Andy

[TGJB]

Re the discussion on the Ragozin board about how Beyer has treated Len and me in his books-- the other issue is about how Len treated Andy in HIS book. He was pretty rough on him, and in at least one obvious case (the paragraph about KNOWING FOR A FACT that tracks have never changed speed during the card barring extreme weather) he was dead wrong. This is why I tried to set Andy up twice for layups at the expo, to get even with Ragozin-- but he missed both. Andy is a good guy, and has done an awful lot to educate the betting public. He\'s deserving of a lot more respect than Len showed him.

[Lucy]

if I may quote:

\"1—Ten minutes before the panel, Wolff informed me that he would not be asking a question about track speeds, but I could use my (long) presentation as closing remarks. I was screwed—it left me in the position of bringing the subject up out of the blue, which made it an attack on Ragozin \"

\"Wolff appeared to want to keep things nice—then he finished with the question part and wanted to move to closing remarks, which left it to me to bring up the question of the Keeneland 2yo races, again making me the aggressor.\"



I think it\'s tragic how fate so often conspires against you to make it look like you always attack Ragozin.

[TGJB]

It\'s not just that your intent is so obviously bad, it\'s that you are so bad at the execution. Of course you intentionally ommit the context (WHICH EVERYONE HERE HAS EITHER SEEN OR WILL AFTER I POST THIS)-- that the panel was originally created as a debate, and that Wolff told me he would be addressing these subjects. Anyone who wants to see the whole post Beavis pulled the quote from should use the search on this site to find \"Fear and disorientation in Las Vegas\".

Keep it up, kid. Friedman is ecstatic that you are pointing people to that post, and his comments on the Keenland figures.

[fasteddie]

JB:

I\'m curious about the Kee meet this year (please excuse me if I missed some postings on this). Beyers and BRIS numbers seem way too high this year; did they overrate the class levels or track speed?? The Ben Ali race comes to mind as being way out of wack. Please advise.

[TGJB]

I don\'t have any idea what Beyer did, I know Ragozin blew the Blue Grass-- got it too fast by a couple of points. The issue I was referring to was the Kee baby race figures, which Friedman continues to claim are based on some kind of science. They are not.

[texasturfmaster]

Jerry,

While the topic of baby race figures has been brought up, I have been wondering about something for a long time.  

I\'ve read the famous reply to David Patent where you spoke of the \"projection method\" of figure making.  It was probably one of the better posts that I have read on this board and I understand where you are coming from when you chose not to assign a figure to a horse for a particular race.  

What I can\'t understand is why a handicapper cannot collect data over a reasonably long period of time to get a representative sample of the performance of 2 yr olds over the same course and distance to get an idea of what may constitute a good performance today and what may not.

It may not be science so to speak, but it would be a step in the right direction.  You and others may already do this, but I get the impression that most figure makers like to tie to other benchmarks.

Your work is on the cutting edge in so many areas.  My question is...Can the data be tightened in these 2 yo races races by
not attaching to historic benchmarks such as those of older claiming horses, etc.?

[TGJB]

I\'m not sure exactly which comments of mine you are referring to. I have spoken specifically about the Keenland 2yo races, for which figures can not be made for reasons I have gone into at length, most recently in \"Fear and disorientation in Las Vegas\", which you can get to using the search engine here, below. That one situation aside, you usually can make figures for baby races pretty easily if the track is staying the same speed and there are surrounding one turn races with older horses.

Give me an example of what you propose, and I\'ll comment.

[texasturfmaster]

Jerry wrote

\"I\'m not sure exactly which comments of mine you are referring to.\"

The post was from May 2, 2000 \"Figure Making Methodologies\"....A Classic

I was referring precisely to those situations that can\'t be tied to similar turn races with older hores.

In other words, can certain assumptions be
made based upon the pars of only the 2 yo races at the distance in question on the same track vs. leaving the box blank.  (Assuming that your data set is large enough to be meaningful)

I know that it flies in the face of your premise, but could it yield something accurate enough to be used in those rare circumstances.  I do realize that errors will compound down the road.

[marcus]

I feel that thorograph numbers are the #1 best product being offered in racing today , the entire package is like a home run for the handicapper .
 The only time\'s I\'ve seen the ragozin\'s product , and i didn\'t like what i saw , was in the trash can or on the floor of the otb/track after apparently being discarded  by someone . Not to say that\'s where I belive the rag product should be becouse ragizin\'s been around a while and deserve whatever respect that they\'ve earned .
 Personally I\'d rank beyers figures in the drf at #2 becouse there not all messed up with mistaken assumptions about track speed and track conditions along with other varients and considerations which ultimately get plugged into a number .
I really like all the recent discussions with regard to impact resistent curve\'s etc . these type of factors along w/ many the others which go into or help to weight an interpetation of what has occured at a track or a given race are tools and must be \"made\" and \"used\" correctly in order to help refine a performance or speed figure rating ( performance figures to a lesser degree) otherwise the net results are out of context or scewed and leads the reader away from a more realistic view of information .
 so far as rating the #3 + #4 speed figure product\'s I\'ve seen  , i\'d have the colt\'s neck speed mth stuff and ragozin about even .
A lot of chalk at the bottom of trifecta + superfecta  ...



Post Edited (08-29-04 17:35)

[TGJB]

Without having proven horses run over the same course there is no way of establishing the speed of the track, so the answer is no. Pars are only useful for large-population studies-- when you first set up your data base, you use claiming pars, for example. But after you get a rough data base with a rough figure history for each horse, you abandon the pars in favor of the \"projection\" method, which is much more accurate-- you use the horses who ran in the 10 claimer in question, as opposed to the ones who ran in all 10 claimers.

Everything else aside, if there was only one two year old race on a card, and you did it by bringing it back to par for that kind of race, you would be saying it was an average race, whether it was good, bad, or average. And those races are notiously variable-- that\'s why no one uses them even if they use pars.