David Patent

[HP]

So again, he posts his little joke on the other board, Jerry responds, and they delete Jerry\'s response and leave Patent\'s post up there. Patent doesn\'t see anything wrong with this.

He\'s getting his handicapping discussion over here (although it is, of course, pointless), but its not enough for him. He will point out how awful it is when the TG guys post over there, and how terrible the personal attacks are, and he\'s out enjoying the sun and I need to relax and blah, blah, blah.

I guess if he\'s not happy with how this exchange is going, he can post a little wisecrack over there for an ego-stroke of some kind. Does it feel good Dave? By the way, your joke was hilarious. What a weasel. HP

[dpatent]

HP,

I plead utterly guilty to that weasely post.  But it was funny, no?

I missed Jerry\'s response.  What was it?

[HP]

Jerry can answer you himself. Ask Friedman what Jerry\'s response was. It must have bugged him something fierce.

Your joke wasn\'t funny. Certainly nowhere near as funny as my posts.

Mind you, I\'m not too bent out of shape by this, but why do you resort to this kind of thing? It\'s clear from your posts over here (and I\'m not kidding) that you don\'t need to do things this way. I\'m reading your posts and so are other people over here. You\'re perfectly capable of expressing yourself. I don\'t agree with you, and I can live and let live.

The only one sinking the level of this debate is you. I\'m sorry to see it. I don\'t expect any resolution. I\'m ready to show you some respect, but you keep taking the lame-o route and I can\'t help responding in kind. What gives? HP

[dpatent]

HP,

There are three kinds of posts that I usually make.  1) Handicapping opinions -- on the Rag. board, 2) Posts to address specific questions or points that people make on this board re: the TG/Ragozin debate; and 3) When the mood strikes, a humorous dig when the absurdity of the situation requires it.

You have to admit it, JB\'s almost McCarthy-esque \'I have a list of 537 races that you blew the variant on\'; or was it Jim Garrison-like \'Ragozin killed Kennedy and the evidence is in the 13th race\' harangue was getting to be too much to not make fun of.

BTW, I kind of like \'The 13th Race\' as a title for a good Patricia Cornwall, or maybe even Dick Francis novel.

[HP]

I always prefer the direct approach. Rip Jerry over here. He loves a good joke. Don\'t try to turn this around. I can see your characterization of Brown as McCarthy (this is funnier than your 1948 variant line), but you\'re not addressing my point (on your weasel-ness in going about it this way).

Brings us to another subject. Is Rag et. al. ever wrong? On any subject? You think their numbers are correct (this I can understand), you can explain the rationale of their policies from censorship to marketing. Did they really have to take down Jerry\'s post in response to your clever line? I mean, Holy Cow! What a bunch of babies. How come you don\'t tell them to \'relax\'?

Do you ever take them to task about anything? In private? How about \'using\' eight horses in exotics in a twelve horse field? I\'m curious. I never see anyone disagree with the party line over there. The Thoro-Graph office is the Middle East by comparison. I can tell you I\'ve had arguments with Brown that were coming close to fistfights. Even friends disagree. I don\'t get you guys at all. HP

[HP]

Hey, this thread just kind of died out here. I\'m disappointed. Is the figure making debate really more important than the Patent-as-weasel issue? I wonder.

That Robespierre is the MASTER of the one-sided dialogue. HP

[Mall]

I see from your posts that your bagwork is fine, although it is a little unusual to use one\'s opponent as a punching bag before a big match. Presumably, you\'re keeping your usual strict 4am curfew. But what about non-snack food crunches & jumping rope? As for roadwork, it\'s okay to take cabs from here on out, because the subways are too crowded & stressful, & we all know how pressure & stress can affect a finely tuned athlete. Finally, the only Bushmills you drink until after the contest is for medicinal purposes, & I want you to stay alert to the possibility of DP removing his mouthpiece.

Regarding the ground rules, let me suggest from experience that each player bet his bankroll any way he chooses. That\'s the way it actually works, no?

[Marc At]

HP wrote:

\"How about \'using\' eight horses in exotics in a twelve horse field?\"

Ok, let\'s say, for the sake of argument, that Ragozin is wrong about EVERYTHING having to do with variant-making, censorship, and whatever else you can up with.

But I gotta admit, I don\'t really understand the complaint I\'ve just quoted, and how it raises the ire of so many, both here and elsewhere.

There\'s a 12 horse field. You throw out 4 horses because you hate their lines, or because they\'re terrible underlays. Preferably both. You key the right overlay, use perhaps 3 horses in second, and 4 more in third. 8 horses. That\'s 1x3x6. Then perhaps you use your key horse in second, flipping the other 3 to the top spot. Another 1x3x6. Another 18 units. A total of 36 units, which by my way of thinking is a pretty conservative play, presuming your key is some sort of juicy overlay.

Not to be a Friedman apologist, really, but when a horseplayer says: \"key\" I know what the horseplayer means. When a horseplayer says: \"strong use in exotics,\" I know what he means. When a horseplayer says \"light use in the exotics,\" or \"use defensively,\" I know what it means to me at least.

Consistently, some moron at the Rag site will say to Friedman, \"hey, nice job, you hit it,\" and Friedman will reply with: no, I didn\'t. He doesn\'t claim to hit races he hasn\'t, as far as I can tell. Or if he has done that, it certainly hasn\'t happened recently.

I understand if you like it how on T-graph\'s analysis they offer up really narrow plays. Cool. But my impression is that Friedman plays a lot of triples, and when he\'s looking at a race, he\'s starting with different categories: key, light use, heavy use, defensive use, and throwout. And then these are all filtered through the actual post-time odds, of course.

I just don\'t understand how any successful horseplayer looks at a race a day in advance all that differently...

