It is apparent you do not want to not ackowledge or discuss the way some things impact race results and times because they can't be measured with the same precision as other factors. You would rather simply ignore them.

Personally, I don't know a single handicapper with more than a few years of experience that doesn't acknowledge the impact of pace on both results and time.

It really doesn't matter whose figures you are using. You can usually get a reasonable guage on who the contenders are going in even if the figures you are using aren't as accurate as "your figures".

You then watch the race race development. Somtimes the extremeness of the pace is very apparent - so is its effect on the outcome.

Second, it is also abundently clear that two brilliant speed handicappers can subjectively analyze the results of a few races and come to different conclusions about how fast the track was and what the figure should really be.

Third, after you make your subjective figure, if the way the horses run coming out of that race indicates that the figure was wrong, you are better off fixing it than making excuses for every horse or saying they all improved.

Grand Hombre ran exactly as I expected. He's a pretty good horse that spotted the winner a few lengths because of his wide trip. That was good enough to beat him. The other horses coming out of the PA Derby finished up the track - further indicating that the PA Derby was not as fast as thought.

Toccet also ran horribly (though we all agreed he would have to improve a real lot to run well in that spot) further indicating the PA Derby was not that strong.

In fact, the only horse to run huge coming out of the PA Derby was Dynever who made a huge close off a slow pace into a reasonable fast race - because he didn't like the mud the night of the PA Derby and did not fire that night.