Question for TG - Ohio Breds

[tread]

Look out for those Ohio breds, they are dangerous!  I actually like USS Tinosa better than Harlan at this point, I\'m not convinced that Harlan will have an effort left come derby time, this had been an awfully tough winter for him.

Here is the question, you made a point last weekend about a maiden race at GP that you could not make figures for because of a changing track and many of the horses were first time starter and made the comment that \"no one with a conscience\" could do so.

You show several figures for USS Tinosa run on the Ohio circuit, even one from Beulah Park, the absolute armpit of the racing world.  If there is a more rundown, piece of garbage racing facility in the US, I\'d sure like to see it (I can say this because it\'s my home track).

Question, how were these figures calculated?  Are you maintaining pars for the ohio tracks, reviewing/watching tapes of all the races there on a regular basis?  If so, why are you not selling figures for the Ohio circuit if you are already going thru this trouble?  If not, aren\'t these numbers just a guess?  If they are a guess, how can you (in good conscience) place them on the same sheet along side legitimate numbers without some sort of designation that the figure was made somewhat out of thin air?  Are we to understand that you did not have enough confidence to make figures for that GP race, but you do for the ohio races where you (presumably) have far less data?

Sorry if this comes off as inflamitory, that is not my intent.  It\'s just a little confusing that\'s all.

Finally, to HP (or was it Mall), could you read me back my derby comments from your notebook?  I think I said something about Siphonic and Came Home not being a factor in the derby, but I can\'t quite remember.  LOL

[TGJB]

Okay, from now on, only figures on high class races at high class tracks.
The problem with the Gulfstream race was that there was no data to go on to make figures. You couldn\'t tie it to the surrounding races because of the changing track speed, and you had no history of the horses within the races to work with.
We make figures for Beulah just as we do for the other \"satellite\" tracks- which is to say, the same way we do for the major tracks we publish, except we don\'t have an observer. We use a good computer program developed by Paul to work out ground loss, and it\'s pretty tight. You can tell which is the computer generated ground- it\'s italicized. The figures made this way can certainly be off by a point in either direction, occasionally more.
We don\'t sell data for Beulah because there is no demand.

[tread]

OK, the computer program was the missing link for me.  I must have missed any previous explaination of this, I did not realize there were italicized ground loss numbers until you just mentioned it.  Thanks for clarifying it.

Are the variants you make for the \"satelite\" tracks also done with an alternate method?  Or is it the same method used for evaluating track speed at all the other tracks?  The only reason I ask is, if you take beulah as an example the amount of mositure can change drastically from day to day during the winter meaning there are some pretty inconsistent track speeds.

Sorry to be so picky, but as a customer I like to know whether or not the figure I have bought is an exact figure or an \"about\" figure.  I\'m glad you do take a stab at these lesser figures, I\'m just trying to better understand how accurate they are before using them so I can make appropriate adjustments.  Many of these ohio horses show up at Turfway and Mountaineer.  Thanks again...

[TGJB]

As I said above, we use the same method for the satellite tracks as for the majors, but the info for the day(and therefore for the earlier figures)is not as solid, so there is more room for error. And the point you make about moisture changes is why we don\'t rely on surrounding days, and often have track speed changing during a card.