Okay, here are Alydar’s rebuttal to my response, his answers to my questions, and my response. Anyone who makes it through all of this stuff has a lot of stamina, or a lot of coffee.


Alydar:

On his board, JB wrote "This is an Alydar special-- an arcane point"

You should have consulted a dictionary before you wrote that. The whole point is that it is arcane (known to only a few). Mandown works for you. You pay him. He makes vicious anti-David Patent posts in which he claims DP is biased. On the SHEETS board, as you know, he posts as "Thermador" and kicks the hell out of The Sheets. You know he is your employee. You keep this quiet. Your reply to my question could not be more dishonest. How many times did you point out that Howard Dennis worked for The Sheets? Where did Jason Litt go to school? How do you sleep at night? And Marc's question, which you ducked Who else, JB? Who else works for you and attacks The Sheets on both boards?

Amazing. Simply amazing. I will get to the rest of this insanity later.


JB wrote

"I offered him the chance to e-mail me questions which I would post and answer under certain guidlines, and he has sent me the first three, so here they are, unedited."

Unedited indeed. You misspelled "soliciting." I taught you how to cut and paste. What happened?

"So I had two guys listen to the audio intro tape, and I watched the video version myself (quite an experience-- it was made 10 years ago, and I hadn't seen it in 8. I had more hair then,"

I had more money then.

"in general it held up pretty well."

Did you notice that on the video you mispronounced "comparable"? You punched the wrong syllable.

"If someone does have an idea of a study we could do, I would love to hear about it."

Since you believe that tighter means more accurate, you can vary the weight correction based on the category of race and see whether you can get a tightening effect. Do this with old sheets. It's risk free.

"As an aside, I love Friedman's defense of the weight correction as being absolutely accurate."

Absolutely false. Friedman did not call it absolutely accurate. I remember his post very well. He left a little room for error.

"You do this by trial and error, AND THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT RAGOZIN DID AS WELL."

This is false. Ragozin had a trial but no error. He never had to adjust his father's weight correction. Read his book.

"'To answer the question of how much (weight matters), we have studied tens of thousands of races to measure how much effect weight has". That is correct."

This has an omission that could launch a thousand ships. I distinctly remember you saying you found that weight was more important than most people thought. Please give me this quote. It changes everything. Your story does not add up, JB. When the omission is reinserted, you end up saying something like this We studied thousands of races, found that weight is more important than most people think, and concluded that five pounds = one point. Do you see the problem here? All you did was keep Ragozin's weight adjustment. What the hell is the "more than people think" business doing in there. It seems designed to mislead, to make it look as if you were some sort of an inventive iconoclast. Nonsense. You kept Ragozin's weight adjustment. Why didn't you quote the whole thing, JB?

"Alydar originally tried to make it look like I was violating the rules by betting the race in such a way that I would cash even if the filly I managed didn't win (she ran second), "

Wrong. All I did was ask you a question and admit that I didn't know much about the rule. When you didn't answer, I got suspicious. Restraint is not your hallmark.

"He is trying to make it look like I did something dishonest"

BS. Quote what I wrote. What you are doing here is dishonest. I wanted to hear you say that you select horses, manage them, pick spots for them, tell the rider how to ride them, and then, on occasion, bet against them. And you admit that you do. Not for one second do I think you don't give 100% effort for your clients' horses. I have never written a bad word about Rising Graph on any message board. Period. I even have to remind myself to stop rooting for the damn RG horses. Old habits and all that...

"by a guy who has no direct dealings with any horses I have ever managed, and is just throwing crap against a wall to see what sticks."

Watch your mouth, Dimmsdale.

"remeniscent of Friedman's slimy insinuation that I was advising Graph racing to sell a filly while telling another client to buy her (in reality, the buyer was not my client)."

Let's talk about slimy. Why did you suggest (on your board) that Ragozin lied about his treatment during the McCarthy era? Do you have evidence, JB, or is this just you being yourself?

"1- Do you have INDEPENDENT information about Ragozin employees lying about me or my company, or doing other things to us that you consider nasty or unethical?"

Yes, from someone I trust more, even, than I trust myself. If he wants to discuss it, he is welcome to do so. But if you're not nice to him, I will burn down your house.

"Did you watch the last Breeder's Cup Mile, and did you see where Touch Of The Blues was on the second turn? Did Ragozin's trackman get it right? After I brought this up, did you believe Friedman's response on the Ragozin site was accurate and truthful?"

Yes, of course I watched it. I agreed--and agree--with you on this subject. But I don't think Friedman lied about how they do ground.

"3- This one only requires a one word answer-- Since you are definitely not known to have a bias in my favor, I would like to know whose figures you think are more accurate, Thoro-Graph or Ragozin?"

I don't know.




Herewith my reply:

1—I’m glad you brought Howard Dennis up, because I was going to myself. When Howard posted (lied) here that Ragozin outsold us 10-1 (among other falsehoods), he was TESTIFYING as to facts. As such, his credibility (and bias) was very much at issue. This is not true for one who is ARGUING a point (an advocate), because an argument stands up on its own two legs, or else doesn’t.

One does not have to be employed by anyone involved to act in a partisan fashion, and I have labeled several people who posted on both sites as such, with no belief they were Ragozin employees—it’s not relevant. Marc is (horrors!) really good friends with one of the dogs in this fight, which biases him, motivates him, and makes him a pain in my butt, but has nothing to do with judging his credibility, UNLESS he testifies as to a matter of fact—his arguments, opinions (and logic) will get judged on their merits by all who are unbiased, as will mine.

