First of all, there are several reasons a horse may actually PERFORM worse when switching tracks. While I think it doesn't happen as often as many people think, sometimes they really do like or dislike a track (Turfway especially), or need one over the track (often those coming from Med to Inaq, for example), or don't run well after shipping, or need to acclimate (North to South, East to West). It's also true that some guys can get numbers at one place they can't get elsewhere (especially Delaware-- it's Dodge City down there. Check out the sheets on Pino and Iwinski horses, among many others).

In theory, a number is indeed a number. But that doesn't mean the horse will run that number (see above, and others will have other reasons-- pace, etc.-- why a horse may or may not run his race). But beyond that, the numbers can be wrong.

In general, Ragozin does not split the one and two turn races, and as far as I know is the only serious figure maker who does not. As a general rule, when they split, you have to take off from the routes (don't know why), sometimes a lot. Since the average American card is sprint heavy, and since your variant is made by trying to have the most horses run about what they run, and since Ragozin is only using one variant (not just for sprints/routes but throughout the day, almost always) this results in making a choice between giving the sprinters what they usually run and robbing the routers, or giving the routers what they run and giving sprinters faster numbers than they deserve. And sometimes they end up BOTH robbing the routers and pumping up the sprinters, if the split is severe enough.

Breeders Cup day was a good example of this stuff-- not only did they rob the early horses on the card when they made the figures for the day, but look at Pleasantly Perfect. Ragozin gave him 7 1/2 points (15 lengths) better than his Goowood figure, 6 1/2 points better than he had ever run before in his life, and he's not a young, lightly raced horse. This was because, as I pointed out last Spring (look at April-May in the archives) Friedman does not split the sprints/routes in SoCal, where PP had been running, hence giving the sprinters better than they deseve, and the routers worse. I pointed out a lot of examples back then , and PP is yet another-- he ran a new top alright, but not nearly to the degree Ragozin gave him. On BC day the card was mostly routes, so they did the figure to the routers, some of whom were coming from places where the sprints and routes don't split, or don't split that much. So they didn't rob PP this time (and the whole question was made a lot more complicated by the track speeding up throughout the day).

You mention the 1 turn routes at Belmont. I haven't looked at this (just as I hadn't noticed the SoCal sprint stuff until Friedman posted the King Robyn race last spring), but my guess is that routers will be given better Ragozin figures at Belmont than at other tracks because those races are done at the sprint variant.

All that aside, figure makers have tendencies, and varying abilities. One may be more conservative, or be more willing to give out good numbers on an off track, willing to slide the day, etc. If a horse who has been robbed of a few points runs against other horses who have been robbed, it's no big deal. But if he goes to another track and runs against horses who have been getting what they deserve, there's gonna be a problem. Not only will the results look crazy, but you end up giving out 6 1/2 point new tops to older horses.



TGJB