Re: Smarty Jones is the Next Secretariat (601 Views)
Posted by:
thomas (IP Logged)
Date: May 20, 2004 06:55PM
For what its worth the guys in the black hats posted Secretariat's sheet on their website a few years ago. I didn't download it to file but did save a printout. His Belmont number was a ‘0’ with either a small ‘2’ or ‘3’ next to the zero. It's a little fuzzy with the aged sheet and old scribbling. What I found interesting was the same '0-2'or'0-3' was also assigned to both the Derby & The Arlington Invitational run just three weeks after The Belmont. His Preakness was a '3' something,again a bit fuzzy.I assume Ragozin was the only one in their house doing the numbers in those days and since the torch has since been handed off to others it might be dangerous to try & compare a Ragozin 1973 sheet with a 2004 version let alone TG. If you're tempted to project an approximate TG rating for Secretariat, JB's scale seems to run around 3 points or so faster then theirs but as he has often stated he splits his 1 turn & 2 turn variants and they don’t so we’re back to apples & oranges again which brings up a question for JB. If there is a ‘marginal’ difference in your 1 and 2 turn variants whatever your definition of ‘marginal’ might be will you still insist on using 2 variants to make that fine distinction or can you satisfy yourself the difference is insignificant enough that you’ll tie all the races together with a common variant?