Ask The Experts
General Category => Ask the Experts => Topic started by: TGJB on November 15, 2011, 01:18:06 PM
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...sure is taking Ragozin a long time to do those BC numbers.
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Well, they put them up. Only gone through the first day so far, and...holy crap. I have no idea what they were thinking having all the dirt races collapse (and I do mean collapse). Haven\'t sat down to work it out yet, but use one variant for the day? Tie it to surrounding days? Even if you believe tracks don\'t change speed ordinarily, with rain, and drying tracks...really???
To be clear-- I\'m not even talking about a comparison with our stuff. I\'m talking about how they did it looking at the figure histories on THEIR stuff.They clearly need to take off about 4 from the Juv Fillies, 2 from the other three dirt races.
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Not for nothing but who cares what ragozin\'s numbers are?
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Beau Wrote:
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> Not for nothing but who cares what ragozin\'s
> numbers are?
I would think those that buy Ragozin\'s numbers would care.
Some lurk here, and this might be the only place to find out that there are issues with their numbers.
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Rick B. Wrote:
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> Beau Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Not for nothing but who cares what ragozin\'s
> > numbers are?
>
> I would think those that buy Ragozin\'s numbers
> would care.
>
> Some lurk here, and this might be the only place
> to find out that there are issues with their
> numbers.
One other place, if indeed that\'s the case. The Windows.
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Rick-- and in fact, someone over there is currently pointing others to our BC sheets.
I gotta tellya, I\'m still trying to get over what they did with the Friday dirt races. The Juvy fillies is downright mind boggling, but you can\'t appreciate it unless they post the figures in the context of the whole sheets, which they won\'t do. They have the FIRST THREE finishers running the worst race they have run in their short lives, in each case 4 points off their tops, and every other filly running at least SIX (6) points off their tops. Really guys? A whole field of GI horses running at least 4 points off their tops? You guys really can\'t figure out those numbers are 4 points off?
Other highlights-- Secret Circle wins going back 4 points, Her Smile doesn\'t even come close to getting back to her top, let alone run a new one.
This is what happens when you use an average track speed and apply it to all the races no matter how they come out. That would be crazy enough even if there was no obvious reason to think the track changed speed-- but in this case you have a wet track that was sealed for 4 races, then opened up, and was drying throughout the day. What they did is figuremaking malpractice, and charging for that crap is close to criminal. If the guys who use their data have any b----s at all they\'ll ask Len about it and demand an answer. We\'ll see.
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JB,
Gotta agree that many RAGS BC figs less than credible.Do give them a little credit for giving Drossel-slug a fig equal to a TG 1 which may be the slowest Classic fig ever. The raw time was second slowest in history, yes the surface was insane that day.
Mike
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It looks to me like Ragozin\'s incredibly bad Friday figures (both meanings of the word) are the result of a) \"rules\" about track speed not changing, combined with b) not wanting to give Royal Delta a big number, which may have something to do with me pointing out how ridiculously slow they had her going in. To keep from giving her a big figure they had to give everyone else horrible ones.
There were 42 American horses that ran in BC dirt races on Friday. According to Ragozin, exactly two (Royal Delta and Musical Romance) even MATCHED their previous top. Two out of 42. Think about that. Does anyone out there think that GI horses pair or exceed their tops only 5% of the time?
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going by memory, I think Royal Deltas top was a 7-. On friday they gave her a 4-.
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Correct. If they did the day by all the horses-- even using an average variant-- they would have had to give RD much faster, making it even more apparent how wrong they had her going in. So best guess is they gave out 40+ bad figures because they had one horse wrong going in. Again-- by wrong I\'m not even talking about compared to ours. Any serious figure maker on planet Earth, looking at THEIR sheets for the day, would have made the track two to four points slower, depending on the race, and given the horses figures that much faster.
It\'s rare when a situation shows up where I can show so clearly how messed up Ragozin\'s methodology and figures are. It\'s important to point it out to show that when there are differences it\'s not just a matter of opinion-- it\'s a matter of dogmatic vs. real world. Their idea is that if you go through a certain process it produces a figure that is by definition correct, whether it has anything to do with reality or not. There are some pretty good figure makers out there not associated with TG, but the Ragozin operation is not one of them. Everyone else is basically rooted in reality or trying to be, with differences coming in variables used and skill level. The guys on 11th st.are fundamentalists from the Dark Ages.
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Anybody got a life preserver they can send poor Vito from the Rags board.
He has gone way beyond spilling the kool-aid all over his shirt, he is in a tub of it, barely keeping his nose/mouth above the surface. He is on the Rags board defending the figures for HDG and Royal Delta in the race before the Breeder\'s Cup.
