Wood, Redux

[TGJB]

Okay, now that things have quieted down--

The subject of Ragozin\'s Wood figures came up in the last couple of days on the Rag board, so let\'s deal with that. In a post of mine before the Derby I explained that Ragozin got the figures wrong for FC and EM, and that this wasn\'t the usual judgement question-- it wasn\'t about our differing philosophies of figure making, sprints/routes, sliding variants, etc. It was a factual issue, about an error that Ragozin\'s trackman made on the ground of Senor Swinger.

 The variant for the routes on Wood day stayed basically the same (surprisingly, considering the conditions), and Ragozin and I did the race the same way. I have the advantage of having our work (run-down, as we call it, with ground etc.), but also have Ragozin\'s sheets for Wood day, and for the horses that came out of the race into the Derby and Preakness (FC, EM, SS, KS, NYH), so I know what he had to work with, and how he dealt with it. Ragozin, like all serious figure makers, ultimately ties his variants to the figure histories of the horses. He does tie independent events (races, days) together more than I do, but even then he is allowed an (arbitrary, in his case) amount of leeway from the surrounding races.

The general variant (within a point) for the Wood was clear, but nailing it down exactly, for both of us, meant tying it to one or more horses in the race. For me, it was easy-- I just paired up Empire Maker and Senor Swinger to their tops, which fit with the day, gave FC a new top, and several others off races. But Ragozin had problems-- since he had EM\'s Fla Derby different (ahem), he couldn\'t pair him; he had to give him a new top, with no idea of what that number should be. And, he had the wrong ground for SS.

So, with the general area of the variant established, he did the right thing-- he paired up Senor Swinger. Problem is, SS was about 2 paths (1 point) wider than Len\'s trackman had him (and you better believe I had Litfin go back to review the ground before I shot off my mouth). So while SS\'s number ends up being correct (a return to his top on Rag, a return to within 1/4 point of 2 numbers he had run on TG), the error on his ground meant that Len was forced to give the other horses in the race about a point better than they deserved.

As I said, this was a factual matter, so this is one case where later events don\'t prove anything-- but it certainly should have been clear to anyone reasonable that Ragozin\'s Derby numbers, which had the first FOUR finishers all not running tops in the race, would have looked better if you added a point to FC and EM\'s Wood figures, in which case they would have effectively paired up in the Derby, as they did on TG. And while I thought FC was an underlay in the Preakness, everyone is free to decide for themselves on which sheets he looked more likely to run a new top. And by the way, the argument that the new top he ran in Baltimore makes the faster Wood figure look right is hogwash-- if he had paired up that race you could try to make that case, although as I said this is a factual question of ground loss. But he didn\'t, anyway-- he ran a huge new top.

[Silver Charm]

TGJB wrote the following:

“ it wasn\'t about our differing philosophies of figure making, sprints/routes, sliding variants”

If you could please discuss for me (and others) what you mean when say you and Ragozin have differing philosophies regarding sprints/routes. The reason is when I read some of the responses on the other Board I really begin to believe that the only thing that matters to some of their guys is “Robes posted after the race that he won so the figures must be right”.

The following from somebody who has put some humorous posts up on their Board unfortunately this is probably another one even though he/she didn’t mean it to be.

This:

“I thought about that as I considered how The Sheets keep nailing races even though they \"missed the Wood, missed the Wood!!\" All the 2yo CA #s were wrong as well.”

And this:

“You\'re assessments of Scrimshaw have been especially accurate”.

What I want everyone to think about is Scrimshaw was given a 1 on Ragozin sheets last fall as a two year old. When the Wayne Lukas trainee Orientate won the Breeders Cup Sprint last fall he was given a 0 on Ragozin sheets. Now if Lukas had run Scrimshaw in the Breeders Cup Sprint as two year old he probably would have received about a 15-18 pound weight-for-age allowance. Given that Scrimshaw is carrying about 110 pounds and he runs a 1, he BLOWS THE FIELD AWAY in the Breeders Cup Sprint as a two year old. Sounds logical to me.

But hey what do I know, Robes says he cashed so the numbers must be right.

[Supah Blitz]

Silver Charm be careful, you don\'t want to give Wayne any new ideas.

[JR]

Couple of questions pertaining to the Wood numbers issue: TG vs Rag

1) When \"nailing down a variant\", how do you decide which horses to peg it to, ie. you are assuming EM and SS paired up their tops?  Why are they used as the \"control\" group?

2) You\'ve said in the past that \"SS was about 2 paths wider than Len\'s trackman had him\". You have SS running 3w4w. Ragozin only offers a V symbol for his trip (4 or more wide on final turn). How do you know what Ragozin used for his trip since his designation is only that the horse was at least 4 wide?

