Friedman wrote a lengthy post on the Ragozin board, and I posted a response which is sure to be deleted. Here it is.



This one is so silly I can’t even get upset about it, although I might before it dies down. The best part is your not wanting to engage in debate—no kidding. For the record, those who have maintained that Ragozin doesn’t attack TG should take note.

1. On TG Bella Bellucci wasn’t the fastest horse (the fastest filly won), and she was coming off a huge effort for a 3yr-old filly that had caused a 7 point bounce the last time she ran it. The only three fillies who had a chance were the 3 favorites, so the race was unplayable.

2. I went into great depth about the silliness of your figure making dogma in several posts, notably this spring, and after last year’s BC. I’m not going to start all over now, but if anyone wants I’ll list where the posts can be found. But briefly—in June you said “… we only slide our variant when the physical resiliency of the track changes--a practice that produces accurate, objective numbers.” I’m still waiting to hear how you measure “physical resilience(y)”. As we both know, you don’t—you use the past histories of the horses. It’s not science.

3. “…they also take the position that there is never any reason to review any work done in the past…” Wow.

Right after you posted the BC numbers (and said there was no dead rail) I posted a list of about 25 horses that I predicted would go forward on your sheets next time out, some because they raced on a dead rail, and some because you missed the sliding variant (physical resiliency machine broken?). All of them did, which is statistically off the charts. Did you go back and change the numbers?

4. And finally, speaking of reviewing numbers—the ultimate test of any figures is correlation with results on the track. We post all the previous day’s data in the Red Board Room every day, so everyone can see whether the results correlate. Evidently they do—just over 1000 customers have bought data online this year alone.

On the other hand, here’s what you’ve been doing—a couple of times a month you post an individual card. Forgive me for being cynical—but could it be that you’re waiting for one you think makes you look good vs. our data? If not, how about doing it daily, even if it’s just for New York?



TGJB