Friedman has posted his thoughts on “trainer stats” on the Ragozin site.

1) It seems hard to believe, but Len actually seems to be taking the position that trainers don’t have strengths and weaknesses, that (as he said in a post a few days earlier) it is only worth looking at trainers in terms of overall strength, and noting when a horse changes hands between trainers of different strengths. Putting aside for a moment how we go about measuring them, it should be obvious to any sophisticated handicapper that trainers have characteristics, just as hitters do. Sure, one guy hits .350 and another .250, but that’s not what they talk about in the pitchers meetings—Ordonez will chase stuff up in his eyes, Kent chases sliders in the dirt, Shinjo can’t hit a breaking ball, Ryne Sandberg wanted it middle-in, Albert Bell wanted to extend his arms, etc.
Likewise trainers. Some wind them up first time out or off layoffs, some don’t. Some have a good opinion about whether a horse can handle grass (and therefore win first turf), and some don’t. Some trainers treat horses who hemorrhage (bleed) differently than others, etc. And then there’s the question of intent—when we first started doing the profiles 5 years ago the first one that caught my eye was that of Bobby Klesaris, who at that time was 0 for many years with first time starters in special weights, but something like 8 for 10 with first time starters in maiden claimers.
And sure, you have to put the data in context, which is the point I made in my earlier post to Friedman. Some guys get a lot of grass pedigrees, for example, so you have to take that into account. You don’t simply say that since a trainer is 20% in a category this horse has a 20% chance of winning—that would be silly. The best way to use the data is as a supplement—that the horse’s chances of running well are enhanced (or hurt) by the trainer’s tendencies, and to answer questions that can’t be answered by figures alone—first out, second out, bet, not bet, fitness off layoff, etc.

2) There could very well be merit in discussing what constitutes a meaningful sampling (I never said anything was “overwhelming”), and the Lasix sample on Jory may not be big enough to qualify as such. But Friedman seems to be saying that measuring results by the figures horses run is meaningful, and win and ITM percentages are not—meaning there is no significant correlation between the two. If that is so, what the hell are we all doing making and using the figures to bet with? If done right (see below), studies done using our figures would be even better, and we may do something along those lines at some point. But there are drawbacks to it, and what we have now is definitely worthwhile.

3) Re: Friedman’s comments about our accuracy—we get our underlying data directly from Equibase, who also sells it to whomever Ragozin buys it from. Equibase also directly sends us a maintenance file that cleans up any errors. While certainly some errors can creep in, it is therefore close to impossible that Ragozin is using base data with less errors, since they are one step further from the source.
As to the profiles, we don’t take them from anybody—we create them ourselves.

4) The “objective” method Friedman used to evaluate the two trainers is similar to the broad averaging Ragozin does to do figures for a day when the variant is changing, and suffers from the same problems. Aggregate points forward or back for a group of horses is not the question—it’s no different than average points forward or back. To oversimplify things, when you are looking at something like first or second Lasix (and many other categories), you are looking to see what percentage of horses jump forward enough to win (or finish ITM).
Looking at the second Lasix stats for Jory we see he only had 6 runners ITM, but 4 of them won. In the same category Wolfson (with twice as many starters) also had 4 winners, but 15 ITM. It seems likely that a larger percentage of Jory’s horses make a jump, but a larger percentage of Wolfson’s run about what they usually run. Breaking things down by percentage that go forward 2 points, 4 points etc. would be more meaningful than an average. I have no idea what that study would show with Ragozin figures, and frankly wouldn’t even if Friedman told us (remember his comments about Touch Of The Blues BC ground).

5) Idle thought—I mentioned ten different trainer categories in the ROTW Friedman referred to. Wonder if he ran studies on all ten? As for the $1000 he mentions, what I got for that was Friedman’s admission that track maintenance affects track speed, which contradicted his earlier statements (regarding the 2000 Wood Memorial figures) that it did not.



TGJB