Its o.k. Michael

Your opinionated and you love horseracing and that counts in your favor. :) I think its o.k. to agree to disagree as long as the debate doesnt get personal. Along those lines, I don't think TGJB "attacks" the other product. I think he points out legitimate issues that serious handicappers would want to be apprised of. (Recently, it was SoCalMan2 that pointed them out.) Thats "substance" oriented. The other guys, tend to go after TGraph on "form" and they have played some dirty tricks. In my opinion the debate from the other side needs to be elevated to the issues, not the personalities. Its not a personal issue. Its about method and practice and we post here without restriction because the host wants that debate.

Regarding method, I can't understand making figures without up to date "pars". I may be entrenched in the "par" era. But, to my mind pars enable some hard data reflection for what kind of effort a horse just ran. I would rotate the base pars and keep only times from the last year, (Perhaps longer in rarely run condition races), because pars become a stale reference when tracks change. Gulfstream resurfaced this summer, so what good are pars this coming meet? I just think some statistical base data source is good to have in applying the expertise. Its not a critism of either Rags or TGraph, neither use them. To my mind, its about staying on top of changing track conditions. I'm not sure about intergenerational comparison with recalibrating pars, but thats not especially important to me, because I believe what Jerry does. That tracks change and horses have gotten to be better athletes for a host of reasons. Which is not to say I believe Ghostzapper is Dr. Fager. At least not yet.

CtC



Post Edited (12-10-04 22:39)