Re: Comments from a Ragozin User (441 Views)
Posted by:
mandown (IP Logged)
Date: September 16, 2004 10:42PM
Jimbo,
It's way past Jerry's bedtime so I'll get in first - though the chances of JB passing this one up are somewhat on the slim side.
The whole difference between the figure-making methodologies is that Jerry fits races to the horses's previous figures (as do most figure-makers worldwide) and thus can have different variants for different races whereas Ragozin believes that variants only change when there is a change in the 'physical resiliency' of the track.
Basically the way we make figures is that we evaluate the variant by looking at the figures the horses ran previously. Ragozin assess the change in the track's physical resiliency, i.e. the imponderables you raise in Point 2. Methinks the question you should be posing is how they do it, not how we do it.
Point 3 rather follows on from the above. If you think either it or my previous point are wrong then you obviously believe those financial ads which say 'Past performance is no guide to future returns.' If you do it makes handicapping a bit of a waste of time.
Finally, many years ago back in the UK, there was a woman of dubious repute called Mandy Rice-Davis who had a peripheral role in a sex scandal involving the Defence Minister John Profumo. She did, however, achieve a certain immortality during the court case by replying to a question: 'Well he would say that, wouldn't he?' Any time anybody in the UK comes up with a self-serving defence then it's called a Mandy Rice-Davis moment. Perhaps the same applies to your Raggie friend and/or Len.
Cheers,
George