The figures

[jimbo66]

I don\'t know about the Board TGJB.  Approximately 4,322 comments about Zenyatta since the Breeders Cup (and I made a lot of them), but not a single comment about the thorograph figures for the races on Friday and Saturday.  She even dominates conversation amongst us \"grizzled, hardened, hardcore gamblers\" on this board.

I have a few comments on the figures.

1.  Did you consider a dead rail on the turf course?  I saw a post about that from somebody on this board and disregarded it, but upon further review, it doesn\'t look impossible.  

2.  Miff is the conversion specialist, but it appears to my eye that you have the Classic slower than Beyer.  I won\'t be the one to accuse you of it, but you probably will be accused here of still not admitting you were wrong about Zenyatta.  I was going to make the accusation, but looking at the race, it is hard to argue the point.  The race was a bit slow.

3.  I am struggling with your figures for the Turf Mile.  Looks fast to me.  Wondering how \"solid\" you feel the race is.  Hard for me to believe that Sydney\'s CAndy paired up the Delmar race.  Pretty sure the connections would disagree with the pair up too.  A pretty big move up for Goldikova, especially for a 5 year old mare.  

4.  I thought Uncle Mo would get a faster figure.  Would like to hear Miff\'s translation on this one to the 108 beyer, with Mo\'s ground loss.  

5.  Did you have the track changing much during the day?

I promise to go back to Zenyatta posts tomorrow.....

Jim

[Silver Charm]

Goldikova figure was interesting and so was Hamazing Destiny. No wonder he was pissed.

Everything else looked pretty boring. Might be a good thing Uncle Mo didn\'t run like a Neg 3.

Nobles Promise came back to his zero. People in the Paddock said he was training up a storm. If they keep him at say 7F he could really be a ggod one next yr.

[Footlick]

1) If I understand correctly, once Blame\'s figure was achieved, Zenyatta\'s figure is where it is because she carried 3 lbs less.  The trouble line is noted but not reflected in the figure and it is something you keep in mind for the next race, or not in this case.  It makes sense to me if I\'ve analyzed it correctly.  You base all figures on the winner\'s figure.  Zenyatta did not have a wide trip.  The figure than is taken off the three less lbs that she carried.  Therefore lower figure.  Am I close?

2) I\'m a little perplexed by the Mile figure also.  But at the same time, maybe she needs firmer ground at this stage of the game than she is getting in Europe to show her best.  Still, it seems a huge move forward.

3)  Am I wrong or did Dangerous Midge have a great pattern coming in to move forward again?  I didn\'t see the Thoro-graph numbers before the BC, but I liked him because I knew he was being pointed to this race and the chatter in Europe was good about him.  Bekhabad\'s numbers look slightly low to me, but French races are notorious for having slow ground and slow paces.  The soft notations by his numbers probably are indications that the race could have been faster with better ground.  But that is just supposition on my part.  Champ Pegasus\'s pattern looked like he could make another forward move, since he did so after pairing up numbers the last time he paired up numbers.  I liked him also, so if I am interpreting correctly at least I know I\'m not too far off base.

Those are the races whose figures I wanted to see.  Hope I\'m not butchering the system too badly.

[alm]

I haven\'t had time to look at more than a few of the races, but those I have reviewed look consistent with past performances and with the way I read the sheets in advance.

Regarding the Turf Mile, I think it might be right on...in fact, if you use Paco Boy as a reference point, you could say Goldikova accomplished the unusual feat of achieving a 5 yo new top.  He was running all out, first time lasix, at the end of the race and he needed binoculars to see her.

I can\'t comment on Sydney except to say that I thought he was slow going in and was not surprised to see him lose fairly badly.  He might have paired up with a race that wasn\'t competitive with these to begin with.

For what it is worth, I have a 5 year old mare who ran the fastest race of her life at 5...and the major change for her was nutrition, believe it or not.  It can happen, but I have no idea what Goldikova had going for her.

[Silver Charm]

Alm I agree on Sydney. I was not caught up in the hype. He needed to have shown more with maybe a Prep and these were absolutely not those horses he face in DelMar.

The Figure for the Pletcher 2YO Turf Winner (More Than Real) was anythng but boring. Hard for me to believe she ran a 2 and Pluck got a \"paired 7\" it was noted that Pluck had an \"op and a tu\". So this did cost him several lengths.

The Dubai Majesty Fig hurts me personally. I bet her at Keeneland but the 0-7 at the 7F distance kept me off of her on Nov 5th.

[miff]

Jim,

Do not have Rags final figs so I\'ll give you a \"prelim\" on translation Beyer/TG:

1.Except for very slow/deep turf courses,deal rails are a very slippery slope. Agree that many winners during the 2 days were mainly down the center, off the fence, except the garbage can Shared Account,rail every step, took me out of a good ticket.

