Re: Derby views from a Ragozin user (625 Views)
Posted by:
Michael D. (IP Logged)
Date: April 30, 2007 03:05PM
TGJB Wrote:
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> There are some interesting "differences" between
> TG and Rags on the Derby horses, and if I get some
> time I'll address them. But on the Blue Grass and
> Miff's point-- it looks like they did the opposite
> of what Miff thought they did, and it's crazy.
>
> What they basically did was to declare (correctly)
> that it was what we call an "S. Pace", a race
> where the pace is so slow that the final time is
> affected-- they just can't make up the lost time,
> and the final time is slower than it should have
> been. In those cases you have to throw out the
> time and just do the race off the horses histories
> and their relationship at the wire, after taking
> into account lengths beaten, ground, and weight.
> That's how all the serious figure makers (TG,
> Beyer, TimeForm) do it.
>
> But here's the thing. After declaring the race "S.
> Pace", Ragozin gave two of the horses in the
> race-- Teuflesberg and Dominican-- big new tops.
>
> How does that work, exactly? You decide the race
> would have gone faster, so you don't use the final
> time and do it off the horses, but you give 30% of
> the horses in the race (or more, I only have the
> ones coming back in the Derby) big new tops? Huh?
>
> What they did, it looks like, was to both declare
> it S. Pace AND tie it to the next race, which was
> the one that featured an even crazier pace
> (1:18:23 6f), which meant you had to adjust it
> even more. They tied two S. Pace races together,
> which is completely nuts. The whole point of those
> S. Paces is that you CAN'T use the final time.
>
> Having said all that a couple of points. First,
> given the circumstances of the Blue Grass, when it
> comes to Street Sense, I wouldn't take his figure
> seriously unless it had been terrible, or huge,
> for which he would have had to win by ten, which
> was pretty much impossible under the
> circumstances. I think it's basically irrelevant
> to reading him whether it's a forward move,
> backward move, or pair.
>
> Second, despite the differences in our figures and
> Len's, it looks like users of both data will be
> playing mostly the same group of horses,
> unfortunately. At least I would be-- from the
> comments of some posters here I'm wondering if
> they are looking at the same sheets I'm looking at
> for the seminar.
Jerry, when you adjust a slow paced race with a perfect trip speed horse on the front end, that horse often gets a figure better than he deserves. Teuf got the perfect trip in the BG - he was alone on the lead and gave it all he had for the final 3/8th of a mile or so (drifting out late). Teuf could not have run any faster. But as we all know, if you adjust any, you have to adjust them all. When you adjust the figures for the ones that could have run faster if their jocks had let them, you are forced to sacrifice the figure of the speed horse (ie he gets an adjustment when he does not deserve one).
I have no idea how fast the BG went. I am not putting much emphasis on the figure, from any source. If Teuf does not run well in the Derby, I will not use that as evidence that Ragozin got the figure wrong though. I will focus on the other runners from that race to come to any conclusions (if that is even possible).