Alydar,

IF--

There is no weather (precipitation).

There is no significant (unusual) work done on the track.

The track has a history of not changing speed under those circumstances.

There is nothing unusual about the circumstances of the two types (distances) of races (specifically, significant difference in run-ups-- also, at many tracks older horses run 5f, which gives me a history of those relationships to work with on days with no weather and work done. Be careful where you go with this one, because Friedman's answer was NOT an example of this).

There was no slide on the routes.

THEN I will tie the 5f races to the older sprint horses (if not, they will get boxes). I do the older sprint horses mostly against themselves, although I will look at the routes, IF the relationship has been constant, as an additional source of information if there is a choice between two ways to go. I will also look at the surrounding days IF they are both the same speed and there is no weather over the 3 days. But I will only use the routes and surrounding days as information bits, never as a reason to override a clear decision.

And when I don't have sufficient information, I leave boxes. The two sides of the house that I can see are white.

Go through the check list above to see if you can figure out how Friedman came up with the Chilukki figure, and how many unfounded assumptions went into it.

On a related subject, Friedman said something about the evidence indicating they got that figure "right", and implying we think so as well. Absolutely untrue, on both fronts. If you believe Ragozin, Chilukki ran a huge number first time out that was not within her (she didn't get back to it), but did not knock her out either-- she leveled off in a range a few points off her first out figure. That is much, much less likely than her either getting back to the number OR falling apart. The ones who ran behind her (and got beat 9 or more lengths at 4 1/2 furlongs) figured to go forward over the course of the year, so no conclusions can be drawn from their up the track April 2yo numbers. Best guess, and it's just that, is that the figure for Chilukki should be a TG 7 3/4 (Chilukki's 2yo top)or higher, meaning a couple of points worse on Ragozin.

Let's try to get this subject tied up today, because I have a whole backlog of projectiles that Friedman has aimed at his other foot to deal with.



TGJB