It’s hard to be much of a fan of Ragozin. How anyone can bet those figures is really perplexing. Granted, I’m going back scores of years but their figures convinced me I needed to attempt to make them on my own. Ultimately, my conclusion was I was better than them but it was too much work and it was interfering with my ability to look into the non-figure aspects of handicapping, so I looked elsewhere.

One of “The Rags” principles was not to change variants unless there was an “observable phenomena” (Those are my words) upon which to hypothesize changing a variant. They stated rain was one of those “objective” reasons to split variants. When you realize the proposition is that moisture impacts the quickness of the surface, it raises an immense number of implications. They all generally involve degrees of moisture and compaction. I recognized this 15 plus years ago. (Though I didn’t formulate “compaction” definitions in my mind…they were subsumed.) So the question is: “If moisture is a factor, is it a factor only when it rains?” Beyond that you have the rainy day implications and there’s no better case study than Churchill on Derby Day:

Race 1
Showery/Muddy

3^F&M,NW2X,7f:22.77, 45.17, 1:10.09, 1:23.56
3^MSW,7f: 22.83, 45.81, 1:10.65, 1:23.81
3^NW2X,6.5f: 22.65, 45.63, 1:10.73, 1:17.21
3^NW2$X,6f: 21.20, 43.95, 56.04, 1:09.54

Race 5
Clear/Good

4^,200K,7f: 22.48, 45.27, 1:08.87, 1:21.38

Race 6
Clear/Fast

2yr,100K,5f: 21.75, 45.17, 57.98
4^F&M,250k,7f: 22.49, 45.04, 1:09.65, 1:22.78

Race 10
Showery/Sloppy

3yr,1000k,10f: 22.99, 46.73, 1:11.80, 1:37.35, 2:04.06
3^F&M,NW2$X,6.5f: 22.93, 45.82, 1:11.04, 1:17.52
3^MSW,8.5f: 23.63, 47.75, 1:13.17, 1:39.23, 1:45.87

Now the groupings are only grouped upon Equibase’s calls of changing track conditions. But the question of course is did Ragozin formulate 4 different variants for these changing track conditions? Assuming they did, what about the changing conditions (i.e. drying out or becoming saturated) between races within one of the same track condition categories? (i.e. the three “Sloppy races” starting with the 10th or the four “Muddy” races starting with the 1st?) It looks very much to me that the track was becoming faster as the Muddy condition turned to Good and then perhaps it became slower by the Humana Distaff. (That’s arguable, Azeri isn’t really a 7 furlong horse and why Lukas spotted her there to give weight is grist for debate regarding his true acumen...however I think the track was slowing again is my hunch) Obviously there was a change in condition once the rains hit.

The whole point of this “MOTO” being if the track can change so quickly on a day like this why is it implausible that it doesn’t change on days when the issue is anti rain? (i.e. wind and sun) “Unless you make the assumption that it can't change, in which case it doesn’t”…lol