Wednesday's T-Graph Analysis at Saratoga

[jimbo66]

I have spent my last $25 on the T-Graph analysis product after today\'s card at Saratoga.  I know we all have bad days handicapping and we lose money, but I just don\'t see how some of these horses became selections.  I posted a few weeks ago about what I perceived to be a lack of \"common sense\" handicapping missing in the product and JB was nice enough to reply, but I didn\'t hear from anybody else.  Anybody actually play the selections at SAratoga today?  

Let me explain what I mean by \"common sense\" handicapping.  It isn\'t meant to be a \"shot\" at TGraph.  What I mean are handicapping angles/tools that an average handicapper would be be able to use.  

Race 1, the selection was Royal Rapids and Hristoforos.  It was a nx1 allowance race and Hristoforos was 1 for 36 lifetime.  I know T-graph doesn\'t consider \"class\", but betting on maidens that have lost 15 to 20 times in the same condition or horses that can never clear their nx1 condition is a \"common sense\" bad bet.  Of course in 36 starts the horse had some good figures and slugged up for 3rd or 4th with lost ground afew times.  And Royal Rapids is worse.  I can bet shippers from small tracks when the Trainer is good.  Betting on seemingly \"outclassed\" shippers trained by Jonathan Shepperd, Graham Motion, Michael Dickinson, etc. can be a profitable angle.  But betting on a 15k claimer from Colonial trained by Marialice Coffey and ridden by Ray Ganpath to win an allowance race at Saratoga is tough to do.  

Race 2.  T-Graph selects the 1 to 2 shot entry from Pletcher to use in doubles.  I can\'t criticize the selection other than to say, if you were going to pick a 1 to 2 shot, you should have just \"passed\" the race.  I doubt the kind of betters paying $25 for the sheets and the analysis want 1 to 2 shots.

Race 3.  Holiday Lady to run a \"big one\".  Dead last.  

Race 4.  Lonesome Too, win and place.  2nd to last.

Race 5.  Amenuensis.  2nd to last.  The horse has 2 lifetime wins, they were good figures, but BOTH WERE OVER A WET TRACK.  That has to be discounted.  That is what I mean by \"blindly playing figures\" without doing any handicapping.

Race 6.  No bet due to scratch.  

Race 7.  2 to 5 shot Midas Eyes to win.  What can I say?  \"Pass\" or take a stab at the exacta?

Race 8.  A three horse box of the even money favorite with the horses that ran last and 2nd to last.  

Race 9.  Pass.

I apologize for the \"acid\" in my email, but I am an unhappy customer.  I have seen value in the trainer stats and the raw figures from T-graph over the past 3 months, but I give up on the analysis.  I am going to take one \"potshot\" to end the email.  I don\'t know about the Ragozin numbers and I don\'t know what kind of handicapper Len Ragozin is, but if JB is the one doing the T-Graph analysis, he should  be careful about challenging anybody to handicapping contests. Stick to figure making.

[Lucy]

hehehe...not to beat up on jerry, but THAT\'S a funny post.

as far as the even $ picks, I\'m not sure why you\'re so surprised, considering the latest rotw.
all the stakes races run that weekend, and they tout an even $ horse.
in that particular case, maybe they were looking for a \'safe\' play after the million, but I really wouldn\'t have any idea.
can\'t comment on those sar races, but they DID offer up a price play in the rotw, if you were inclined towards gimmicks --- ran up the track, but at least they were trying.

I mostly wanted to comment on that first race you mentioned.
not specifically, as I didn\'t play, but in general, those horses aren\'t always bad plays.
george mentioned in an earlier post that you often find that horses who have a history of wasting good #\'s by running wide, will probably continue to do so.
I think these chronic bridesmaids are a perfect example of this, and while they might get beat, they can fill out gimmicks at a big price because the conventional handicapper tends to underrate them.
just be honest about the horrible trip you might get from a crap jock, and demand a good price --- don\'t get suckered in by the 5-1\'s.

and as for the parade of last place finishers, I will refrain from commenting out of respect for our hosts, and so as not to jinx myself this weekend.
I will, however, leave someone else\'s comment for the unfortunate owners of those horses:
\"Fellas --- Thoro-Graph does consulting work, helping mange(sic) horses. It makes a difference.\"

[Upper Nile]

Jimbo, All I will say is I encourage you to stop buying the analysis and instead learn to handicap using the full sheets.

