Actually, since I’m sitting here with a whole stack of stuff I can’t use because you’ve made that wise decision, I’m just going to ask two questions, and since you’ll never answer them directly anyway, I’ll make them rhetorical.

You quoted yourself, above. The actual quote from 5/23 was, “While I admit that there will never be a true and final answer as to whether TG or Rag have it right, my preference is to use factual data for my variant as opposed to one’s personal assumptions so that my numbers make a nice clean line.”

Now, it cost me $1,000 to get there, but Friedman finally admitted they did Preakness day on a slide.

Here’s my first question: What was the “factual data” that was used to make the decision as to what variant Ragozin used for each race throughout the day?

We posted the Peter Pan, first as ROTW, and then with the numbers the horses ran. It would be tough to find a race where horses have nicer, cleaner lines than that. Any time you want, David, you show me how, as a practical matter, I could have made that happen without it being right. Don’t give me a general “If you decide it will be that way it will happen”—show me how to do it with these horses without fudging the relationships within this race, or retroactively fudging the figures from previous races. And if these figures are right, it goes an awful long way in confirming the figures they were based on, including the disputed Wood figure.

My second question is in two parts – You and I first made contact when you posted about the ‘00 Wood. At the time, Friedman defended their giving out huge tops to several horses on the basis that if fit with the rest of the day, despite the fact it was raining, the wet track was being sealed and unsealed during the card, and the Wood was the only 2 turn race run after work began. Now, last week, Friedman admitted that track maintenance can change the relationship between the distances.

A) When the realtionship does change, how do they know? (What’s the factual data?)
B) Since they did that work on Wood Day, and since Friedman admits that work can make the relationship change, aren’t Friedman’s defense of those figures, and your comments to me at that time, preposterous?

Anyone who wants to see the original discussion can find it in the archives at 5/2/00—Figure Making Methodologies.



TGJB