Raz-- I shouldn't even bother with this, but I will anyway.

1-- Yes, they were personal comments, negative ones. Following weeks of much harsher ones against me-- go back and look at the original string on the Ragozin board about the lawsuit, and others that followed. I didn't see you making the point then, there, that anyone was out of line to make those comments, and in fact you were one of the ones doing it. My comments yesterday were a REPLY to personal attacks by you and others. And you have quite a pair making it look like I'm the aggressor.

2-- You don't get it. I have acknowledged I started with Ragozin, and thought at that time-- as did Friedman until recently-- that Ragozin invented the whole deal. Connie Merjos told me otherwise, and the Donaldson book was strong evidence that Ragozin's claim ("Father of speed figures"), repeated weekly in their Thoroughbred Times piece, and implied in his book,is a load of crap. Do I think Len and his father went to school on the thousands who made speed figures before them? Yes. There is even an ad in the back of my copy of the book (early 1930s, remember) for speed figures that can be bought via mail, and Len acknowledged in his book reading lots of handicapping material-- you would have to go some to come up with a way he could have done that and avoided the stuff specifically about what he was doing (making figures), especially since Donaldson's book went to 15 printings.

People were making figures using weight (TimeForm, among others, starting after WWII), ground and wind (Connie Merjos among many others) before Ragozin. Len MAY have been the first to incorporate ALL those elements-- we don't know, because if someone else did so they may have kept them for private use, as Ragozin did until he decided he didn't have the temperment to bet for a living (I'm being kind here, I was there), and starting selling to me and a few others who could win.

He also MAY have been the first to put them on a graph (his father's idea, he resisted), but we don't know about that for the same reason. There are a couple of form cycle graphs in the Donaldson book, and he does talk about figure patterns elsewhere, so my guess would be that somebody, at some point, tried it.

He was, as far as I know, the first to SELL ready to use figures incorporating all the elements that we both now measure. And his figures were more accurate than those that preceded them-- as far as I know.


3-- As far as the acknowledging thing goes-- you have seen some in the other direction? Point me to it.


Look-- I had pretty much stopped going after Ragozin, even on the obvious errors (there was another good one recently). I did this because it's obvious they don't have a significant internet presence, and the serious conversation is taking place on this site. I didn't even attack when you guys sent that tonnage my way about the suit-- I just explained the true nature of the suit. So in trying to make me (and Jimbo) out to be the aggressors, you are way out of line.




Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 09/05/2005 03:13PM by nicely nicely.