"As I said in ROTW, if he stays in one piece (which now appears unlikely) he will be tough to handle on grass."


Hmmm. Is there any race that this horse has run that would be fast enough to contribute to him having a hard time staying in one piece?

"I would also point out that one of the problems with getting a figure wrong is that the problem compounds itself-- you make figures using past figure histories of the horses (all serious figure makers do, invocations of "science" notwithstanding), and bad figures in the past mean more bad figures in the future."


I totally agree with this, but let me make one exception and one comment.

Comment: Often times when you say Ragozin has a race too fast or too slow, it seems you might be lacking a comparison of the how fast they have the rest of the horses on the card for the day the figure was run.

Exception: The least likely figures to contribute to future figure making success are figures run over an off-track, because the figure maker naturally downgrades the value of these numbers on future-figuremaking because of the track conditions-- off-tracks provide so many Xes, as well as its share of freakouts in the other direction. Yet the most consistently criticized numbers from TG or Ragozin are these off-track/drying out track numbers. Looks like rain at Aqueduct this Fri/Sat. Drying out conditions on Saturday, look out. Similarly, a one number turf-sprint jump up first time Mullins, either as a 'capper or as a figure maker, what possible impact should it have? Very little, right?