First of all, we have the computer programmed to look for possible dead rail days. When it flags one, I'm aware of it when I do the day, so I

a) look to see how the rail horses ran in figure terms, and decide whether the rail was in fact dead, and therefore whether to give them the "x"

b) if the rail is dead, I'm not using those horses to make the variant-- I'm ignoring them and doing it based on the others, so I won't be giving extra credit to horses who ran outside. I would point out that this is not true for those who don't acknowledge, look for, and therefore take into account, dead rails-- like Ragozin. If you go back in the archives to shortly after the 01 Breeder's Cup (Belmont), you will see a real brouhaha on the subject, and if you follow up the posts over the following weeks you will see how it played out.

As I said then, if you don't take the dead rails into account, you are creating an average track speed that doesn't correctly assess the performances of either the rail horses or the wide ones. It's the same concept as using one track speed (in effect an average) when it actually is changing throughout the day.

On an unrelated subject, I want to say that I LOVE CC's post on the Rag board in response to Rule By Reason, who is not me, and who is as far as I know a Raggie, posting my comments about the Derby lengths, and asking Len what's up. You got it, CC-- Rule By Reason's response isn't rational. Yours is.



TGJB