Wide

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

Michael, I hear ya.

That race was significantly slower than the two before it.

1:43:79
1:43:08
1:44:54

Doesn\'t appear the track was slowing, but I\'m not competent to draw conclusions there.

I don\'t think Scipion is going to score out with an eye opening TFig. But, I\'m not altogether sure that Summerly and Wandering Boy didn\'t just move to near the top of their class. Theres been plenty of fast late running horses that never get up as the distances increase and Scipion could be in that ballpark. I don\'t have any special insight right now, I\'m struggling to get a grip on this crop. But I do think that race was significant. He really has run well when hes been off the pace early and that can be a very effective Derby style, depending.

Pollard had been a very consistent 1 horse. Maybe his first as a four year old was a Zed with the wide. Give Wandering a Zed also and that might put Summerly in the 2 range. If shes a 2, then Scipion was roughly in the 3-4 range at 8.5 marks. I see lots of potential there. I\'m speculating of course.



Post Edited (02-15-05 13:21)

[TGJB]

NoCar-- Holy smokes, a Figs Form reference.

They were a true (and as it turned out, significant) footnote to Racing history. Located less than a five minute walk from where I sit in Soho, the paper was the brainchild of Dr. Robert Sinn, a self-declared genius, and holder of several patents. His younger wife was Jersey trainer Pamela Sinn, who supposedly hired only great looking girls to work in her barn, girls she was supposed to be very fond of. I don\'t know about that, but I know she was a pretty good looking woman herself.

But I digress. In about 1990 or so, Robert Maxwell bought a share of the paper, and sent one of his trusted flunkies, a guy named George White (Mandown of this site), to work with Sinn, in the hopes of eventually taking on the DRF, then owned by Maxwell arch-rival Murdoch (this actually may have been George\'s idea to start with). At the time the DRF was refusing to give me the access to online data I needed to take TG from the old handwritten sheets to the high-tech product we have now, so when I found out what was going on I made it my business to look up this George White guy. Turned out he liked to hang out in bars, but needed a guide to show him downtown Manhattan, and a beautiful friendship was born. At our first meeting I told him I wanted to do a high end product with the sheet on one side and the ancillary data on the other, a concept that no-one else seemed to see the value of. George, who wasn\'t even American, got it in ten seconds flat.

But I digress again. Anyway, one thing led to another (as it often did with Maxwell), and it ended up with Maxwell owning Figs Form, and Sinn screaming (and suing, if memory serves), to no avail. The thing that was really valuable there was the same thing I wanted access to-- the past performance data base. And guess what-- that Figs Form data base became the Racing Times data base (George became president of the RT), and in turn became the Equibase data base when George did a deal with them to share the data and collection cost. And now that the DRF shut down their own data base to use Equibase\'s, it\'s the industry\'s only historical data base.

Which, of course, worked out pretty well for me. George was going to publish TG as a side product of the RT, but when Maxwell went swimming that idea and the RT went under with him. So George walked in to see Equibase with me, and since at that point he had a fair amount of credibility with them, we became the first company to do a deal to get electronic access to the data base.

And if we stay in business a couple more years, I\'ll make back most of the money I spent buying George beer.

Meanwhile, George might be willing to explain the laser system going across the street, and offer other comments about Figs Form.

[fasteddie]

Jerry:

...right out of the twilight zone; my uncle and I were talking about her the other day! Any time she had a horse in we would blitz to the paddock just to see the \"ponygirls\". Stone-cold  knockouts!

[NoCarolinaTony]

TGJB,

Wow, I never really knew the history and the tie in you had with those guys and that product but at the time when I was using it at the Meadowlands most folks thought I was a nut even trying to decifer the graphs, but man would we hit some huge triples which I could attribute to the product and at least my interpertation of there data. I think they forced the DRF to begin to consider using figs such as the Beyers (but i could be wrong on that).

Anyway glad to oblige with a blast from the past. I think I still have one of the papers in my storage bin I might have to dig up someday.

Ever consider using one summary graph to plot all the entrants in a race in some type of summary of historical performance or projection?

[Saddlecloth]

That is a great story TGJB

[TGJB]

As far as DRF using Beyer, the chronology was this-- George and Steve Crist (who don\'t get enough credit for bringing handicapping out of the dark ages, and I\'m not kidding about this) decided they wanted somebody\'s figures for the RT. I was pretty friendly with George, and Steve was using my sheets at the time (for free, I would add-- although to be fair about it he was also making his own figures). Three people had input into the decision as to whose figures would be used in the paper, the third being Scott Finley, now with Attheraces in England, I think. Scott and George wanted us, a reduced form of the figures with higher being better, and ground and weight taken out, so we could still sell the high-end side product. Steve wanted Andy, and as editor overrode the other two.

As everyone knows, putting those figures in a daily paper revolutionised the game. And it forced the DRF\'s hand-- when RT folded they bought up as many assets as possible, including the rights to Beyer-- if they didn\'t put him in the paper, they ran the risk of facing another startup.

[sheba87]

Do you have any idea how much Beyer made when he got his numbers in the RT and then the form?

Are we talking millions, thousands, just curious.

[TGJB]

Originally it was six figures, out of which he had to pay those doing the individual circuits. Don\'t know about now, but it should be a lot more, since without Andy the DRF is the program, for all practical purposes.

[sheba87]

Excellent point.  It really is the program without the Beyers.

Thanks for the info.

Not a bad gig.

A few months ago I was told that Beyer and the DRF were working on Pace Figures for the Form. I don\'t know the status of that project. I think it\'s extremely difficult to produce accurate pace figures for all races. There are some days when there are plently of races at similar distances. So it\'s not hard. However, there are others when it\'s a nightmare. I wouldn\'t want to publish wild \"arse\" guesses.

[xichibanx]

classhandicapper wrote:

> A few months ago I was told that Beyer and the DRF were working
> on Pace Figures for the Form. I don\'t know the status of that
> project. I think it\'s extremely difficult to produce accurate
> pace figures for all races. There are some days when there are
> plently of races at similar distances. So it\'s not hard.
> However, there are others when it\'s a nightmare. I wouldn\'t
> want to publish wild \"arse\" guesses.

People from the form have been saying that pace figures were coming for a couple of years.  The last I heard about it was basically what you said, Beyer and others felt it was too inaccurate some days to produce.  From what I heard the pace figs were going to be based on the beyers.

xichibanx

[Captain Stevo]

Hi Guys, Pamela Sinn aka Pamela Mannerstedt was my first love when we grew up together in Sacramento, CA. She left me to move to NYC to become a model (ie find a sugardaddy). She found Robert Sinn and broke my heart forever. All you say is true about her stables at Rosebud Farm. I just ran an internet search on her as I am trying to locate her and this post came up. Last I heard her and Robert were living in Malta. Anybody knows more, please let me know at:
elko@frontiernet.net

Steve Murphy
Elko, NV