Ragozin Derby Numbers, Ground Loss

[TGJB]

Ragozin posted his Derby figures and a couple of quick points:

1- There are some differences in ground between TG and Ragozin. It\'s pretty unlikely we are wrong-- we had two different people do it independently, and their differences were negligible. The most obvious difference concerns the relationship between the first two finishers-- we had EM running a full point better, they had it only half a point. You guys can figure out youselves who is right by watching a tape of the race-- just add up the paths of EM an FC on the two turns. In other words, if EM was 4-3 on the first turn, that\'s 3.5, if he was 4-3 on the second turn that\'s another 3.5, for a total of 7. If FC was 1.5 and 2 on the turns that\'s a total of 3.5. One path on one turn = 1 length, so EM would therefore be running 3.5 lengths further. Subtract what he got beat (1 3/4), and he ran 1 3/4 lengths better.

The above example is pretty close to what happened in the race-- EM actually lost slightly more ground relative to FC. But even as rounded off above, 2 lengths is worth a point at 1 1/4 miles, so the difference between them would be just a hair under that.

To put it another way, for Ragozin to have it right, EM would have to have been LESS than 3 paths wider than FC on both turns combined. Watch the race and decide for yourself.

2- As we mentioned before the Derby, Ragozin got the Wood figure wrong for EM and FC because of a ground loss error which caused him to give everyone but Senor Swinger a point better than they should get. He got the Derby right-- he didn\'t tie the figures to the bad Wood figures (hmmm, wonder why he didn\'t, maybe because I would have had an effin\' field day with it), but tied it to the rest of the horses.

But because of the Wood error, he has the first two finishers going BACK in the Derby. Aside from this being pretty unlikely in the abstract (like, when has it ever happened before), look how much better those two sheets look if you add a point to their Wood figures.

And think about how it affects reading their patterns going forward.