JB,

I don't enjoy trying to figure out what Friedman means when he uses certain words, but I know of no way around this. As you know, I promised him that I would never post on his board again. Proof that I have kept my promise is that Plever is still there.

You neglected to answer my question: Why would you EVER link one race to another? Let's leave aside races that are full of first-time starters, first-turfers, etc. Let's also leave aside races that seem indecipherable for other reasons.

Here are the questions you put to JimJerryJr:

"What are the "objective criteria" that Friedman referred to?"

Rain, snow, thaw. These things are observable. I don't care for "criteria" here, but I think these things are what he meant. In the same post, he called them "physical realities."

" how does Ragozin measure "physical resilience(y)"?"

By looking at the performances of the horses. Your mistake, JB, was confusing identification with quantification. Giving away Ragozin's book was also a mistake. Patton didn't give away Rommel's book. On a dry track, Ragozin will use the same variant for all the races. This is tautological: If nothing changes, everything remains the same. You're going to say that there are important changes that Ragozin is unaware of or indifferent to. I agree, but that's not the point. I'm not arguing that Ragozin's figures are better than yours.

Dry track: The first eight races suggest that the track is three points slow. The ninth and final race suggests that the track is six points slow. Ragozin would not cut loose the ninth race. You probably would, and you wouldn't require a sudden storm or other observable phenomena before you did it. "Stranger in a Strange Land," right? Circumnavigate the house before you opine on its color. The two sides you can see are yellow.

Now say we have a rainy day. Since I'm not inclined to lose to you in a nitpicking contest, I'll begin by saying that as little as one drop of rain will change the resilience of the track. It can't but be thus. The change will be much too small to detect with the timer, but it will be change regardless--even if it affects only the smallest pebble on the track.

Now we get to the crux of the matter. Ragozin will use his trackman's observation of rain to IDENTIFY this track as one to which his do-all-races-at-the-same-variant rule does not apply. Then he will use the performances of the horses to QUANTIFY the effect of the rain. He won't do it in a way that would please you, but I don't believe he can breathe in a way that would please you.

You wrote: "I know damn well-- as I said-- that Ragozin is going to split the 9/15 variant, especially between the last two races"

You said this on Tuesday. You didn't say it when you started this string. Instead, you left people with the impression that Ragozin would do little or nothing to capture the effects of the rain. That was unfair. But you corrected this impression. That was fair. But you corrected it in a manner that once again proves that you are the master of the aggressive retreat.

"rain does NOT equal a change in the resilience of the surface. It may CAUSE a change in resilience,"

This has to go a bit to become a nice try. As a verb, equal means "to create something equal to." = was shorthand for cause, as you damn well knew.

"That's the only reson I'm responding to this, because it eats up my time-- it's NOT fun."

Who started this string?

"Aside from your putting words in his mouth (and giving him a base on balls),"

Yeah. There I go again. My manifest hostility toward you and TG warped my judgment again.