I'll be discussing all of this in more detail when we make the move, which will happen when I get a little time, but a couple of points:

1--We will add 5 points to the WHOLE electronic database, which means all figures from 92 on. It will be easy enough to know that the figures stored on paper before that need a 5 point add for comparison purposes.

2-- The fast numbers being run have nothing to do with track maintenance. More on this to follow, but it's about the horses themselves performing better (I hesitate to say getting faster, since some of us think there are additional factors). As I have said before, it is tricky to measure this objectively, since track surfaces have changed a lot over the years, but I racked my brain and came up with a couple of interesting things to research, both direct and indirect. Anybody want to take a guess?

3-- It is BECAUSE the figures are accurate that we know horses are getting faster. Beyer and Ragozin figures are to some degree based on claiming pars, and assume that claiming horses don't improve over time, an assumption which is ridiculous on the face of it. Making that assumption anchors all your figures-- a grade one horse may be running a number 5 points faster than a 50 claimer, but if you anchor the 50 claimer you then anchor the other figure as well. This is a point I made in a discussion with Friedman on the Ragozin site a couple of years ago.

4-- The reason for the add is that the position of the zero point, which for many years was so convenient, has become inconvenient. It's a pain in the butt to deal with all these negative numbers, and psychologically off-putting, since the zero suggests some sort of threshold. It is not-- it is arbitrary, and can be moved.



TGJB