[jimbo66]

Upper Nile,

Thanks for the advice.  Here is the enigma, at least to me.  Presumably, somebody who knows how to handicap using the \"full sheets\", writes the analysis.

The original posting has a lot of negativity and was a bit reactionary, as I was up late with insomnia and frustrated at myself for allowing the analysis to talk me off of 2 winners.  

But the core problem I really wanted to get at was that I believe that several parts of the T-Graph thesis are wrong.  I tried to start that discussion a few weeks ago and only JB got involved.  I wanted to hear from others.  The two big ones I have the most trouble with are the disregard to \"class\" and \"pace\".  I think I am pretty much directly quoting JB when I say that he posted \"class is not a factor, period\".  The best example I can think of to dispute this is maiden special versus maiden claimers.  How many times have I seen a horse showing brief speed in a MSW race then fading to be beaten by 20 lengths, earning an awful figure (beyer or T-Graph).  Then he drops to maiden claimer and wires them.  The difference between MSW and MC is huge to me.  Am I to believe that this is an \"illusion\"?  I do believe that sharp trainers move horses up the claiming ladder and that good horses runnning for 20k price and go to 50k races and compete.  But this is certain situations, not warranting \"non-existence of class as a handicapping tool\".

And pace?  How many times have we as handicappers seen a horse who has shown speed and been pressed in previous races, collapsing horribly, suddenly get \"brave on the lead\" when allowed an uncontested lead.  It happens.  Pace matters.  So does class.  

My suspicion is that there is no EASY way to incorporate class or pace in the T-Graph methodology and so it is easier to say \"it doesn\'t matter\".

[TGJB]

We looked you up and couldn\'t find where you downloaded anything, so I\'m assuming you took the analysis by phone (if I\'m wrong about this e-mail me with your account info so we can look it up). Which makes it extremely difficult to know how large a sampling you have looked at, or which days and tracks you took.

I did the analysis for Sar and Dmr yesterday, and I went down with you. Obviously I violently disagree with you on the \"common sense\" question, and I\'ll say it again-- post in advance the situations where other factors cause you to conclude our thinking is wrong, and we\'ll see how it works out.

The 1 to 2 on the Pletcher horse indicates one of the problems with doing this the previous day-- do you really think I would have used a first time starter at that price? And other considerations aside, that \"allowance race at Saratoga\" you refer to was a New York bred race. As for Amaneunis, he had ONE top on a wet track-- all his other good ones (and tops) came on fast tracks. And of course, we didn\'t give out Midas Eyes as a win bet-- we said to single him in the pick three because we thought there was value in the two horses in the previous race. One of whom was a late scratch (the other ran up the track).

Anyway, sorry to hear you had as bad a day as I did. I look forward to hearing the knocks in advance next time.

Beavis-- again, since readers of this forum are actually reading ROTW themselves, your post doesn\'t really require a response. But I had a thought-- all the ROTW\'s are still available on this site. Why don\'t you do an actual study to see how they have worked out-- take the last 50 (100? 200?), work out a play based on $100 bet expressing our opinion each week (of course, you would have to lay out what the bets were so we could all see whether they reflect our opinion), and do an ROI.

Just so we are clear-- we choose ROTW based on public interest in the race, and elements which make it a good teaching tool, meaning those that enable us to focus on the features of TG that differentiate it from other handicapping tools, and other approaches to handicapping.

And as always, I encourage you to offer up your opinions before the races, and if they are based on Ragozin, to make that clear then. This childish selective sniping after the fact ain\'t gonna get you taken seriously.

