Stuck in the middle with you...

[TGJB]

So on one side we have Friedman once posting that Ragozin (Jake? Sherman?) figures are an \"objective measure of the resiliencey (sic) of the track\", on the other we have Miff saying \"zero science\" is involved.

Below find the SA Derby as I did it. Put aside for a moment that (as I said at the time) we got the race about 3/5 slow, timed a couple of times by a couple different guys. Just look at the horses.

We don\'t just make figures off the winners. If you make the race faster you are giving out a new top to the winner (who was clearly eased up, by the way), as well as a bunch of others behind him who this way get figures tight to their histories. In other words, to make it faster you would have to believe they all picked the same day to jump forward.

Everything we do here is probability, and nothing is 100%. But this one is at least 85%.

[miff]

So, the following is true:

The last performance by CC was not as fast as:

VIT\'s last two

DWF\'s last

WS LAST

Samratt last two

Hopp two back

IH two back

WR last three

GA last two

MC last


...that\'s not credible and you would not be giving CC a new top if his SF was TG neg-1.25 which fit well on the day.

[TGJB]

First of all, I took off two more from CC\'s 3/8 race than the other route, some race called the Big Cap. You\'re gonna have a REAL tough time convincing me the SF should be faster, since it would mean breaking it out further simply to give CC and MH new tops for no reason, or make both races faster, so GOD and WTC run neg 6s or better.

And even if I did all that nonsense and had CC faster coming in, I\'d still have the problem of all the other horses in the SA Derby who would get new tops.

Second, you simply have an opinion that he is faster than the others you mention (\"racetrack fast\"). You have a right to it, everyone does. But what I\'m doing is based on data, as I just showed. Yours is based on an assertion, made repeatedly.

I\'m going to say this again-- people who use pars (which includes Beyer) will have California too fast.

Now I\'m done giving lessons. After I talked at the DRF Expo, Beyer figure makers-- who do read this board, as do other ones-- made changes, specifically regarding breaking out races.

[miff]

It is not an assertion that the following horses who recently raced exclusively in Cali all ran tops on TG as soon as they raced outside of CALI but not nearly as much on other figs;

DWF 6 point top

Hopp 3 point top

Chit 1.25 top

MH 1.50 top

Assertion that Cali circuit too slow? a coincidence they all outran their TG Cali TG fig?, naw!The racing world valuing a nickle bred CC,nothing special, figuratively speaking on your data,$5-6-7-Million?


How about a head to head, a nice steak in Lugers.I\'ll take the slow CC against any one of your \"faster\" horses,assuming the horses picked train up and draw fairly.

Let me know.

[TGJB]

First of all, you\'re taking the favorite, if I want to bet against CC I can get better than even money elsewhere. Second, I\'m not giving my opinions here, now, you can email me. I like Lugers, haven\'t been there for a long time. Too many good steak joints in Manhattan now.

This goes to something I\'m going to go into in the seminar, and have recently discussed privately with Covello. There\'s a difference between anecdotal stuff and data. If I wanted to play that game I would point to Kristo, in the 3/8 race, or the Big Cap horses-- WTC got a worse figure at OP, obviously either the OP figures are too slow or the SA figures are too FAST. GOD too.

But we use data. And we run EVERY circuit against EVERY other circuit, individually and as a group, to get track to track relationships right, both within circuits and circuit to circuit. We break things down by surface, we break them down by distance. And I look at each study myself, and tweak them, down to fractional changes for a circuit. That\'s what being a top professional means. I do this for a living.

[miff]

Whoa, its irrelevant that CC is the favorite, that the ill informed public\'s choice. CC slower than 5 others on your stuff and a few others equally fast. Isn\'t that the reason your customers buy TG,to find that out.

You should be chomping at the bit to take a \"faster\" horse and NOT have to lay a price.My personal favorite is VIT\'s empty performance two back beaten 5 1/2 lenghts(tapped out on him in exotics) ground loaded TG 1/2 was faster than CC\'s last...yikes!

Manhattan great steak joints, Luger still top shelf and different.

[elkurzhal]

yeah but, per Sherman CC was the only horse in the barn to be asleep, laying in his stall just after the earthquake on 3/31.  If that didn\'t bother him it\'s unlikely he moves up shipping east with \"ground tremors\" off.

[TGJB]

We\'re working on a symbol for that.

[TreadHead]

TGJB, I appreciate the the supporting details you provide to your opinions, something sorely missing from most other assertions out there.  I\'m surprised more people didn\'t jump on the post yesterday questioning the VIT # and saying he completely disagreed with it, while providing no supporting reasoning at all other than \"WooHoo! CC is so awesome!\"

My favorite part of MIFFs \"zero science\" post was how he started out saying there was zero science and then 2 paragraphs later was claiming he can tell a figure is wrong to the same level of certainty that 1+1=3 is wrong, which is 100% rooted in science.

Also entertaining to read that saying a figure is \"not reflective\" of what actually happened and saying a figure is \"wrong\" are apparently 2 entirely different statements.

To each his own, indeed

[miff]

Thread,

Right/wrong way over your head as it relates to figure making in which there isn\'t a cintilla of science.

Mike

[TGJB]

Oh, I don\'t know, Tread. Seems to me you posted yesterday something to the effect that Hopp figured to run bad at SA BECAUSE he had shown he didn\'t like that track, which you based on his figures there being worse, without taking anything else into consideration at all (like them being just the first two starts of his life). Seemed like an unsupported assertion to me, just saying.

There\'s a lot of that going around.

[TreadHead]

While it is certainly fair to point out they were his first 2 starts, the position is supported both by his jump ups and his regression on return that it would be fair to say he might not like SA.  It\'s rooted in data and far from as unfounded as most of the other statements floating around here like \"visually impressive\" and the like.

[TGJB]

You know, the first time you said that I let it go because it was so silly. Have you told your figure maker friends there\'s no science involved? Accounting for weight, ground, beaten lengths, wind, speed charts and all the rest, is what, exactly?

Nobody this side of The Man Behind The Curtain (Ragozin) ever tried to pretend it was ALL science. But NONE? You better hope that\'s not true if you use them.

I guess I can throw away all these computers we have around here...

[TGJB]

Seriously? You\'re going to defend that?

You made a statement that there was a cause and effect relationship. Even with 10 times the sample size it would be silly to do any more than put it forward as a thesis. In this case, with the first two being his first two starts AND a clear pattern, with a bounce where you would expect one, it\'s not just a silly assertion-- there\'s NO reason to believe it\'s true. It\'s less than 50/50, at best a possibility.

[TreadHead]

I\'m not sure if what you just said is \"bounces only occur because their pattern says they should\", but if you did, I\'m gonna argue it\'s less black and white than that.  The impact of the bounce may be more pronounced if there are other factors playing into it, such as moving to a surface they don\'t like as much, trying slop, etc.  That\'s pretty much right out of Ragozin\'s book, if memory serves.

The original point of MIFFs question was that he felt the amount of the bounce was too high.  Being on a surface a horse doesn\'t prefer might make the difference between a bounce only being 2pts or 3.5pts.  The question of surface may have played into that, as could any of the other items I listed.  I gave a list of potential factors that made the figure plausible and never said I was certain which ones applied.