at-aqueduct-on-december-7th/

Thought it could be interesting to raise the same issue here.. What did you do, JB?

I have made about 150 000 figures myself during the last decade and guess I will never be 100 % sure about what is the most correct way to deal with these special cases, you can argue well for many sides. What people most often fail to understand is that there is no \"absolute correct\" way to make figures, there are no absolutes or no truth that lies there to be discovered with the same formula in every race, because there are too many unknowns and random variables in play at any time. Any attempt to try to build it all in to a single formula would be doomed to fail, because more than anything you need consistency/reliability for these numbers to be useful, and for consistency you need a methodology. And this is where science meets art.

This is also were it gets really interesting.

Obviously, you can place a 100 % premium on consistency and fool yourself (and too often, your customers) in the process. Many people and maybe even more so so-called rational minds with an inclining for numbers, (that is every users of speed figures..), has this autistic tendency to believe too much in hard numbers/formulas. Some of them can even watch races every day for 50 years without noticing that a track changes speed, simply because they have invested so much (emotionally, financially, life) in them not doing so. The sunk cost fallacy.. The beauty of this is that the parimutual and high-volatile nature of this game will often enough reward those who are blind, or I guess you could put it more nicely, contrarian.

This is where horse racing meets cult/religion.

Projections as TG and/or Timeform do them, as in this case, has their own problems - that\'s why you can hear respectable men refer to \"voodoo techniques\" and worse. Sometimes they even make some good points and/or have good reasons to dislike it. Bottom line of this little rant of mine that did not go where I had anticipated, nor feels complete, is that every school of thought produces profitable players. The common denominator amongst all of them is that they share the capacity of thinking for themselves. You need to make adjustments, make judgment calls, factor in a little bit of intuition here and a little bit of gut feeling there, to become a profitable horse player. And if you\'re using Brisnet/Ragozin, I guess you\'ll just have to be even better at it.

I too believe the TG ground will be a bit \"kinder\" than the 103 feet in difference Trakus has it. About two points between them seems about right. GW ran a big race.

Not to mention the comparisons to Justify\'s figs. Can see why a little taste of kool-aide is necessary for swallowing it all. I\'ll have mine in blue.

Will be interesting to see the figs for this race, won\'t be pretty either way. Did Maximum Security bounce? That\'s a tough sell. Did Game Winner run the same race as Arrogate did in Dubai? Also tough.

Edit: I have GW about 3 TG points faster going by the Trakus ground info (quick and hasty calculations so forgive me if wrong), so it won\'t be as bad I guess. If Maximum Security ran a 1, GW ran a neg 2. Plausible. Just a tad better than Justify. Still a tough sell for non-drinkers I guess.

I saw it T sev, nice pick, unlucky DQ.

The real bad beat this week is Omaha Beach I guess, I never fancied him and wouldn\'t have cashed any tickets on him, but now I think he would have bolted up this race.

It\'s like \"got up on the wrong side of the bed\".

Of the illogical ones I keep coming back to Signalman, there\'s just something about that sheet that keeps me interested. Not sure what it is, I guess there is some similiarities to Instilled Regard last year, but that\'s not it I think. Would be fun if he gets in.