Jimbo,

I can't speak for CTC, but I don't think every race is better or worse than it looks. I do think a lot of them are though because many of them have paces, field qualities, or track conditions that impact perfromances to varying degrees both on the race level and on the individual horse level.

You are absolutely correct that saying this doesn't make it so. I'm just happy when Jerry allows me to discuss races in these terms because I like to. This is a great place to discuss races and horses because of the quantity and quality of discussion.

All I can do is suggest that as an experiment you start looking at a set of high quality pace figures, speed figures that are made by the same guy that is making the pace figures, and a set of perfromance figures that attempts to quantify the impact of pace on the final time. I'm not that big on exact formulas like these because I think racing is too complex to quantify exactly, but figures like these are more than accurate enough to demonstrate the general relationships. I think if you go into it with an open mind, you will find that a lot of things that seem baffling to you right now are readily explainable - not only in terms of impact but in terms of degree of impact.

Just to be clear, what I am suggesting is that you could improve your results and understanding of performances by supplementing you TG reading/figures with this incremental information.

I just have to address this one specific point.

"You two both liked Bellamy Road's Derby and killed his Wood. "

I didn't kill his Wood. I think it was a terrific performance, just not as good as the figure that everyone gave him suggested because it was earned under the most favorable possible conditions for a front runner. Personnally, I can't quantify "exactly" how much those condition contributed, but I tend to focus my attention on things like this because I know a high percentage of the public will take the race at face value and I disagree with that opinion. So IMO, there's value in knowing he's not as good as he looks even when I don't know exactly how good he is.

The same thing is true of the Derby, but in the opposite direction. Many people will look at the figure, take it at face value and presume he sucked. But the figure he earned that day came under the worst possible conditions imagineable. I can't quantify his Derby performance exactly either, but the various formulas used are at least a clue and so are the race records and subsequent performances of the horses with similar horror show trips.

IMO, his most recent race was actually pretty honest. He did make the lead, but the fractions were more than honest and he resisted a tough challenge from a solid Grade 1 3YO late in the race. I take that number at face value.

This may all sound very grey and inexact to you. I agree. But as I always say, I would rather be approximately right than exactly wrong.

It's really up to you. You won't convice me I am wrong, but you can look at some extra data and decide if it's useful and adds value.








Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 09/24/2005 01:17PM by classhandicapper.