8 horses \"used in exotics\" in a 12 horse field? In triples, sure. In exactas, you\'ll be narrowing it down based on odds, keying one with as many as 4 or 5 others if the price merits...

Can we eliminate this from the list of Friedman\'s heinous crimes?

Or am I missing something?

[Friendly]

So again, it is the same thing here HP. Does HP loosely stand for HyPocrite?

Jerry deletes posts when he feels he has lost an argument or doesn\'t want to address a subject to save face, while leaving his and others that blow smoke up his rear. All the while, you support this practice - typical. It\'s quite funny really.

[HP]

Mall, I think the ground rules are $1,000 bet any way we want to. I blew my training last night at the Oyster Bar at Grand Central (what a great place), but I think I can recover.

Marc, I agree with some of your characterizations of Friedman, but I think you are in fact missing something.

Friedman will say he\'s not suggesting a play, but then he frames his discussion of a race in such a way that he suggests using more than half the field in exotics, and this is, in the loosest sense, suggesting a play.

First off, he could find another way to make his points. The \'use lightly in exotics\' really doesn\'t add much. He\'s said as much in posts replying to my nagging over there. Then he proceeded to do it again. It\'s obviously something he\'s comfortable with.

There are other ways to do this kind of thing, and the TG race of the week is a good example. Including the sheets for the race he\'s talking about on the board would be good too, but that\'s probably beyond them technically and I have heard it said (not by Robes) things like this would \"kill their price\" and after all, according to David Patent they don\'t want too many people using the stuff (this is so hilarious I have to find a way to use it).

I\'m straying a bit. The main point is that Friedman\'s method allows him to have it both ways. Of course you are correct that this will be a method used in exotics, particularly tris. I do it myself. But he is prognosticating while saying he is not prognosticating. While it is true that he does not often seize credit, others do give it to him, and he does not delete those posts! HP

[HP]

Hey, can you repeat this again? Seriously, I already lambasted him. In fact, he stands lambasted. What else can I do? Jerry\'s not always right.

HyPocrite. That\'s a good one. You\'re moving way up from \'asskisser\'. HP

[TGJB]

Whoa--slow down there, pal. You are ASSUMING that\'s the play Friedman would make--he doesn\'t say so, or anything else. And yes, they take credit all the time after the fact--a couple of days ago he mentioned the races they \"cashed\" on Preakness day, without having gone on record before the fact at all, and did the same after the B.C., despite not giving out anything resembling specific plays--I\'m sure he hit some of them, but what was his return? And, once again, in his DRF analysis of the \'96 Belmont, Friedman said his fourth and fifth listed horses were \"live longshots that must be added in exotics\". His first 3 listed horses ran 1-2-3, and in Ragozin\'s book he said Friedman gave out a \"cold trifecta\".

[Marc At]

I\'m not assuming he\'s making the potentially smart play I described. And I\'m not assuming he\'s not (though you know it\'s a lot more likely his ticket reads 1x3x6 than 6x7x8). He\'s offering prelim. analysis of a dozen lines, which is all any player really does a day before the race.

I\'m often curious on how sharp players (those who I respect for their ability to read a horse\'s form cycle) see races. But the rush to see the *specific* plays well in advance of the race, I never understand the obsession with that. For example, USS Tinosa made sense to me on both Ragozin and Tgraph as a potential key, but I was immediately off the horse when I saw the odds, a couple hours before the race-- 10-1, are you kidding me? The whole idea of that horse is that he goes off 20-1 or longer. With the low price, he goes from being a potential key to just another use.

The self-promotional angle of the book from 1997, I\'m well aware of that, but that\'s a lot different than Len F. somehow posting disingenuously on his site hoping to get away with something.

Again: Even if every other criticism is true, I\'ve heard nothing that convinces me that posting prelim analysis exactly the way he does is in any way bogus.

Again: HP and whoever else, you seem awfully silly when you dis Friedman *specifically* for \"\'using\' eight horses in exotics in a twelve horse field,\" when in fact that is *possibly* a perfectly reasonable strategy.

I agree that posting after the fact about scores on the Pimlico card is something better saved for private e-mails to friends, but on a list of sins, I don\'t find it all that apalling.

The arguments on private backstabbing of competitors, the arguments on making of variants, those are big issues, to be sure.

But \"using 8 horses in a 12 horse field\" as an indicator of someone\'s moral failings? Doesn\'t make much sense to me.

[HP]

Don\'t make me lambast you again. I\'m not assuming anything. There\'s usually no way you can figure out the \'play\' he would make based on his \'analysis\'.

In all fairness, I can remember one episode where, with prompting, he detailed his play, and his points were useful. Also, there was a subsequent race where people bashed him and he was only talking about five horses and it was pretty clear that he was talking about keying two (or three) on top and I took issue with the bashers.

I just read Patent\'s joke over there again. Qu\'elle hoot! Also neglected to mention that Jerry Jr. or Jim or whoever it is NEVER says anything on the other board about what they take down, in fitting in with his overall suck-up approach. HyPocrite. Heh. HP

[HP]

Marc,

I didn\'t say it was a \'moral failing\'. I don\'t need to know his specific plays. In fact, I would encourage him to post his views on the horses and not say anything at all about his plays, but he doesn\'t do that. I said his method allows him to have it both ways. He gives out a play without giving out a play. He could give his analysis with the fairly useless \'use lightly in exotics.\' I think I\'ve spelled this out. If you think I\'m silly, I can live with that.

I think it\'s fair to do this at the windows (where using a lot of horses to hit a big tri is a reasonable strategy) but posting this way is, for lack of a better word, \'dis\'worthy in my book. They\'re two separate issues really. I\'m sure he could care less what I think. HP