Changing Track Speeds: A Derby Contender Case Study Perhaps

[nicely nicely]

As Jerry explained, the \"tgposter\" message was deleted because the author knows full well he was asked not to post here anymore and has attempted to do so under various pseudonyms. It has nothing to do with the content of his post.

That person\'s original and subsequent handles are the only one\'s banned from this site.

[cubfan0316]

need explanation.   when a so-called super trainer claims a horse for 10 gs and runs him 3 days later for 20, how the hell do u idiots think hes not drugging them? how the hell can a trainer make a horse run 7 lenghts better in 3 days?

[TGJB]

I think most of the posters on this board agree that some trainers are moving up horses.

Here\'s a better question: how can you still be a Cub fan?

[P-Dub]

TGJB,
Looks like these guys are right, you don\'t know what you are doing. I mean, you gave out another winner in your ROTW with the cold exacta too. Who threw the darts today to come up with that one?? Those numbers for Seafree at FOUR different tracks prove that your projection method is truly faulty. I concur with Miff, pickle your projection method imediately. BTW, if your numbers are always this bad I\'ll take a jar of Dill pickles.

Its getting past tired to read the constant criticism of your methods and figures. Its one thing to give an opinion and explain your point of view, but to go on and on and on and on.............enough already. If these guys don\'t agree with your methods, then go away and use someone elses. If a restaurant has poor service and lousy food, do you keep going back so you can continue to bitch and moan to your friends about your bad experiences or do you find another restaurant??

[miff]

P Dub,

Spoken like a true blind follower. ANOTHER winnner in the ROTW. Check the rotw record, it\'s a complete embarrassment for most of the past 70 odd weeks.The RAG guys call it the \"Joke of the Week\" or the \"Waste of the Week\".

Also if you wish to participate, get the facts correct. Alan nailed the ROTW playing the Favorite to bounce, perfect call. What did that have to do with the projection method?

[bobphilo]

Aside from the fact that projection methodolgy was used to come up with the huge figure that the favorite was likely to bounce from and projection methodolgogy was used to come up with the figures of the 2 horses that ran 1-2, I quess it had nothing to do with it.

Bob

[miff]

Bob,

That seems a bit of a \"stretch\". With 6 weeks off and being the fastest, class, and working well I thought Pussycay would jog.Wrong, but I don\'t bet shorts anyway.

[bobphilo]

Miff,

I\'ll grant you that Pussycat\'s Doll loss had as much to do with pattern (or violation thereof) as with her figure. but the identification a of Seafare and Play Ballado as the horses to profit from this was a function of there figures derived from projection. The alternative to the projection method is class pars, which are far less accurate and are mainly only used until horses have run enough to give more accurate figures used in projection.
Could we be using different senses of the term \"projection\"in deriving figures?

Bob

[miff]

Hi Bob,

Nice to meet you. I am well aware of projection,pars, et al. For about 10 years I used to informally \"make\" TG figs of all the races in New York.I have used TG Figs for 18-20 years(about) with great success.Alan Rosenthal was unofficially promoting the product back then at the Staten Island simulcast.The figs were chicken scratch on graph paper and came with a rubberband. The figs were \"gold\" for a long time.

In the process of \"making\"/ projecting the tg fig after the card back then,I would come very close to Jerry\'s fig as would several others TG users.I stopped doing that about 6 years ago.When you use any product for a long time it is easy to spot change. Jerry can argue but the product/figs have changed dramatically lately and I am NOT the only user saying it.After investigating for about two years, I can only conclude that the current projection method is the root cause. I suspect Jerry will confirm that he has not changed anything in this regard.

There has NEVER been so many \"ugly\" TG pairs, EVER.I say that from my experience with the product.There has been and will be issues with figs( like Bob and John, a very ugly group of pairs). NO other figure maker that I checked, agrees with TG on this except Beyer who is still several lengths off TG.Jerry has stated that he only considers Beyer credible.I should have the figs of the five  fig makers at some point fairly soon. I\'ll post them but don\'t know if they will stay up.

[Tabitha]

I didn\'t bet the La Canada or even look at the ROTW. Just having reviewed it, congrates to Alan for scoring on that race.

Several factors jump out at me however. Pussycat Doll had that one Huge figue at 7 furlongs on a wet track. That was it. Taking a stand against that figure for whatever reason left her very vulnerable to try and win upon her other numbers. She was stretching out to 1-1/8. Just how repeatable was her previous figure? and thats assuming if it was Projection assigned, as we suspect, it was a legit negative 2.

Maybe Alan took something from the Strub and applied it to the La Canada. Pussycat Doll may have bounced. Then again, she may not have. I read she ran rank early. She did fold up pretty good late.

