Re: Comments from a Ragozin User (460 Views)
Posted by:
mandown (IP Logged)
Date: September 17, 2004 11:42AM
miff,
If there were such a thing as a day's variant or a way of making a variant that was independent of the horses then all figure-makers would use it. But that's the whole point - there isn't one.
If you read Jerry Porcelli's comments on the way a track (or parts of a track) can change speed then you'll realise that the only way you can get a variant for a race is to look at the horses that ran in it.
It's not blatantly ridiculous, it's the only criterion you can use.
Neither do I see how you can interpret my remarks as saying that the only reason a horse runs better or worse is because of today's variant.
As you say there are many reasons a horse runs faster or slower. No handicapper would disagree. That is why figure-making is as much an art as a science.
You may want to call a spade a spade but classhandicapper is more on the mark when he expresses circumspection. Nothing in this game is certain. Handicapping and figure-making are not black and white, merely shades of grey.
George