Okay, Mike. I have covered every bit of this before here, more than once, but you put some time into your post, so out of respect I will go through this exercise one more time. After which you will probably still believe what you believe, but I won’t be spending any more time on it.


“I believe JB stated someplace that horse are 5-10 lengths (1-2 seconds) faster today than years past.I personally believe, from using TG figs for more than 15 years, that JB has added this unproven theory to his thinking when making the figs(intentionally or unintentionally). I further believe that this accounts for the much lower figs being awarded to present day runners, some of whom are 'COMMON" in comparision to some of the games great ones of past times.



If you read the serious discussion in the archives here you will see my estimate of how much faster horses are, and why I say it— about 5-6 points faster than they were 20 years ago. I do NOT use that or any other assumption about improvement when I make the figures—it is the other way around.

The way you make figures is by looking at how fast horses run compared to how fast the SAME horses ran in the past. Period. There is no other way to do it without making assumptions (which you have to do when you first start your data base, but only then, and that’s another story).

In practice, what this means is this—you do the figures off the solid older horses, and give the younger horses what they earn on the same day BASED ON the older horses. We have found that successive crops are running faster RELATIVE TO (as opposed to faster THAN) the older horses on a day-by-day basis. This has the effect of giving the younger horses better figures than the older ones earned at the same stage of their careers, and they develop accordingly from there. I would add that this is not something you notice while doing figures day-by-day, except when you give a young horse the occasional big number.




”I have posted before that I and other long time TG users are having serious problems with the much faster figs being awarded. The RAW evidence on the tracks every day do not support the theory that horses are 1-2 seconds faster. The FIGURES are faster and faster.”



There is no raw evidence unless you don’t worry about track speed, in which case you shouldn’t be using anybody’s figures. Good luck with that.



”TG may have reasonably hung it's hat on generational improvements of all beings as part of it's theory that horses are bigger, stronger and logically faster from a commom sense standpoint but not from a scientific study.”



As I said, we have hung our hat on nothing but the day-to-day times of the races and heir relation to the horse’s histories. Figures which don’t show that improvement will almost always turn out to be based to some degree on pars, which is what I was referring to before about assumptions—they are not based on the horses in question who are running that day. Friedman said on his website as recently as 3-4 years ago that Ragozin was using pars, and I showed him why that was a bad idea. He said at the Expo that they were no longer doing it.



”Here are some informal common sense points. There are very few horses of high calibre who were physically more imposing than Dr. Fager and Secretariat. I asked JB to specifically name the horses he felt were bigger, stronger and faster than just these two, as an example.I was rather summarily dismissed as unclear and unfocused and unable to comprehend what was being espoused. Incidendally, that's after 40 years in the game and having watched over 100k races.”


I wasn’t doing figures when Dr. Fager and Secretariat were running, and my opinion on horses physically is worthless. We can’t tell you who was bigger or stronger from our data. But we can tell you who is faster, for the reasons stated above. Again—we don’t factor expected improvement into our figures. We MEASURE ability, and improvement. The article I wrote—which it seems many have not read carefully—goes into the probable REASONS for the results we have MEASURED.



”The opinions(admittedly unscientific) of many prominent horsemen in NY that I posed this question to within the last month or so ranged from:

Horses are not as fast as years ago
Horses are just as fast as years ago
Horses MAY be faster today but not 5-10 lenghts

VERY Inconclusive even from an opinion point of view.”


If horsemen have the ability to compare ability that well, it makes you wonder why they use Beyer, Ragozin, or Thoro-Graph. Or, whether they are basing their answers on somebody’s figures.




”My problem is simple, I run a business and do not have many hours to spend on handicapping.I must have absolute faith in the integrity of the figs(I"m betting serious money) and I have done very well in the past with TG. Right now, I am unsure that the methodology is as sound as it used to be.

I think this is very clear and deserves a clear unsarcastic reply.”



We are doing figures the same way we always have. Horses have always been getting faster on our figures, but over the last few years the trend has become more obvious because so many of the horses have crossed over the artificial boundary of zero, and probably because of the emergence of better move-ups.



TGJB