Miff-- okay, for this one you get a real answer. And just a reminder, it\'s not coming from an anonymous poster on a board. It\'s coming from a guy who has managed a bunch of very succesful stables, bought 84 horses that have won stakes for my clients (including most of the ones at Saratoga, excluding the Travers (by a head) and the 2yo stakes), and who creates data that is bought by an awful lot of very serious horseplayers, including you. Not all opinions are created equal.
1-- The only things more overrated than jockey\'s opinions are trainer\'s opinions.
The way to tell whether the rail is off is by statistical analysis of how horses run on it, not by some guy telling you how he feels.
As far as trainers go, it makes a huge difference a) which trainer, and b) what they are offering an opinion about. Among other things, this goes to an issue I raised here many years ago, about making assumptions-- \"The two sides of the house I can see are white\". It is one thing for a trainer to say that a horse is doing well. It\'s quite another to say he will run well. Example I cited here recently-- horses who just ran big tops often look and act great, then run lousy. Related example for jockeys I gave a year ago-- Borel saying that Rachel didn\'t handle the track in the Preakness. What he knew was that she wasn\'t striding the same as in the Oaks. He ASSUMED it was because she didn\'t handle the track.
2-- I dealt with the specific point you raised at the DRF Expo a few years ago.
It\'s a FACT (a real one, not one of your \"facts\") that the wider you are on the turns the further you travel. There is no escaping that, unless you missed that class in high school.
Now-- a) The vast majority of the time the inside is not bad, so by using ground loss you are more accurately reflecting the horses\' measurable performance.
b) The times when the rail is bad the figure will not reflect that WHETHER YOU USE GROUND LOSS OR NOT. If 2 horses finish together Andy doesn\'t give one an 80 and the horse that ran on the bad part of the track an 85. The only difference is that we measure the distance the horse actually traveled.
c) You are free to make adjustments based on your opinion of the rail, or of trouble a horse encountered racing inside. Have to say though, the old chestnut of horses not liking it inside, with the exception of lightly raced 2yos, is riotously funny. I have been through that so many times with trainers, and disproved it EVERY SINGLE time. No exceptions. The way you do that? Make them give instructions to stay inside on the turns.
