T-Times/Ragozin numbers

[TGJB]

So I sent an e-mail to the editor of the Thoroughbred Times, complaining about the blurb they were running saying \"Len Ragozin is the father of speed figures\". I told them about Donaldson\'s book (see \"History Lesson\" in the archives), that it went to 15 printings starting in 1933, that speed figures were being advertised and sold by mail since at least 1936, when Ragozin was 9 years old. So they changed the blurb to read, \"Len Ragozin is the modern-day father of speed figures\". If anyone can explain what the hell that means I\'d appreciate it. You\'re either a father or your not.

Anyway, they are trying to give Len credibility because they are giving away his figures for all the big 3yo races for free in their publication. This ought to tell you right away about all those \"clients\" Friedman and Jake claim-- if you were a major trainer, paying serious money for data, would you be okay with the same data being given away to the public and other horsemen for free? (NOTE-- when we do the ROTW and RBR, it\'s the same data that has already been made available daily for purchase to bettors-- we don\'t put up data for horses until they are entered in a race, and no-one gets the figure they ran until they are entered back, so only horsemen clients who pay comissions get the data for buys and management of expensive horses. The exceptions are rare cases where we\'re trying to make a point, like with the FG data we posted).

So-- Len has gotten some of them right, and some wrong. Since we already posted the La Derby we\'ll tell you he got that one right, but there are four out of the nine Derby preps listed that he got wrong by a significant amount, meaning 2 points or more. Example, since we posted his sheet in the FG races-- if you believe Ragozin\'s figures are accurate, you believe that Scipion got a much BETTER figure getting slaughtered in the La Derby than he did winning the Risen Star (we have him running two points better in the win).

[Michael D.]

TGJB,
since you brought it up last week, i was going to address the scipion issue. do you think you have his first La race a bit fast? not to knock you here, as most on this board (including alan in the ROTW) liked HL in the la derby at a decent price ($7.20) based on your #\'s.

[TGJB]

Michael-- we\'re putting together the Risen Star sheets and we\'ll post them, but what makes you think we have it too fast? Or is it just that one horse, which would mean a ground loss issue?

[Michael D.]

sorry, misread your post. thought you meant ragozin had scipion\'s # heading into the la derby correct (ie the risen star). since he had it much slower than you, would have meant yours was a bit fast. now i realize you are saying he got the la derby correct. you did make a point to contrast your risen star # with ragozin\'s before the la derby, just curious on your thoughts now.

[TGJB]

Michael-- here\'s the Risen Star. It\'s the 2/12 race, and you can see how it stacks up with what they ran before and after. Ragozin gave the winner a 9, which would be about 5.5 on ours (we had him with a 2.5), so to see how that would look just add 3 to the figures I gave out. I hadn\'t remembered the race, but as you can see it came up awful tight, and with horses coming from all over the country that\'s a good sign. No chance it\'s wrong, although the ground on an individual horse always can be.

http://www.thorograph.com/hold/scipion.pdf

[Michael D.]

ok thanks...... much appreciated that you are willing to discuss all of these figures.

[TGJB]

Michael-- until such point that this eats up a huge amount of my time, which it is nowhere near doing, I WANT to do this. The more people understand what goes into all this, the more they have the ability to analyze which figures are correct and which are not, and the methods used to make them, the better. Keep those questions coming.