1. Presumably, the reason you have never addressed my statement that the one and only scientfic way to determine the validity of any theory is to test to determine if the theory can be refuted is because you recognize this basic truth.

2. The reason I bring this up is not to try to convince you to stop your efforts, either because Alydar is winning the debate or because I'm not enjoying the exchange, which I am.

3. Likewise, I think your contest with HP was a great & has already been an entertaining idea, though I assume you would agree that all it's likely to "prove" is that one of you was a better handicapper on one particular day.

4. The 1st thing to think about, then, is how would one refute one or the other figure making theories which are under consideration?

5. The contests & challenges which have been suggested in the past all seem to suffer from the same problem, namely that they would test handicapping skill rather than figure making methodology.

6. I suggest one possible method for testing figure making methods would be for a TG user & a Rags' user(it doesn't have to be you) to commit in advance to use both products for the entire length of this yr's Sar meet and post, in advance, the major differences between the two on a daily basis. By major differences I mean situations where, for example, one product has a horse going backwards in its most recent race & the other has the horse moving forward, or the horse lays over the field using one product & is 1 of 3 or 4 contenders using the other. There may be other major differences, but these are the two I saw most often doing this for approx 75 races in April. BTW, there are not as many major differences as you might think, and it does not take that much additional time if you're going to handicap the race anyway to spot them.

7. One possible drawback might be cost, so I suggest that the TG user buy the Rags & see if JB would be willing to supply TG gratis for the test, while the Rags user sets up a computer account and orders TG online and sees if Robes will supply rags gratis for the duration of the test. That way, neither service loses a sale.

8. The second thing you might want to think about are your comments about censorship on one Bd vs the other. Again, the results tell the tale, at least if you're willing to compare the number,variety, breadth, etc of the posts on this Bd vs Rags over just the last two weeks. When I 1st started posting on this Bd I used to think, wrongly I learned, that most were content to simply follow JB no matter what. Now I'm convinced that it's the other Bd that is little more than a place where the truly devoted can ask Robes what he thinks about various patterns. Can anyone honestly imagine anything even remotely approaching what has taken place on this Bd over the last 2 weeks ever happening on the Rags Bd?