I am not sure how you can conclude that the vast majority of Ragozin's numbers are not within 2 standard deviations, as you do not know the mean and you do not know the standard deviation. Further, you certainly cannot conclude that JB's numbers are within 2 standard deviations because, as many have told me on this board, TG users do not believe in averages in relation to figure making, so I don't know how they can believe in standard deviations? (I don't recall JB making such an extreme statement, but other's certainly have.)

Speaking of exaggeration, nobody ever contended that JB "forces his numbers into tight patterns." That is a straw man argument invented by the TG folks to attack the actual criticism. The actual criticism is not that JB goes back and forces tight patterns. The criticism is that everytime JB senses an "anomoly" he makes the numbers come out the way he subjectively thinks they should have come out based on the patterns of the horses in that particular race. On this point, I don't think I am exaggerating. This necessarily results in tighter patterns, particularly with horses who have run few races, such as young 3 year-olds. If you have faith in JB's ability to do that, you should be a TG user.

Go to JB's sheets of the Wood that he posted. Then subtract a few points from the Wood number that he claims Ragozin got wrong. If you do this, you are likely to conclude that this debate is kind of pointless because there can be no "proof." I can make the case that based on the numbers that followed to the end of the year and subsequent years, the numbers make more sense on several horses if you did subtract the points. What does that prove? Not much. To me, it proves what I have always contended, that there is no way to determine the truly "correct number" and there is really no way to tell whether an incorrect number would make a sheet fall apart in the long run, so you should go with who uses a methodology you trust is correct the majority of the time, not on one particular race.