I’ve made about 100 appearances on TV, but all of them were taped, meaning if I screwed up I got a do-over. Like a lot of people, I’m nervous about speaking in public, so I avoid public appearances and live TV—I have enough stress in my life. The last (and only) appearance I’ve made in front of people for Thoro-Graph was a NYOTB seminar in 1994.

So when the DRF asked me to appear at their expo, in front of about 200 people, with Friedman and Beyer (who have done lots of these), on a panel that was being taped for a DVD, I was a little nervous. But I had to go, because it was the only time I would ever be able to get Friedman in my sights, in public, where he couldn’t delete the questions. Which means the stakes were pretty high, and the stress level incredible.

I hadn’t been in Vegas in 20 years, and it was pretty jaw-dropping. Also disorienting—we were at the Paris, where the entire ceiling of the huge ground floor is painted realistically to look like the late afternoon sky. Whether it was 8 in the morning or midnight, it was 4:30 in the afternoon, and trying to keep time zones, post times and meal times straight had me all screwed up—between that and the stress I was a wreck. I learned that the human body can produce an incredible amount of adrenalin, and that a person can have an elevated heart beat for 48 hours straight (and the better part of 2 weeks) and not die.

Maury Wolff was moderating my panel, and I had two 45 minute conversations with him in the weeks leading up to it. He appeared to have a grasp of the material and no axe to grind—he gave me an idea of what ground he was going to cover, which included questions about which figures were tough to do, and whether track speed remained constant, and how you know your speed chart was accurate. I told him that was good, because I wanted to get into the baby races at Keeneland, and I had prepared a whole presentation showing definitively that tracks changed speed during the day, and the relationships between distances (one and two turn races) were not constant. I had made a whole power point (slide show) presentation about it with some ground breaking stuff, and I sent it to him.

Which brings us to the panel itself, which was by far the most stressful experience of my life. It went by in a blur, and technically I probably ended up with amnesia (for real)—I was on auto-pilot, and remembered very little when it was over. Hours later I started to remember bits and pieces, and have continued to pick up pieces in the days since. I’ll be interested in seeing the DVD to see all of what I and the others had to say, but on balance I don’t really have a sense of how it played.

What I do remember—

1—Ten minutes before the panel, Wolff informed me that he would not be asking a question about track speeds, but I could use my (long) presentation as closing remarks. I was screwed—it left me in the position of bringing the subject up out of the blue, which made it an attack on Ragozin (Friedman) rather than a response to a position they were taking.

2—Wolf didn’t ask the question about difficult figures to do. In fact, I don't remember him asking ANY questions that brought out differences in the way Ragozin and I do figures. All the focus was on the differences between (Beyer) speed figures and performance figures, which left Friedman and me in general agreement about most things. Wolff appeared to want to keep things nice—then he finished with the question part and wanted to move to closing remarks, which left it to me to bring up the question of the Keeneland 2yo races, again making me the aggressor.

3—But when we got to those Keeneland races, which Ragozin makes and Andy and I know not to make, I made an amazing discovery. I had assumed Len had just been evasive when I brought up the issue here previously. I was wrong—he really has no clue, and in response to my questions (I came back at him a second time), he brought up the 4 ½ furlong races at Timonium (they are actually 4f), saying it wasn't hard to make 4 1/2f figures.

Len, look—it doesn’t matter that those Keenland races are 4 1/2f, they could be 6f and the issues would be the same. The point is this—ALL of us who make figures do so using the previous figures of the horses to judge the track speed. In the case of the Keeneland baby races, there is no way to judge track SPEED day to day—the only horses who race over THAT course are first time starters, and you can’t use the surrounding races because the other horses race over a DIFFERENT track. You also have the additional problem of being unable to set up an accurate SPEED CHART to begin with, both because proven older horses don’t race the distance, and because it’s a downhill course, unlike the other distances run at the track. You can try to extrapolate by looking at other tracks that have pitched chutes, but you have no way of knowing the degree to which the situations (and the distances run downhill) vary, among other variables. Those Timonium races you brought up couldn’t be more different—they are run over the MAIN track, which is FLAT, by OLDER horses as well as 2 year olds, so it’s easy to do figures. There ain’t no such thing as accurate figures for those Keenland races-- it's a pure guess.

4—And then it really hit the fan. Wolff said “Now we’ll have closing remarks, and Jerry Brown has a presentation,” and I was stuck with a 20 slide show with comments about a subject that hadn’t come up, to an audience that had sat through a lot and wanted to ask questions. When you look at the slides you will see that this was indeed groundbreaking stuff, and a lot of people were interested. But a lot were not, too, and I can’t really blame them—they got restless, and a few got rowdy, including one asshole pace-figure maker who was not even a paying customer, and should have had more consideration since he had been on 2 panels himself. We had words at the cocktail party later. Wolff, of course, said not a word to help out, and several people walked out.

5—I’ll give Friedman this—his response to the final question asked was great, and I hope they got it because they were running out of tape. A guy asked why us sheet guys didn’t tell him in our product who to bet, like Beyer did when he picked Cajun Beat. Len was the most eloquent and animated I’ve ever seen him, describing the way we all feel when we sit down to handicap a card, trying to figure out the answers for ourselves, and how much he loved it. He was great.

Anyway, lots of people came up to me afterward telling me how much they liked it, and several said I shot myself in the foot at the end, which I knew, but Wolff had painted me into a corner. Two separate scientists (a chemist and a physicist) came up and told me the slide presentation was the only science anyone presented. If you check it out you will see that it definitely and conclusively proves once and for all that the two assumptions upon which Ragozin figures are based—that the track doesn’t change speed unless something extraordinary happens, and that the relationships between distances are fixed—are completely false. Check it out at

http://www.drf.com/expo/powerpoint

We’ll be posting it in the archives section of our site soon as well. The DRF version starts with info about the Donaldson book, which I used for my opening, and which you’ve seen already here, before moving to the science.

You'll need Microsoft Powerpoint or the FREE Powerpoint viewer to access the presentation.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/search.aspx?displaylang=en&categoryid=9


As I said, I look forward to seeing the DVD, thought I’m sure I’ll be cringing at the end. And oh yeah—Steve Crist (who should have moderated the panel) had a good line at the closing banquet. He said they were a room short, so Len and I were sharing one.

Anyway, I survived.



TGJB