Alydar,

Speed charts and par levels are two different things. I described how we used the speed charts, which have zero times for each distance based on a standard configuration (and which are adjusted for the average relationships between distances at that track, and used BY US only as a starting point), as well as time-per-point relationships (as in, 2 seconds at 6f = 10 points).

Par levels are made by figuring out the average winning figure for each class of race. Using these only lets you make rough figures, and is only useful when you are first starting your data base-- it's another example of a broad average. Once you have a significant data base of individual horses to work with, you are much better off basing your figures on the horses that ran on a specific card than on a broad average of all horses who run in those types of races in general-- obviously, you could be dealing with a strong or weak 10 claimer, etc., and you are using those horses to determine how fast the other horses are.

We use "mechanical" variants, as Ragozin used to call them, only to make my job easier-- the first step is to apply a claimer derived variant to the day simply because it usually gets the day within a few points of where it should be, meaning the numbers I have to add and subtract in my head as I do the day are smaller. We do not rely on the par levels in any other way, and I would point out that tying your figures to mechanical variants "anchors" your figures-- if racehorses as a group are getting better or worse over a period of time you can't know it, making comparisons from one generation to another impossible. You have already determined that 10 claimers are the same forever, etc.

In the example you gave (which is pretty much the most common single way a race comes out), it definitely can be solid if the 2-3-4 horses run numbers very tight to their histories (meaning, pair up last number, run exactly their top, etc.). Think about the alternatives-- if you give the race faster, you are giving the winner an even freakier number, and the 2-3-4 horses faster than you want to give them. If you give the race slower, the winner will look better, but 6 other horses will look worse. This, by the way, is almost exactly the situation that came up when War Emblem ran his first big one last year-- we gave him the number rather than have a whole field of good 3 year olds behind him collapse, and Ragozin went the other way. War Emblem paired the number we gave him EXACTLY in the Illinois Derby.

The sentence about my understanding how Ragozin makes figures better than Friedman does was edited, but I think I got my point across. Speaking of which, you neglected to ask me the most obvious question raised by the post you are responding to.



TGJB