Almost exactly a year ago, Alydar got into it with David Patent on this site (so did I, but that is beside the point here). We both were carving up David over his obviously intentional spinning, ducking, slick playing with the truth, and in general BSing that was intended to make Ragozin look good, and me bad. It was obvious to Alydar and everyone else because of what David DID (meaning said) that he was a partisan. THIS is what Mandown meant when he said David was biased—and Mandown’s position, like David’s, stands or falls on logic and evidence, on its own merits. It doesn’t matter what the NATURE of the bias is (employment, friendship, indoctrination), and it doesn’t matter for credibility unless an issue of fact is at stake.

I would like to ask Marc this—by the end of this post (and lots more like it) it will be clear that a guy who you respect a lot has direct evidence of serious bad acts by the Ragozin operation. Are you going to discuss them with him, and more importantly, will that information alter your position regarding that operation and its credibility? If not, who is the biased one? If you respond to this post, please respond to these questions.


2—“Friedman did not call it absolutely accurate. I remember his post very well. He left a little room for error.”

I don’t remember it word for word, but, so what? That wasn’t the point—the point is that Friedman’s evidence supporting the weight correction, in several posts, is one race (the Fall Highweight), one field of maybe 10 horses, all of whom are mature males, not 2 year old fillies. Logically, that’s a joke, which WAS my point.

3—“Ragozin had a trial but no error. He never had to adjust his father’s weight correction. Read his book.”

To someone who knows of several deliberate falsehoods in that book, this one is a howler. By the way, I had given away my copy, but someone brought in another. I’ll be taking it with me when I go away next week, and will comment in detail somewhere down the line.

On the specific point—again, even making the assumption it is true-- so what? The point was that Ragozin (or perhaps his father) did the SAME THING we did. And as you know, NEITHER of us changed it.

Out of order, but on a related subject—what I said about Ragozin and the McCarthy era was “but seriously (not that it really matters here), how do you know he really was blacklisted, since you only have his word, and he’s a proven liar in the same book? I’m sorry that seems harsh, but it’s true.”

My point was that given Ragozin’s record in the veracity department, everything self-serving he says is suspect. In that very book alone, just off the top of my head: he detailed his betting experiment in Atlantic City, saying he won. In fact, HE LOST, as reported in DRF at the time, which covered it, and Brad Free pointed out the "discrepancy" (ahem) when he reviewed the book for DRF. There will be more on the veracity issue below, and in future rounds of this “debate”.

4—On the weight issue, Alydar is making one of the great “distinctions without a difference”. The exact quote was, “To answer the question of how much, we have studied tens of thousands of races to measure how much effect weight has, and it is much more than MOST people think.” (emphasis added).

The context of this quote is a 30 minute intro video, made in 1992, telling NON sheet players how the figures are made and used. There were far fewer sheet players then, and the seminar wasn’t made for or watched by them. It was seen by the general public, which had no idea what to do with weight (especially then), and Ragozin was a non-issue—I had no reason or motive to distance myself from him on this issue, to these people, and it’s hard enough to explain weight in the minute or so we had out of 30 minutes total without going into history. And if we did go into it, why stop there? Why not the history of every aspect of figure making, making it a 6 hour seminar for NEW, non-sheet players? Please.

5—If Alydar knows I give 100% to my clients when managing their horses, what was the point of bringing the issue of my betting up in the first place? It was, as I said, a slimy attempted smear—he was throwing crap against the wall.

Okay, on to Alydar’s “answers” to my questions. He gets about a “B” here—I didn’t think he would answer at all, but he certainly wasn’t forthcoming with his answers.

1—Alydar said yes, he did have independent information about Ragozin employees lying and doing unethical things to me and my company. But he didn’t re-print or respond to the other part of the question—what were the activities? He could have answered this without compromising his source, or at least asked his source if it was okay to answer.

Since that would be only fair, I look forward to receiving that information via email, and posting it.

2—Alydar didn’t want to lie outright but tried to diminish the impact of the Touch Of The Blues issue, so he only quoted part of the question, and tried to move on by just saying “I agree”.

This is what he is agreeing to—Ragozin’s trackman got the ground wrong, FRIEDMAN LIED ABOUT WHERE THE HORSE WAS ON THE TURN AFTER REVIEWING THE TAPE, then didn’t change the ground or the figure, and Alydar agrees that it tells you volumes about the Ragozin operation’s ethics, true interest in accuracy, and respect for its customers.

3—Alydar answered the question about his opinion on the relative accuracy of Thoro-Graph and Ragozin by saying “I don’t know”. Well, not really. Less than 3 weeks ago he posted the following on the board (he was blocked at the time, so it didn’t appear, but I have it): “If I had to choose between using your figures forever or using Ragozin’s, I would choose yours.” He went on to say some positive things about Ragozin, but that is the part that directly addresses my question. Now he is saying he doesn’t know—do you think his opinion has changed in the last 3 weeks, or that it is personal?

Okay, that’s it. The terms of this “debate” were that Alydar would not get rebuttal but I did give him that, and now this one is closed. Look at how long this post is, and think how much time it took—any questions why I banned this guy?

I look forward to the next 3 questions, but there is no rush. As it stands now, I won’t be able to do this again until very late June, or early July.



TGJB