You are absolutely unbelievable--you never answer a question directly, ever. I'm not going to get sidetracked into a general discussion--not now. I want to stick to narrow questions that define the entire argument.

The answer to my first question is, there is no "factual data" used by Ragozin--only the histories of the horses, period. I read the book, I worked for and with him, it's a load of crap.

In the Peter Pan, I specifically told you I didn't want a general answer. Show me how I made ALL those numbers come out "pretty". If you don't understand by now that fudged a variant won't do it, you either haven't read carefully, or you're an idiot, or just plain disingenuous. I don't think you're an idiot, and I think you read carefully.

On the question of our numbers being similar, you are completely wrong (check out both sets of sheets for Preakness day, not just the numbers they ran that day), which shoots down whatever that nonsense was suppose to mean.

On 2--what repeatable conditions? The exact amount of rain, at the exact intervals, as measured how? With the exact soil composition, the exact water added (and rain) recently? The track work EXACTLY the same? Are you kidding me?

The question is ENTIRELY one of judgement. The answer to the first part of the question is they don't have factual data, and they know the relationship changes (when they do know it) by the figures the horses run, same as anyone else who makes figures.

On the second part, you ducked completely--the question wasn't whether the Wood number held up (you might recall I said at the time it would screw up future figures, and, sure enough, the only horse in that Derby who Ragozin paired up, magically, was FP) but whether Friedman's defense was logical. Since they concede now the relationship changes, and since we know the moisture/maintenance changes that day were extreme, his defense of his figures based on the relationship being constant is indeed preposterous. And all your dancing around makes you is a dancing partisan.



TGJB