At this point I don’t have to be obnoxious to get everyone’s attention (witness the posts/deletions on the Rag board), so I’ll stay away from “texture” cracks (for now).
The Preakness card and the fact that both Ragozin and we have posted the entire set of sheets gives an excellent example of the differences (plural) between our figure making theories, and how they play out in practice. I suggest to anyone seriously interested (which should be anyone who uses figures) that they download the Ragozin sheets now, because they may not be there long.

1- Differing circuits on Ragozin are, effectively, on different scales. The Delaware Valley (PHA, PEN, DEL, MD) are usually given numbers much slower than they deserve (which is why they told Elliot we were nuts to buy Victory Gallop off his MD figures). Magic Weisner, on Ragozin, was WAY too slow as a 2yo and early 3. They had his start prior to the Preakness as both a 4 point top and 9 points better than his 2yo top. We had it pairing his top, only 2 points better than his 2yo top, making him far more likely to go forward. In the Preakness, Ragozin was forced to give him what he deserved—all the others were non-Delaware Valley horses, so he had to either give him the number, or have the rest of them collapse, just as in his previous race, where they were forced to give him a top because the first and third finishers were NY shippers. As you go through the card you will see the big differences in figures on Delaware Valley races.

2- I didn’t get there in time, but the filly I was going to bet in the first was Quixote’s Hope, who finished second at a price. If you look at Ragozin, she looks terrible—she’s coming off 2 terrible figures. As it happens, both those efforts were WINS, going long, at PHA. We had them both 10 (!) points faster—mostly because, as I have said before, we split variants on 1 and 2 turn races. There are more sprints run in this country than routes, and if you average sprints and routes to make figures, your variant will be skewed towards sprints—so as you go through the two sets you will see the most pronounced differences in routes. This is also why they keep blowing the Wood Memorial figure, which is usually the only 2 turn race on the card.

3- The track took a lot of rain before Saturday’s races, and it was a long stretched out day with sun and wind drying out the dirt and grass. Ragozin had the first 2 of the 3 grass races (STAKES) completely collapsing, which can only happen if you tied it to the third one, when the course was drier. This is obviously nonsense—look at those 2 races and ask yourself how much you would take off if those were the only grass races on the card.
While you are at it, take a look at the winner of the Gallorette. Not only do we have her much faster relative to the field (especially the favorite)—Delaware Valley vs. other circuits again—but check out her figure the last time she returned from a layoff. We have it 8 points faster, pretty important when evaluating her chances off this layoff.

4- I defy anyone remotely reasonable to look at Ragozin’s figures for the Schaeffer and tell me they believe that an entire field of older graded stake horses bounced 6 points—it’s ridiculous, and this goes to the question of dogma I have raised before. The Ragozin theology forces them to tie the race to the next one, despite the fact the track is drying, there was more than an hour to the next race, and the next race was the PREAKNESS—you think maybe they worked on the track? Ridiculous.

5- Just a fast note on War Emblem—he looked better on TG in the Illinois Derby because he had already run fast enough to win, better in the Derby because he had done it twice rather than coming off a huge top. The accuracy of the 3/17 figure is borne out by the subsequent figures—very few 3yo’s are capable of running a 1 in April, so a horse who has already shown that ability is much more likely to do it than one who is much slower (on Ragozin). This is very strong evidence, and only stops short of being proof because there is no one result that can ever be proof.

Again, I suggest strongly that serious handicappers spend some time on this. Just as the Breeders Cup offered a chance to see how both outfits handle dead rails and changing track speeds, this card brings up all kinds of issues—changing tracks, circuit vs. circuit, sprint/routes.
Okay, I can’t help myself—what I’m trying to say is, if you know how they make the baloney, you won’t be so quick to swallow the texture.



TGJB