peter pan

[mikemd]

that\'s 40 years of never missing a day.  pretty impressive.

[miff]

Mike,

That\'s 45 years and I have missed days and maybe 10-20 % were live TV.Not being a smart a-- but after following the game and TG closely for so long,I can spot figs which may be questionable, not by methodology, but rather by racing accumen.

Respectfully,

Mike

[miff]

Thats \"acumen\" typo.

[marcus]

Pretty impresive indeed and also amazing (i think) is that you can tell a number is right or wrong by watching a race or replay . Does your approach to handicapping + wagering lead you (if it matters) to a positive roi ?

[miff]

Marcus,

I do not believe there is anything that definitively proves that a fig is right or wrong.To me, figs bear out their accuracy over time.Figs are somewhat the opinion of the maker, oftentimes right(so to speak) and sometimes questionable.

My roi is ok but that has nothing to do with all of those who blindly defend every TG fig as gospel.

[marcus]

Miff , reading all this posted stuff and it\'s difficult at time\'s
 guessing where some people are coming from - thanks , I understand clearly your point ... Though I would admit to blindly defending TG numbers -  this years Derby is another  validation in my opinion that the numbers are accurate and horses earning those big #\'s got the correct ratings for those efforts - Aflet Alex should have bounced ( in the KD ) and did off the negative figure .
 I certainly don\'t know how to view most of these big negative number\'s that have been assigned this past while however I\'m working w/ them and acceping those negative number efforts for what they are .
 Any guess weather Aflet Alex runs a new top or bounces in the Belmont - conventional wisdom would have AA a good race - bad race type , but I think in this case the answer is not quite as simple as that ...



Post Edited (05-29-05 22:40)

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

TGJB wrote:

> If
> you use pars you will not allow horses to be getting faster.
>


This is confusing. Certainly you can\'t use ten year old pars. What the raw times were in their respective classes on the surface 10 years ago may not be relevant for a number of reasons. One is that the surface itself may have changed. Another is that the efforts have changed (For better or worse). If you\'re not prepared to accept the litany of discovered drugs is helping horses run faster, perhaps they are slower due to speed breeding and inbreeding? It just seems that a reference point for the class of individual races has great value, even with the high expertise model of assigning figures comparatively. To use pars, having up to date Pars for the previous year are essential. (Obviously, that gets tough with a race like the Belmont Stakes, due to how rarely the distance and class is run.)

The movement away from pars is a movement away from questionable science towards greater expertise on the subjective aspect of figure making. When the experts are comparing every horse in a race and every horse on a card with a vast history of back numbers it gives the number more collaboration. But there certainly is a heightened subjectivity.

I personally believe TGraph is dead on with horses running faster. But, its very cheap drug induced speed that can come unraveled in the right circumstances. These are not Secretariats or Spectacular Bids. These are mojo animals.



Post Edited (05-29-05 20:06)

[TGJB]

If you do a search on this site for \"pars\" you will find a fuller explanation of why they are a bad idea once you have got a rough data base. But what we\'re talking about here is not par in terms of time, but in figures-- a 10 claimer for older males is a 9, etc.

TGJB,

\"....is one of the ways I know that Andy is using pars at some point in the process (another is the relationship between certain circuits, or more specifically certain types of circuits).\"

This is what I know.

He is using projection figures for a \"minimum\" of all the major circuits and has a database of every figure for every horse.

When horses switch circuits the computer system examines the horses\' figures and will flag any discrepancies that are consistent enough to know that one of the circuits is in error. An adjustment can then be made.

In other words if horses coming from track \"X\" are running \"Y\" slower when they leave for other tracks, he knows that track \"X\" is too fast.

I know that he keeps pars for all the tracks, but if he uses them in the process at all, it\'s only for the very tiny tracks. If those tracks get out of whack, they are brought back in line as horses from those tracks move circuits with projection figures (same as above).

IMHO, there is no way to be certain about anyone\'s figures over time despite the fact that many helpful techniques are used.

Every figure maker has biases in their interpretation of results (things like the impact/lack thereof of pace, position, weight, bias, moving up and down the class ladder, etc...) that slowly creep into the figures over time.

No one is more interested in making cross generation comparisons than I am, but I think we are all better off worrying about getting the current figures right than the relationship between  decades.

\"Beyer had Bellamy Road with a big fig, but actually the other 3 had BELOW average Beyers for their races, relative to previous years. \"

I think the one race among the major 3YO preps that the two disagreed about in a significant way was the Blue Grass.

Beyer and a few other figure makers had the Blue Grass with a mediocre figure of 103 (or thereabouts) and TG and RAG had the race very fast.

I thought the race was somewhere in between the two. :-)

[jbelfior]

CH--

I agree with Jimbo\'s post regarding the set up for the BELMONT STAKES with a slow early--fast late pace profile.

The second matter is trainer intention. It appears that ORATORY was fully cranked up for a race the connections pointed to. That may not be the case for the runner-up.

REVERBERATE was under restraint in the early going and my feeling is he could have set a stronger pace if the jock so desired. He finished strongly, although no threat to the winner who certainly had more bottom to him and a quicker turn of foot.

In a 3yo Triple Crown year where only AFLEET ALEX has shown any consistent grade 1 credentials and who may be vulnerable to a regression (especially going 1 1/2), perhaps REVERBERATE deserves a longer look.

The pedigree, for those of you who still consider it a factor, should help as he goes longer.

Good Luck,
Joe B.