Call a lifeguard...
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It might be worse than you think
Nameserver trace for www.thesheets.com:
Looking for who is responsible for root zone and followed d.root-servers.net.
Looking for who is responsible for com and followed d.gtld-servers.net.
Looking for who is responsible for thesheets.com and followed ns2.brainlink.com.
Nameservers for www.thesheets.com:
ns1.brainlink.com returned (SERVFAIL)
ns2.brainlink.com returned (SERVFAIL)
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Boscar-- I\'m half a Luddite, need footnotes.
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for some reason, the sheets site was not loading last night, so that was the error message from the nameserver that looks up the sites address.
thought ns1.brainlink.com was appropriate given the conversation.
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Regarding the track surface for the Breeders Cup:
Bloodhorse:
\"Track woes\"
Another department at Churchill Downs that came under some criticism was track maintenance, due to the dirt surface’s uncharacteristically slow drying out process following a day of rain that turned the track wet and very sticky on Friday and to a lesser extent Saturday. Some used the comparison to peanut butter, others molasses and even oatmeal. Photographers had a tough time trudging their way across the track and many of those walking from the barn area with their horses had their shoes sucked right into the quagmire like quicksand.
According to several trainers and owners, clay was added to the track right before the Breeders’ Cup. But track superintendant Butch Lehr adamantly denies that.
What made this so surprising is that Churchill is regarded as the fastest-drying track in the country, and has been known to turn fast in a matter of hours following a drenching. That, however, is the case in the spring and not fall, according to Lehr. The track dried out very little on Friday and still had large patches of water on Saturday, despite bright sunshine for half of Friday and all of Saturday.
Lehr explained the situation. “First off, we added nothing to the track from 2010 to 2011. If I add clay to this track, then the times get too fast. I’m not going to make any excuses other than weather. We went for six months without any rain. All that time we didn’t have a single sloppy track. We had a good rain on Thursday, which came at the worst possible time for us. We had a little wind, but not a lot and there were still a lot of leaves on the trees, which made for many areas of shade. On top of that, we had heavy frost at night. They also built this huge tent on the backside for the Breeders’ Cup owners and trainers to have breakfast and that caused even more shade. Even on Saturday, there was a lot of shade in the stretch because of the shadows from the two grandstand structures on each side of the Twin Spires. As a result of all this, there was still moisture in those shaded areas.
“The track got a good soaking way down. Ever since Eight Belles, we’ve worked to keep this track as safe as possible and we take it seriously. Even if I wanted to close the track for training I couldn’t, because we have an agreement with Breeders’ Cup where we have to let them train. I would have liked to see the track different on Friday, but all in all, I thought the track was playing pretty fair, especially on Saturday. Believe me, this track is the same as it’s always been. We just had bad luck with the weather.”
Lehr also had his share of controversy on Thursday morning when he refused to allow the horses, mainly the Europeans, to train on the grass.
“Some people thought we had a vendetta against Michael Stoute for scratching Workforce the morning of last year’s Breeders’ Cup because the course was too hard,” Lehr said. “That wasn’t true at all. What he didn’t tell anyone was that (Workforce) had a bad foot and wasn’t 100 percent. The Europeans had been on the grass twice that week, and I contacted Adrian Beaumont (of the International Racing Bureau) and told him I would have to close the turf course for training if the weather didn’t cooperate. We were running a stakes on the grass that afternoon and I wasn’t about to compromise any horse’s chances who was running in the stakes. I had to protect the course as best as I could.
“I mentioned the situation to Adrian and he said he didn’t think there would be a problem and I took him at his word. Once it started raining, I couldn’t just change the rules and I didn’t want to risk tearing up the grass with a stakes being run that day. I assure you there was no vendetta.”
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There are several things that are interesting here for different reasons, one of which is the spring/fall business-- I would like to know more about that.
That aside, you have to love \"Ever since Eight Belles we\'ve worked to keep this track as safe as possible and we take it seriously\". And before that you did what, exactly?
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\"Goosed it\" for blazing fast times.....
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Boy this is interesting, because yet again on a big day the surface was, well, different. Last year\'s BC, this past year\'s Derby, and now this year\'s BC. Granted, the rain on the Thurs is a rather large mitigating factor this time.
What I really enjoy is all the racing types (Byk, everyone who came on his show that week, most other announcers, etc..) who the entire week just kept reassuring us that, \"don\'t worry, the rain on thurs won\'t be a problem, this track dries out faster than any other.\"
They were all completely wrong.