For The Record

[TGJB]

I mentioned in an earlier post that Ragozin had the relationship between the first two Derby finishers (!!!!) wrong. We have Nehro a total of two paths wider (both turns combined), which is close to what he was beaten at the wire, giving him and Animal Kingdom almost the same number. Ragozin has Animal Kingdom outside Nehro on the turns, resulting in him getting a much better figure than Nehro.

So for the hell of it I checked Trakus. They have Nehro traveling 27 feet further, very close to what we have (and in fact a little wider).

I love reading Friedman and the others on the Rag board talk about half point condition moves...

And that\'s the Derby. The mind reels when thinking about the \"accuracy\" in claiming races.

[Caradoc]

Did you find this somewhere on the CD website?

[TGJB]

No. Michael D from this site was able to get it directly from the company. CD doesn\'t publish them yet, other tracks do.

[David Patent]

I watched the overhead view of the race on NBC (it\'s posted on the web site).  Nehro and AK were in the same path first turn -- watch closely, as the pan shot is deceptive -- it does make Nehro appear to be outside AK, but take a pencil and some paper and mark off how far each horse is from the rail at several points on the turn -- they are in the same path.

AK was slightly outside Nehro briefly on the 2nd turn.  AK beat Nehro by 2.75 lengths, which equates to 1.38 points, assuming 1 point = 1 length @ 5 furlongs.  Tack on a few feet for being slightly wider 2nd turn and you\'re at about 1.5 points, not quite the 1.75 on Ragozin, but a LOT closer than the difference TG has (.25 points).

I have no idea how Trakus figured that Nehro traveled 27 feet more.  

Also, and more interesting, looking at the entire field, if you compare the Ragozin figures for the horses that finished 2-19, TG apparently has every single horse being wider than AK.

For instance, Ragozin has AK beating Nehro by 1.75 points.  TG by .25 points, a difference of 1.5.  In every instance, the delta between AK\'s number and the beaten horse\'s number is greater with Ragozin than with Brown, which would indicate that TG sees every other horse as being wider than AK, unless their is another variable at play.  It cannot be weight or wind or track condition, so what is it?

For the horses that finished 12th and higher, the difference between their figure and AK\'s versus Ragozin\'s is 2.25 - 2.50 points!  For the 8-11 finishers, it\'s 1.50 to 1.75 points, and for 1-7 it is .50 to 1.50 points. So, the more lengths each horse was beaten, the greater the discrepancy.  And in every instance, TG has the beaten horse\'s number closer to AK\'s than Ragozin.

This is a very consistent pattern of bunching the numbers together so that there is a smaller difference in figure between the 2-19 finishers and the winner. 18 out of 18.  How does that make sense?

[sekrah]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLVDp_EHANk

I concur.  Nehro was not a full path wide both turns.   Truth is somewhere in the middle of you guys.

[TGJB]

I watched that race myself, twice. I got exactly the same as our TWO ground guys who did the race independently, and almost exactly the same as Trakus-- Nehro was a path wider on each turn. If you actually do each horse individually rather than try to look where they are relative to each other at the same time (i.e. 34, 434, etc.) you will see what I mean.

As for the horses that are further back, yes David, there is another variable of some kind. If you go back and look at all the figures for past big races you will see this always happens-- I believe I pointed it out way back in the discussion of SJ\'s Derby, and of the mistake they made with the beaten lengths from third to fourth. I have no idea what those guys are doing, but my guess is it has to do with frame counting or some other nonsense that\'s just one of the many things those guys do in not seeing the forest for the trees. You can of course ask them questions about figure making on their site, I\'m sure they will be forthcoming.

[TGJB]

And by the way, with a fast look at the chart I counted 12 horses that were inside AK on the turns.

[Caradoc]

JB: I agree with you about the first turn. As to the second turn, do you disagree with any of the following?  

1) The final turn is run from approximately 1:26 through 1:50 on the tape.

2) At 1:29, 1:32, 1:35, 1:38, 1:41, 1:44 and 1:47 AK\'s and Nehro\'s relative positions are as follows, rounded to the half-path:

AK: 4w, 4w, 4w, 4w, 4w, 4w, 4.5w.  Average 4.1
Nehro: 5w, 5w, 4w, 3.5w, 3w, 3w, 3.5w.  Average 3.8

3) Even if you quibbble with one or more of those judgments, at best you get to the conclusion that Nehro and AK were on average essentially in the same path on the final turn, not that Nehro was one path wider.

[David Patent]

If they are inside AK, why are their numbers closer to his?  Shouldn\'t they have slower numbers since they traveled a shorter distance and thus a greater delta from AK?

My point was that the delta between AK and beaten horses is -- for TG -- smaller than on Ragozin and the more lengths beaten, the more this is true, in general.


Apparently, the difference is the mystery variable.

[TGJB]

Correct.

[TGJB]

Nehro is 54 second turn, AK is 34. Keep in mind that the inside horses are not always on the rail.

[Caradoc]

I was about to ask where those measurements were taken then realized this is going to get tedious very fast.  Those are reasonable measurements if taken at points during the first half of the turn, but no later than halfway through the turn (by 1:38 on the overhead), Nehro gets to the 3-path, and is either in the same path or inside AK\'s path for the remainder of the turn.

[phil23]

Certainly not asking for any proprietary info, but I was under the impression that ground loss/weight/wind/track condition were all the variables considered.

This is the first time I\'ve ever heard about some other \"mystery variable\"?  Is this mentioned elsewhere in archives or sheet explanations?

Just trying to understand the process.

[miff]

Don\'t forget creative license. I\'ve seen more slow races given fast figs and fast races given slow races than carters got liver pills.Check out Uncle Mo\'s 2011 first Rag and TG fig,totally irreconcilable by any realistic racing measuring stick.


Mike

[SteveB]

Is there a correction for a dead rail?