Miff-- by the way

[TGJB]

Miff-- as you have pointed out several times, there are very large differences between the numbers we give out and the ones Ragozin does, even adjusting for scale. Hopefully that quote of his I posted, along with this day, shows why. It\'s not a question of differing judgments-- it\'s a question of whether you suspend judgment or not. They are dogmatically going with a one-size-fits-all (average variant) approach, and when they do that, and we apply judgment (otherwise known as common sense, given all the variables I have discussed, and given that the underlying premise is that using horses\' figure histories is both the best way to bet and to figure out how fast they ran), the resulting figures will be drastically different.

[miff]

Jerry,

I do not know LEN but it is difficult to believe that he does NOT know that tracks change speed(for the many reasons you state) and that he uses \"one size fits all\". That\'s just wrong and just about any serious fig maker or handicapper knows that.

Mike

[TGJB]

Mike-- that QUOTE earlier was directly from a book by Ragozin and Friedman. I\'ve gone back and forth with them about this many times, most recently about 7/27 at Sar, when the track was sealed in the middle of the card, and it got WAY slower. They treated the track as staying the same speed, resulting in the hilarious numbers they gave Folklore, Adieu and others that day-- if you have a set of their BC sheets, take a look.

Please look again at the beginning of the \"Changing Track Speeds\" presentation. It starts with another quote from Ragozin\'s book-- \"...all the figures must use the same variant unless rain or freeze or a thaw changes things\" (p37).

It\'s this type of dogmatic \"reasoning\" that gets them to giving out those unbelievably slow Gold Cup figures, as well. And is about to create a really humorous situation when they post the BC figures.