I’d like to weigh in with a personal opinion related to pricing. I’ve been an active and enthusiastic Thoro-Graph user for over 30 years (gulp) and the following is something I’ve felt strongly about for a while:
IF A HORSE HASN’T BEEN ASSIGNED A PERFORMANCE FIGURE FOR ITS LAST RACE, THEN DON’T CHARGE US FOR IT! THE PURCHASER SHOULD BE GIVEN SOME KIND OF REFUND.
It’s maddening to encounter races where one or more of the runners have voided box symbols indicating “no-figure given.” When that happens - and it’s happened a lot over the years - the advantage Thoro-Graph users have is taken away. To get at least some read on a horse’s line, we’re reduced to interpolating a horse’s current level from the Beyer-style speed figures in our past-performances of choice, always a dangerous and tricky translation.
We’ve all seen, say… a Larry Jones first-timer having won by 10 in the slop at Delaware, now trying Keeneland. Without a Thoro-Graph number assigned to that debut performance, the race becomes more of a question mark. Really then, a no Larry-fig means that race is unplayable. Long story deleted using many other obvious examples whereby one non-fig makes entire races unplayable.
[By the way, a personal aside: About ten years ago, in a certain period of time, I encountered a stretch of about 10 races (it must’ve been) that had “no-last-figs” in them. And every one of them resulted in the “no-last-fig” horse winning the race! I swear this is true. Amazing. Irritating. To myself, I called it “the Thoro-Graph curse.” It should’ve been fodder for an episode of St. Bilko.]
To be clear, I’m not questioning Thoro-Graph’s figure making abilities or their right to ultimately indicate “no-figure” for a race. You want to do that? Fine. Just don’t charge us when that happens! Figure out some reasonable refund rules when that happens. Maybe not for 50-1 shot no-hopers. But certainly when the “no-fig-last” horse wins the race.
JohnTChance