[Lucy]

\"Beavis-- again, since readers of this forum are actually reading ROTW themselves, your post doesn\'t really require a response. But I had a thought-- all the ROTW\'s are still available on this site. Why don\'t you do an actual study to see how they have worked out-- take the last 50 (100? 200?), work out a play based on $100 bet expressing our opinion each week (of course, you would have to lay out what the bets were so we could all see whether they reflect our opinion), and do an ROI.

Just so we are clear-- we choose ROTW based on public interest in the race, and elements which make it a good teaching tool, meaning those that enable to focus on the features of TG that differentiate it from other handicapping tools, and other approaches to handicapping.

And as always, I encourage you to offer up your opinions before the races, and if they are based on Ragozin, to make that clear then. This childish sniping after the fact ain\'t gonna get you taken seriously.\"




apparently, it gets me taken seriously enough to warrant a 12 line reply.
like I said, always nice to get top billing, butthead.

[TGJB]

You are right, you are just too clever for me. You came out of this looking great, and so did Ragozin.

[derby1592]

jimbo,

I think you will find a lot of folks using the sheets that factor in pace (or \"energy distribution\") in some fashion. \"Class\" is a different matter since most find it hard to define and feel it is probably a derivative of speed and/or pace rather than an independent factor in and of itself.

The example you gave of a msw unable to get the lead dropping into an mcl is a good example of the potential confusion between \"class\" and \"pace.\" Most pace players would argue that the improved performance was due to a softer pace as opposed to some sort of innate \"class\" difference between mcl and msw horses.

Similarly, most sheet players would probably argue that horses stepping up in \"class\" have a hard time winning mainly because the higher \"class\" horses are faster than the lower \"class\" ones (and vice versa).

I am not sure this makes any sense but I hope it does.

Chris

[Lucy]

jim --

1592 beat me to it, so I\'ll just have to agree w/him --- that msw example is more about pace than \'class\'.
I think pace is probably an occasional factor, but not so frequent or predictable as many would believe --- and of course, just my opinion.
the problem w/pace is that it\'s mostly an after the fact thing that\'s used to rationalize a result.
you don\'t really know if pace was a causal factor, but that\'s how it \'looked\', so that\'s how it gets labeled.
I\'d log that in the same diary along w/every other trainer excuse --- maybe the track was greasy.
for every example you come up w/as anecdotal evidence, I could produce a counterexample --- well, I could if my memory was better.
I think roses in may might be a good one, or the race that broke cigar\'s streak, if you want a high profile one w/a little dust on it.
I\'ve seen countless lone speed\'s w/bad Sheets get swallowed up, and I\'ve seen countless \'hotly contested pace\' runners w/good Sheets keep running.
that said, I think it IS possible that the occasional horse gets burnt on a quick pace and quits, and in that case their final fig is just going to look like an x, and you need to keep in mind that it\'s a \'quit\' fig.
you could maybe make a approx fig by shaving off the quit, or simply add a \'quit\' notation, or just handicap w/that in mind.

as for \'class\' I think roses is probably a good example, once again.
another would be a race I played quite a bit ago, where I liked this 25-1 horse --- the gappy drop down dutrow chalk was fastest, but the price looked better than the rest.
so, anyway, after he wins, these guys at the next table were lamenting that nobody could\'ve played that one because he was the cheapest horse in the race.
I use a form, but not much, so I hadn\'t noticed, and neither had the horse.
(and so as not to pat myself on the back, while I did cash him, I blew the exacta and the double).
the problem you\'re going to have defending \'class\' is that there\'s no definition for it --- you can\'t really quantify it.
it\'s about as meaningful as trying to come up w/a system based on how much \'heart\' each horse has.
is roses now a classier horse than he was before his last race?

[Catalin]

I bet on him too.  And I don\'t think he got beat because of the step-up in class.  There is a 1/5 sec (1 length) difference in par between CNL 15k claimers and those NYB NW1 on T.  He just didn\'t run back to his # at 1 3/16.  It happens...