Today\'s 3rd at Anita has horses coming out of a split from Jan 21.  Temple Keys ran in a race a full second slower (and lost by 3/4) and went a smidge wide and received a 6.  Malibu Music ran in the faster race and lost by 4 1/4, breaking from the 7 hole.  He received a 9.2.  If they weren\'t in the same race today, it wouldn\'t be so easy to discern.  Do you guys always extrapolate so much?  Seems ridiculous to me.  Now, even if Temple Keys finally wins today, which he may, that does not excuse this discrepancy.

Furious Pete: It\'s like criticising the Ayatollah for not celebrating christmas. You\'re in the wrong place if that\'s how you\'d like your figures done. Try Brisnet lol.

johneb91: your wrong Pete.  You should lol more, maybe you wouldn\'t be so furious.  They had the same weights, went similarly wide. Btw, Music finished second at 10-1 and Keys finished 4th at 7-2.  Cheers.

Furious Pete: Wasn\'t it your bright idea that today\'s result didn\'t mean a thing? Seems like you\'ve been hedging your argument.

Look it\'s about pace in the race etc, these turfers are consistent and that\'s why it makes sense to project more, i.e use the horses history. This approach gets close to regression analysis. And then one look at the more traditional stuff as well, the point is to find the most likely correct description of how good a performance has been. It\'s simply a question of methodology. It\'s not perfect and the method has its problems, but if you tried to do it your way you wouldn\'t be doing it any longer after a couple of weeks. You can\'t really knock the TG turf figures either if you tried to learn how to use them, they are excellent.

I\'m not discussing this particular case by the way, sometimes you get it a point or two wrong, it happens. It has nothing to do with being hammered but you got to use the data you have at your hands, at the time. Later, with new information, one can correct if necessary. That happens too.

johneb91: First, I wasn\'t hedging.  I wrote about it before the race, and I said it was ridiculous either way, which it was.  Concerning the pace, it too, was significantly faster in the aforementioned faster split.  The other thing is from a purely handicapping perspective the faster split was a better and deeper race than the pedestrian one (if memory serves).  I have no interest in continuing a dialogue with you, but I\'d like to hear an explanation from the folks who charge $25 a card.  Do they stand by the apparent discrepancy?  How often do they guesstimate like that?

TGJB: Pete, that second paragraph was on target. Because grass courses tend to be a lot faster than dirt ones while the pace tends to be slower, the final times are more pace dependent. In this case the first race on 1/21 got a \"hot pace\" designation\", the other one did not.

And by the way, pretty sure Baltas\' filly will get the best figure today.

johneb91: Thanks for the humorous denial.  Of course, the Baltas filly will get the better number today...even if she didn\'t earn it.  By the way, I\'m not saying she didn\'t deserve a higher figure LAST time...I\'m just saying there\'s no sane way to argue that it should have been 3 1/2 points better.  If it was a half-point or a point higher, this thread never would have been started.  Let\'s just hope this time, the self-fulfilling prophet of a figmaker doesn\'t make it 3 1/2 points higher.

TGJB: Who are you exactly? What\'s your figure making background?

Boscar Obarra: Be careful , he\'ll think he\'s being interviewed for a job.

 (comedy relief over)

johneb91: Look, I respect thorographs and the sheets (though the order may be changing as we type), or I wouldn\'t get them.  I also realize there is art and science involved, so there will always be room for error (to answer your question, I used to keep my own Beyers, before they were offered in the Form).  I am just looking for a little humility and wondering if you guys ever admit errors.  Clearly, yesterday was ridiculous, and you are not willing to admit it was a poor judgement.  That\'s fine, I know a ton of prideful folks who don\'t acknowledge their errors.  I will say, if you guys actually downgrade horses for pressing fast paces in turf races (your clear implication yesterday), then you absolutely need to go in your little figure making room and come up with a new formula.

TGJB: You don\'t have the slightest idea what you\'re talking about. And apparently you didn\'t understand my explanation of how we did the day, since you think it was a straight up ERROR, as opposed to a choice, and your evidence is just that you disagree. Sure, that convinces me, since you used to make Beyers before Beyer. I\'ll go change the day.

Yes, we get it wrong. I posted right here a while back that after reviewing the day for months I added to the Wood Memorial figures. For any race that\'s tricky I review them when the horses run back, and sometimes change them. I have a list of about 50 races over the last 3 months on my desk right now. And for the record one of them is from 1/21 SA-- but it\'s a dirt race. Those grass races are right.

mjellish: I don’t know who you are, but i have a fairly straightforward question for you.  If you are using final times to compare horses, why use figures at all?

I get what you are asking and its a fair question.  But there are a lot of assumptions in your argument that are incorrect.  For one, do you assume the teletimer never malfunctions?  If you are a student of this game or have tried to make your own figures you would know they malfunction a lot more often than you would think, especially in grass races (I defy anyone to try to make sense of the grass races at gulfstream or saratoga using final times).  Or what about varients changing in the middle of the day based on wind, tide, rain, heat or track maintenance?

So again, if you are going to use final times to compare horses why use figures at all?