I\'m not  trying to be inflammatory. I\'m a customer. I\'ve just never understood this argument.

Thanks in advance for a response.

[TGJB]

JR,

1 is an excellent question, problem is a complete answer would take a huge amount of time-- there are so many different situations that come up, and so many factors that come into play. Sometimes the day as a whole hangs together pretty tight (which was the case with the routes on Wood day), so you are finding the specific variant within a small range of variants (about a point either way) that makes the most sense given the figure histories of the horses-- this is true for all of us who make \"projection method\" figures.

But in general, this is also true whether you have supporting surrounding race info or not (the track was getting faster on Preakness day, but the variant for that race was pretty clear, as you will be able to see for yourself). Bottom line, you are looking at a fixed set of relationships WITHIN the race, fixed by beaten lengths, weight, and ground. You don\'t pick out horses in advance to tie the variant to. You look at all the possible ways of doing the race, and the effect on the figure of each horse, and see which scenario is most likely, with the info from the surrounding races, days, history of how the track plays etc. as additional information bits. Most of the time you are quickly down to only one reasonable scenario, occasionally two, seldom more.

This is a very quick, incomplete answer. It\'s one of those things that is much easier to understand in practice than in theory, so we\'re going to attach the Wood sheets. The correct scenario had one horse running a new top, two others pairing, and the rest running off races. Take a look at what happens if you use any other variant for the race-- add or subtract, the other scenarios are far less likely. Let me know what you think.

As for 2, I went into this in my original post prior to the Derby. Ragozin sheets only show you the ground for the last turn, and even then only say 4 or MORE wide-- 2 horses can have the same notation and be in different paths.

I picked it up because the RELATIONSHIP between SS and the other Wood horses in the race was wrong on Ragozin\'s Derby pre-entries. I immediately had Litfin go back to check it. My guess is that they had him inside on the first turn, but that\'s just a guess.

[TGJB]

Silver Charm,

I have gone into this in a lot more detail in other posts (\"Figure Making Methodology\" 1/31/03, etc.), but in general Ragozin makes a lot of unwarranted assumptions about unrelated things and events. I have found that there is no fixed relationship between the variants of 1 and 2 turn races, and not NECESSARILY one between races on a day. Most of this is probably true due to changes in moisture content caused by track maintenance, shade, evaporation etc., but whatever the reason, I started out by thinking Ragozin was right about this stuff, and found out that dogmatically making assumptions was a really bad idea. I would add that the two people in this office who previously made figures for Ragozin went through the same process and emphatically agree, and they definitely don\'t agree with me about everything.

As far as any comments about the Sheets nailing races go, I think my head to head record vs. Friedman in big races speaks for itself-- witness the volume when LF finally \"hit\" one, and silence after so many other races-- when was the last time he \"hit\"? If those guys were judging accuracy by results of races run they would have switched long ago.

[Silver Charm]

TGJB thanks,

I remember that post and it was in the middle of the (should I say the word??) \"Chilukki argument.\" If my memory serves me correctly it wasn\'t much longer after that post that you asked LF how he came up with \"his variant\" for that race and he went into hiding. No way he could admit he made it up, at least not in public.

I will go back and reread the post. Because I\'m so new to some of the specifics of making figures the real complicated details take some time to sink in for me. Generally that\'s the way it is with everything for me but once I figure something out I\'ll never forget it.

[TGJB]

So I couldn\'t figure out why Friedman wasn\'t rolling out the Ragozin Preakness numbers with a blare of trumpets, like they usually do, and then I found them (on the menu, left side of their screen). I had to laugh when I saw them (not because Ragozin got the race wrong, he didn\'t), but because, ironically, the way he got there plays right into the discussion of their Wood figures, and JR\'s question about choosing which horses to use in pegging a variant.

This won\'t be as dramatic to those of you who did not see Ragozin sheets for the Preakness, but not only is there only one horse in the race that paired his top, there is only one who gets a number he has EVER run before. Guess who.

[JAKE]

Don\'t tell me it\'s Senor Swinger again...

So, in your opinion, how off is the Ragozin SHEETS # for the Preakness for Funny Cide?

[TGJB]

Yep. As I explained earlier, the wrong Wood ground caused the numbers for the other horses to be wrong, but SS\'s was right-- effectively, Ragozin brought the race figure to him, and so moved all the others. Since his figure was right, pegging future figures on that one is not a problem-- the problem would be figures based on those by all the others in that race. And Ragozin was smart enough not to do that with the Derby, which is why the first 4 finishers all appeared to not run tops in that race-- in reality, the first two, both out of the Wood, paired up.