peter pan

[kev]

Thats cool Miff, but I was talking about the part you said. \"Specifically,once again,NAME the runners who would \"dust\"Fager and Sec with all things equal, I would love to take you to task on those two specifically.\" That seems like it has nothing to do with neg. numbers son. I would have to agree with ya on the run of the mill type horses getting those big numbers. I\'m sure Jerry will jump on this soon. Someone is way off base here, TG has horses getting alot faster now, but Rag and beyer might have them getting little bit faster. I guess it all depends on who your going to support. I like to see when the first neg. number was given on TG ( what year) and how many was given last year alone.

As long as we are talking about Ghostzapper, I\'d to contribute the observation that he was tons the best in the Kings Bishop also. IMO, that was a very biased racetrack. I played Great Notion in the race based on that bias (just missed). GZ was simply amazing that day to almost win and proved my view in his next start.  

As far as I am concerned he should be 9 for 10. I don\'t know what happened to him in his 2nd start, but he was dreadful relative to 1st start and was laid off after it. So something probably happened.  

Nornmally I would strongly discount the chances of any horse returning off a layoff into a Grade 1 race like the Met despite the fact that Frankel is pretty skilled at getting them ready. There is a difference between getting your horse ready to run his usual figure in a weaker prep against horses that he lays over and the kind of conditioning needed to overcome a hotly contested Grade 1 race like the Met.

However, IMO he may be so darn good, this is like a prep for him.  

Personally, I\'m hoping he can do it and goes on to prove himself as one of the all time greats later this yeat.

However, tomorrow will be no picnic.

Forest Danger is dynamite (at least up to 7F) and getting better.

Love of Money is also probably a budding terror whose race out in CA was wildly underrated. That was a vicious early pace and he held very well that day. Plus, I love 5 day repeaters.

The pace could be very interesting and important to the outcome.



Post Edited (05-29-05 12:38)

[jimbo66]

RichieBee,

The two examples you named are situations where Beyer and T-Graph have horses running fast figures.

But the argument is more that T-Graph has horses running significantly faster than Beyer, relative to prior years.  There is no question that Beyer and Jerry have completely different views on the speed of today\'s horses versus other year\'s horses.  

Jerry had four horses this year going into the Derby with 4 of the 5 fastest figs for a 3-year old EVER.

Beyer had Bellamy Road with a big fig, but actually the other 3 had BELOW average Beyers for their races, relative to previous years.  

After the Derby, Beyer called this one of the worst (slowest) 3 year old crops ever.  Based on figures, Jerry can\'t possibly agree with that.  

Anyway, my point is that it isn\'t Jerry and Andy on one side of the argument and Miff and others on the other side.  Jerry stands alone on this, with Rags somewhere in the middle (of the three figuremakers)

Personally, I don\'t think it is a big deal as to whether horses now are faster than horses 20 years ago.  I think what matters most is whether Jerry is right about the 7th race at Oaklawn versus the 3rd at Belmont, versus the 6th at Santa Anita.

However, if Miff\'s point is that the potential inaccuracy of the figures of today\'s horses versus yesteryear\'s horses could be driven by a fundamental flaw in methodology that would also bring into doubt all of today\'s figures at T-Graph, then that is a different story.

[davidrex]

     Thank you all you princes of racing history..you gatekeepers of tradition.

     I feel so selfish...so self centered for using brown\'s merely to increase my off-shore account.

     Brown\'s #\'s are too fast,he\'s caught up with some mentality problems,he\'s gay,he\'s ugly!

     But when he drinks Red Stripe ..he\'s a beautiful man!

     To think that I can go for years w/out giving a **** whether certain young animals can run as fast as their breeding{duh..improve the stock}is certainly a sign of an immature and uncaring human. I apoligize.

     Hey jerr...keep them happy sheets comin..you has been.

    PARTYpokerON!

[miff]

Davidrex,

The discussion is not about using the TG figs alone.If you are ONLY looking at TG figs, then the comparative scale is totally CONSISTENT.When you compare TG data to other reliable sources, there are sometimes major differences which require clarification if you are betting serious money.

[kev]

You know the sheets are the only figure makers that has been making them from way back in the days. So with that said, I don\'t have alot of old sheets. I do have some of Secretariat he ran a 1- three times and one 0\", they gave him the same number for the derby and the Bel. S. Bid as far as 3yr derby and before a 2-, spend a buck 0, unbridled 2, fu peg 2-, monarchos -0\", S.jones 0+, winning colors 3\"....I would love to see some of the older sheets of the older runner\'s. Now you have GZ running -3+ and Mineshaft ran something like a -2\", they have Cigar running the best at a -1\".anythoughts on all this??

[miff]

Kev,

I absolutely have some thoughts.Horses are NOT faster, figures are.

[kev]

Do you use any of the speed figures?? TG, Rag, Beyer\'s???

[TGJB]

Miff-- rather than get caught up in the same old merry-go-round, let\'s try this. I\'m sure you will be at Belmont tomorrow, a day when according to you they will \"scrape\" the track to speed it up. They post the cushion depth daily, so why don\'t you check to see what it is, and report back here. Keep in mind that it was 2 1/2 inches back in the 70s.

Let us know. Also, Passaro seems like an approachable guy-- why don\'t you talk to him about changes in the tracks he has worked on over the years. Just make sure you ask him open ended questions about the tracks, not the horses.

[miff]

Kev,

No Rags, but all of the others and some pace stuff.TG figs have become faster relative to the scale used to compare figs to the other sources.

Also, visual comparison of many races(live and from tapes) confirm fairly frequent negative figs awarded far too often relative to the actual performance on the track.

[TGJB]

Jimbo-- per a conversation I had with Friedman on their site about 4 or 5 years ago, Ragozin was using pars (Len said it was how you knew that figures from different generations were on the same scale). As I pointed out to him, the opposite is true-- pars \"freeze\" the horse population, so if they are improving as a whole you won\'t know it. Up to that point our figures had gone from 3 points slower to about 3 points faster over 15 years or so, since then the relationship has remained basically constant, and Friedman said at the Expo that they no longer used pars.

What you describe about the relationship between us and Andy is one of the ways I know that Andy is using pars at some point in the process (another is the relationship between certain circuits, or more specifically certain types of circuits). If you use pars you will not allow horses to be getting faster.

[miff]

Miff-- rather than get caught up in the same old merry-go-round, let\'s try this. I\'m sure you will be at Belmont tomorrow, a day when according to you they will \"scrape\" the track to speed it up. They post the cushion depth daily, so why don\'t you check to see what it is, and report back here. Keep in mind that it was 2 1/2 inches back in the 70s.

JB,
I guess they didn\'t do anything Wood Day either, just to name one.I expect that you of all people would believe that when I used to approach Porcelli about why the track was so dead on occasion, he would swear the cushion was the same as always. The horses were just running two seconds slower than normal because they were all having an off day according to him.

Let me get this straight. You do NOT believe that many tracks scrape on some of their big days??

[TGJB]

Miff-- Let\'s try it again. I am trying to give us a point from which to start a discussion with some facts, rather than guesses and subjective opinions-- why not just get the info, and then we can talk about it.

[mikemd]

\"Also, visual comparison of many races(live and from tapes) confirm fairly frequent negative figs awarded far too often relative to the actual performance on the track.\"


come on now.  why don\'t we get rid of all speed figures and someone just tells us how fast the race felt.  tell me you really don\'t believe this and you were just saying it to get some fool to respond.

[miff]

The fool who responded probably hasn\'t watched 100,000 live races.