FOY Figures

[BitPlayer]

Seems like everyone is moving forward out of the Fountain of Youth:  Ice Box, Pleasant Prince, Eskendereya, Jackson Bend.  I\'m wondering if TG has the race too slow.

[Silver Charm]

That is an interesting question. Not from the standpoint of did they BLOW the number. TG takes great care in reviewing and studying the days events when assigning figures.

One would figure a good group of three years olds should move forward from a Feb Stakes to an April Stakes. But in the case of Esky a Neg 2 in the Wood looks a lot stronger if it was a Pair than a two point forward move.

I do not know but it is a good question. We are of course assuming Esky ran a NEW Top in the Wood. Lets reserve judgement until we see the figures.

[mjellish]

I think TG is dead right about the FOY figure.  When you know you are that far beat a good jock won\'t abuse a potential derby horse.  This may be partly why some of the others seemed to have moved so far forward coming from out of that race.  For what it is worth, I know a guy that makes his own figs and his numbers are in line with TG on all the preps except for the Tampa Bay derby, which he has as being faster.  My buddy Remy, who has made these figures for years and incorporates weight, ground loss, and track varient into them, has told me several times that TG numbers are the best out there, BY FAR, in comparison to what else are commercially available.  

As an aside, whenever there is a blow out win by one horse, I wouldn\'t put a lot of faith in the figures for the runner ups.  Sometimes they matter, sometimes they don\'t.  One reason for this: why beat the hell out of a horse for 2nd and 60k when you can save the horse for when it matters and 200k+ later?  Add in a factor of beaten lengths errors and u are asking to burn up your money.  My buddy Rem has a system for actually measuring beaten lengths at the finish and pace calls accurately.  You would be amazed at the differences from the charts.

[BitPlayer]

Just to be clear:  I am not criticizing the figures (I don\'t have the expertise), just asking the question.  I note that there was only one other two-turn dirt race on the card that day (Race 1) and that (after adjustment for weight and ground loss) Beyer seems to have the race faster.  I know that TGJB sometimes marks races for later review, and I\'m wondering whether he did so in this case.

[Rich Curtis]

MJellish wrote:

 \"My buddy Remy, who has made these figures for years and incorporates weight, ground loss, and track varient into them, has told me several times that TG numbers are the best out there, BY FAR, in comparison to what else are commercially available.\"

 I believe that TG numbers are the best numbers available anywhere, period, and that of the numbers available only privately, Remy\'s are the 11th best, though he is not far from 10th. An awful lot of private figures are a hell of a lot worse than Remy\'s.

[mjellish]

Fair enough.  Point taken.  

I guess my main point was try to offer some coroboration for the TG FOY figure to Bit because he was asking about it.  In no way was I trying to say that Rem\'s figures are better than TG.  Hell, I\'m here aren\'t I?  I buy TG data.

I will say this, however.  It is a great learning experience to try to make your own figures.  You will learn a lot about horse racing and, more importantly, the horses on your local circuit.  If you don\'t have the time to try to make your own figures, at least use the data you buy to come up with a class par chart, and if you don\'t have time for that at least do a class par chart for maiden spwt and maiden claiming races.  It\'s a huge tool to have in your handicapping tool box.

[Rich Curtis]

MJellish wrote:

\"As an aside, whenever there is a blow out win by one horse, I wouldn\'t put a lot of faith in the figures for the runner ups. Sometimes they matter, sometimes they don\'t. One reason for this: why beat the hell out of a horse for 2nd and 60k when you can save the horse for when it matters and 200k+ later?\"

And if the sheets of these beaten horses were used to help make the figures for the race with the blowout winner, in which direction would this tend to push the figures for all the horses in the race? Too fast? Too slow? Just right?

MJellish wrote:

\"Add in a factor of beaten lengths errors and u are asking to burn up your money. My buddy Rem has a system for actually measuring beaten lengths at the finish and pace calls accurately. You would be amazed at the differences from the charts.\"

 What is Rem\'s system? Can you give me some examples of amazing differences at the finish between the chart beaten lengths and the actual beaten lengths?

[mjellish]

I am not going to use this board to talk about my buddy\'s figures or to give examples of errors in result charts, of which there are many.

