Then I\'ll do one more:
First is a deleted Rags board post that was saved here. Below it is Friedman\'s response:
Robes,
I usually avoid discussing figure-making in my posts, preferring to leave this subject to the guys in the office, but your response to Classhandicapper about how you adjust the figures of certain horses individually in slow-pace races has created a stir off-line that is filling up my email box. I\'m surprised there has not been more discussion here. So I beg your indulgence.
Tongue only half in cheek, one friend of mine is calling this practice \"a Kronstadt moment\" (whatever that means) and, twinkle in eye, is calling himself \"utterly appalled.\" Here are some of his points, copied by me from his email:
1: How many customers actually knew he was adjusting figures individually in this manner? I\'d bet almost none knew. Hell, Classhandicapper didn\'t know, and he\'s been around a long time, and he\'s completely obsessed with this subject.
2: The ones who didn\'t know? Guess what: If they were adjusting the figures themselves for slow paces, then they were adjusting an already-adjusted number: double counting, in other words.
3: Yes, I know about the \"adjusted\" symbol, but one can adjust a race (cutting it loose of the others) as well as a horse. What\'s happening here is different. In effect the final time/groundloss/weight result is being rewritten in accordance with a pace theory put forward by the same people who spent years denouncing pace theory.
4: The last time I heard a genuine pace theory from the Ragozin Sheets, it was that pace was unimportant. They ignored it. Now they understand pace so well that they can adjust figures individually for its effects? Something seem wrong about this?
5: Are they adjusting by formula? If so, where on earth did they get this formula, which has eluded people who have been studying pace much of their lives?
6: Or are they adjusting by looking at the previous figures of the horses? In other words, how much of these adjustments is rooted in the previous figures of the horses supposedly harmed by today\'s slow pace?
7: Are they adjusting at all tracks and class levels, or is this mainly a major-track, let\'s-smooth-out-the-lines-of-some-Grade-One-closers thing?
8: If someone wants to make his own pace adjustments, how, short of a major project, does he go about de-pacing the adjusted Sheet number?
9: Why are the posters over there collectively imitating corpses on this subject?
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Friedman\'s response:
I deleted your posts because \"utterly appalled\" and \"really concerned\" have a venue for their blatherings and discussions with them are pointless and annoying. In answer to your query: we make adjustments to the number a horse would have earned based on his finishing time in the race in two different set of circumstances. We give \"quit (~)\" figures to some horses who earned a better figure at an earlier point in the race than at the finish (most often at ~1/16 to 1/8 before the finish line) to better reflect the effort that the horses actually made in the race. These \"quits\" are occasional and while sometimes all the horses in a given race may get quit figures, more often only some of them earned a better figure at the earlier point and some did not. We also make P~ corrections when horses run too slowly early and must attempt to close into fast final fractions--that is when they do not have the opportunity to run a final time that reflects the effort that they made. In most cases all the horses in the P~ races are similarly affected by the slow pace, but sometimes one or more horses are more or less affected and earn a different correction. We make all these corrections on the conservative side and include the approx sign to indicate that the estimates made in these corrections is less precise than the work that goes into figures that are based on the horses\' actual finishing time. We make these corrections to give a number that better reflects the effort the horse gave out on that day so that SHEET users will have a better indication of the horse\'s current form than would be available from putting down a poor number with an explanation to just disregard it (as for example is often done when a horse runs a poor effort with a capital T next to it, where we do not feel that we can make even an estimate as to how much the horse was affected by the \"trouble\"). Making these corrections is a skill based on decades of experience and analysis. My guess is that those who say making these corrections is impossible are probably right with respect to their making them.
None of this has much connection to the traditional arguments of how \"pace\" should affect the numbers horses should get. We don\'t put any stock in the \"lone speed\" or \"contested pace\" or the \"only\" closer affecting what number a horse in the race should earn. Our numbers reflect final time except in the relatively rare circumstances where horses quit badly after running a better effort at an earlier point in the race or horses were so compromised by slow early fractions that they did not have the opportunity to run a final time that reflected the effort that they put out.
[Date/Time=08-21-2009 - 12:21 PM] [Msgid=1671374] [LoginName=Robespierre] [IP Addr= 24.213.162.220]