The race that interested me was the San Vincente. A six furlong test between Too Much Bling and Lost in the Fog is gonna be worth the price of Admission. I\'m on the record with Bling.

miff Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hi Bob,
>
> Nice to meet you. I am well aware of
> projection,pars, et al. For about 10 years I used
> to informally \"make\" TG figs of all the races in
> New York.I have used TG Figs for 18-20
> years(about) with great success.Alan Rosenthal was
> unofficially promoting the product back then at
> the Staten Island simulcast.The figs were chicken
> scratch on graph paper and came with a rubberband.
> The figs were \"gold\" for a long time.
>
> In the process of \"making\"/ projecting the tg fig
> after the card back then,I would come very close
> to Jerry\'s fig as would several others TG users.I
> stopped doing that about 6 years ago.When you use
> any product for a long time it is easy to spot
> change. Jerry can argue but the product/figs have
> changed dramatically lately and I am NOT the only
> user saying it.After investigating for about two
> years, I can only conclude that the current
> projection method is the root cause. I suspect
> Jerry will confirm that he has not changed
> anything in this regard.
>
> There has NEVER been so many \"ugly\" TG pairs,
> EVER.I say that from my experience with the
> product.There has been and will be issues with
> figs( like Bob and John, a very ugly group of
> pairs). NO other figure maker that I checked,
> agrees with TG on this except Beyer who is still
> several lengths off TG.Jerry has stated that he
> only considers Beyer credible.I should have the
> figs of the five  fig makers at some point fairly
> soon. I\'ll post them but don\'t know if they will
> stay up.
>
>
>
> Edited 1 times. Last edit at 02/13/06 11:26AM by
> miff.

[JimP]

Miff, when you say \"Bob and John, a very ugly group of pairs\", what specifically are you referring to that makes them \"ugly\"?

[P-Dub]

Miffed,

My facts are straight. Your whole point is the faulty use of the projection method. Isn\'t that how the numbers for the winner were derived??

The Rag (perfect name, isn\'t it) guys put out so much information for us its easy to see why they would feel that way. They have such a great track record of handicapping races beforehand and always post sheets of horses that are questioned by users over here. Its nothing short of ridiculous for you to even bring them up in that context.

Blind follower?? No. Have I ever made numbers? No. But you don\'t have to be a chef to know whether or not the food tastes bad. I\'ve had more good days than bad with this product. At some point it may be a question of ego with all of you. We have people changing their names to get posted, others letting us all know how brilliant they are (I\'m a rocket engineer or whatever, I have X number of degrees, I used to make numbers, I\'ve been blah blah blah). Great for all of you.

As far as the ROTW being poor for the last 70 odd weeks, do you have the numbers on them?? Or are you just projecting??

[miff]

Jim,


I do not have Bob and John\'s sheet. I THINK he has paired his last three or four races on TG.In particular, I felt that his last race was better than a half point improvement and without question he outperformed Greelys Galaxy who received a substantially superior figure in a very average performance. I have seen all of the races in question.No other source has Bob and John pairing his last four after adjustment, ergo the term \"ugly\" pair.

After reviewing the entire day of Bob and John and High Limit it seems questionable that the track changed speed/slowed by 11-12 lengths from the third race until the end of the card.Please check yourself Jim.Someone very sharp who is at SA  every day advised the track slowed by app .60 from the forth race on(almost 3rd lengths)by their evaluation, done daily taking into account all of the pertinents that Jerry speaks of.

It will be very interesting to see the figs of the 1st race winner, that day, vs the last race winner who SHOULD grade out as the second coming of Pegasus since the track slowed by 2 full seconds+ by days end.I believe that the recently turned three year old filly snails that crawled around in 1.27 and change(4th race) may have skewed Jerrys thinking that day.

[miff]

P Dub,

I have no ego. I am strictly a gambler that relies heavily on figs to try to beat the game.I said I \"informally\" made figs but I know when a figure is questionable as do many people that follow the game daily.

As regards to the ROTW, I do not follow it closely, others do and say it does not done well over time.I\'m sure TG has some records going back and they could post it. For all I know the RAG guys could be busting my chops because I walk around with the TG sheets at the track.

[TGJB]

Miff-- I don\'t want to get caught up in an endless loop of this. I always end up in the same place-- either having to spend a lot of time going over the same stuff over and over, or letting wrong stuff go unresponed to, or cutting someone off. In your case the situation is complicated by your being a good long time customer, and I know your posts are made in good faith (although some of the editorial comments are pretty annoying). But I won\'t bar you.

Not that I care what the other figure guys do with the day (they could have the dogmatic approach Ragozin does, for example, and simply decide tracks don\'t change speed), but your pals evidently decided the track DID change. So once you understand that, the only question is how much. What some of you guys don\'t grasp is that I\'m not just making figures for Bob and John and Greeley\'s Galaxy, I\'m making figures for-- AND LOOKING AT DATA FOR-- lots of horses. DATA THAT YOU ARE NOT LOOKING AT. Figures for all the horses, adjusted for beaten lengths, ground, weight, and in some cases wind (not a factor on this day)

The day basically went like this-- it got much slower for the fourth (the race after Bob and John), and gradually got faster thereafter. Specifically, the fourth was at minus 7, the rest of the dirt went minus 4 1/2, minus 4 (Strub), minus 2. This was a day where the one and two turn races lined up.

I\'ve already posted the Sham and Strub on this string. In the case of the Sham, note HOW MANY horses would run big new tops if you make the race faster (3 out of the 5). Sure, they all could (even if  it\'s 40% for each one, which by itself would make it unlikely for all of them to do it)-- but more importantly, the alternative had them all running almost exactly their previous top. If you make the race faster, you are saying that all 3 picked exactly the same day to jump  the same amount-- some coincidence. It is FAR more likely that they all ran back to their previous tops-- that\'s the kind of situation that all figure makers want to see more than any other.

But now I\'m going to go further. Attached you will find the maiden claimers from the fourth race, right after the track changed speed, when the track was at its slowest. Remember, I took off 7-- see what happens if you add 7 (or even less) to the race.