You will either have to take my word for it or do the work for yourself for a month.  Watch the races, watch the replays, measure beaten lengths at the pace calls and finish, also look at the path of the horses and how wide they go on the turns, and see if you come up with differences from what gets reported in the actual charts.  My guess is that depending upon which circuits you follow you will probably start finding differences,and sometimes big differences, within the first couple of days.

Or ask JB if he thinks he could make his figures simply by going off the result charts.

[Rich Curtis]

MJellish wrote:

\"I am not going to use this board to talk about my buddy\'s figures\"

Well, you already used this board to talk about your buddy\'s figures and to make positive claims about them, and since this subject is of some interest to me, I thought I\'d make an attempt to get you to go beyond mere claims and actually talk about his methodology. I have found over the years that a lot of figure-making methods sound pretty good in the claim stage but lose some luster in the explanation stage, which is probably why claims outnumber explanations to such a degree.

\"You will either have to take my word for it or do the work for yourself for a month.\"

 I\'ll take your word on this subject when you start taking NYC\'s word on his private results. As for doing the work myself, I have, and when I think I have found errors, I tell TG so that they can have a look. That is one thing I\'m trying to get you to do right now. In an earlier post, you wrote:

  \"whenever there is a blow out win by one horse, I wouldn\'t put a lot of faith in the figures for the runner ups. Sometimes they matter, sometimes they don\'t. One reason for this: why beat the hell out of a horse for 2nd and 60k when you can save the horse for when it matters and 200k+ later? Add in a factor of beaten lengths errors and u are asking to burn up your money. My buddy Rem has a system for actually measuring beaten lengths at the finish and pace calls accurately. You would be amazed at the differences from the charts.\"

  I already asked you a question about this, and you made no attempt to answer it. But I\'ll ask an entirely different question now: Do you understand the implications of your comments about beaten lengths, TG figures, and Rem\'s secret method?

[mjellish]

Wow.  I guess you feel I am somehow obligated to answer your question.  Here goes.

For method go here,
http://www.thorograph.com/phorum/read.php?1,42753,42753#msg-42753

As far as beaten lengths adjustments, what I was saying is that if a jock feels his horse is hopelessly beaten he may not push the horse down the lane.  If you see the front runner 8 lengths ahead of you at the 1/4 pole and your horse isn\'t really making up any ground, do you beat the hell out of it anyway?  The fact that this would skew the number slower should be obvious.

There are also errors made in beaten lengths on chart calls.  IMO JB\'s guys seem to get it right more often than not.  There are other services and figure makers that don\'t, and I think part of the reason is that they just go off of the charts.  Some don\'t even include ground loss or weight to begin with.  

That\'s all I was saying.

[Rich Curtis]

MJellish wrote:

\"what I was saying is that if a jock feels his horse is hopelessly beaten he may not push the horse down the lane. If you see the front runner 8 lengths ahead of you at the 1/4 pole and your horse isn\'t really making up any ground, do you beat the hell out of it anyway? The fact that this would skew the number slower should be obvious.\"

Slower than what? Slower than the figure deserves to be based on the factors that go into TG figures? You\'ve got this whole thing over-simplified something awful, and this is turning your point upside down. Here is an example: Say that the figure-maker does not subscribe to your theory. Say that he expects the hopelessly beaten horses to run to their usual figures in the race in which they were hopelessly beaten. What happens then? What happens if you make your variant by pairing hopelessly beaten horses to previous figures that they ran? If YOUR thinking on hopelessly beaten horses is correct, then the figures in these races will be FASTER than the performances warrant. And this goes for the winner\'s figure, too.

\"There are also errors made in beaten lengths on chart calls. IMO JB\'s guys seem to get it right more often than not.\"

Color me 51% reassured. JB walks on a preponderance standard.

And from the link (which I thank you for):

\"Unlike other pace numbers, ground loss, and weight are factored into these because they do matter, along with the track variant. Wind is difficult to track without actually being at the on site and it gusts or changes directions anyway, so our premise is that this will tend to show up in the variant.\"

Hmm. Wind tends to show up in the variant that you use for pace figures?

How do you arrive at the variant? How do you get correct beaten lengths and groundloss?

Of course you are under no obligation to answer these questions. But I think these questions are just about the whole ballgame. So I\'m asking.

[mjellish]

Sorry Rich,

I have nothing more to offer you on this subject other than what I have already offered.  Make of it what you will.