2.The Classic is very close Beyer/TG,with Beyer about 1/2 point faster than TG translated.Think the Classic was nailed by TG.You said slow and speaking of slow, there is a slow raw phenominon going on with GR 1 10f races going back to Saratoga.

3.Felt Goldys figs were too slow on TG going in regardless of how they \"fit\" on paper. Based on the turf speed that day and the raw adjusted, have to agree with TG on the figs.What you are correctly wrestling with, imo, regarding SC is something I term \"slaving\" off the winners fig.While the SC figs are a TG pair, they make no racing sense.The race SC ran back in Cali was much better and faster than his BC performance on many RACING levels.Incidentally TG had SC\'s Cali race  much slower than Beyer and Rags.Both had it equal to a TG 1.5 and will have CS going back quite a bit,not pairing.

4.Uncle Mo ran an adjusted Beyer equal to a TG neg -1 1/2.There are several reasons I feel TG has the race a little slow. Doubt BOT went back several lengths and a few like distances run over the two days tell me this race was faster. Incidentally,TG appears to have the track faster than Beyer in several dirt races.There was not a discernable difference in track speed on the dirt Friday to Saturday.You can interpret/back into your preferred theory to fit your opinion on track speed.

Overall the numbers seem very good. Dont like More Than Real\'s ground loaded fig either, comes up TG 4 on Beyer after adjusting for ground.Raw for MTR does not stack up with the speed of the course both days, nor does the Pluck race(Sat)by comparison.

Projection method can really get ugly when raw is disregarded as is too often  the case for me.Someone wrote that figs are just opinions of the creators but I think that is the case only 20% of the time, the other 80% fits tight with the only science in racing,the teletimer.


Mike

[Rich Curtis]

Miff,

I understand your point, but I seriously doubt that anyone is going AWAY from a constant variant in order to make the figures look less tight or less logical. The timer may be science, but weighing track speed, given all the things that can affect it? That is other things.

[miff]

Rich,

Of course not, who said that? Sometimes guys totally throw out the raw time and only project from previous performances, a very slippery slope.They don\'t like what it \"looks like\" by formula,so creative license is taken. To make an analogy, if the fig guys were making \"numbers\" for the NBA and Lebron James scored only 15 points,they may tell you he scored 25 and why, the court slowed, the rim shrunk, etc.

I\'m not speaking of slow paces or anything like one race broken out because it was the only distance of the day. There are enough figs that defy the clock and a constant variant, it\'s called backing into/back fitting, pick a word.


Mike

[Rich Curtis]

Miff wrote:

\"Projection method can really get ugly when raw is disregarded as is too often the case for me.Someone wrote that figs are just opinions of the creators but I think that is the case only 20% of the time, the other 80% fits tight with the only science in racing,the teletimer.\"

Even if you stipulate unchanging conditions and unchanging track speed during a card, hell, even if you put every race at the same distance, you are still going to be knee-deep in judgment (read: opinion), Miff.

[TGJB]

Mike-- here\'s what you don\'t get. If I added 10 points to Lebron\'s score I would have to add 10 to everyone else\'s.

If I was \"slavishly\" going off the winners, you think Goldikova would have gotten that figure? (By the way, look at her three figures on lasix). The point is, there were other Euros in that and the other races. It\'s a close call as to whether or not we overall had them coming in a half point too slow (this year, not last, which was dead on). But there is no way in hell it\'s off more than that.

I\'ll get to Jimbo, the rail and the rest after I do some other stuff. A few people think I should look at taking 1/2 to 1 off the Classic, I\'ll take another look at it.

[miff]

JB,

My whole post was about \"occasionally\" not all the time, especially re slaving/herding figs.

While you are it,please tell me what fig you would have given the Classic winner(and of course the others) if EVERYTHING was exactly the same EXCEPT the raw time was 203.28 instead of 202.28.


Mike

[TGJB]

Mike-- you are exactly right. When I have hundreds of data points to use (all the previous races of all the horses in the Classic), I\'m making the figures off the horses (plural). So do the other two serious figure makers,  TimeForm and Beyer.\"Slavish\" would apply to those who make the ASSUMPTION (because it is nothing more than that) that track speed doesn\'t change. In the hypotheical you cite, the change would be less than 1% of final time.

1-- \"Changing Track Speeds\" in the Archives section covers the science behind why SMALL changes in moisture content and track maintenance change track speed, explained by some pretty serious scientists who have studied actual tracks.

2-- It\'s pretty amazing that some people still don\'t get this nonsense question of \"pairs\", or \"slavishly\" tying everyone to the winner. (And by the way, if it\'s \"occasional\", and therefore optional, it\'s not slavery). We use ALL the horses in the race, and the surrounding races, to look at what\'s going on with the day and race. I don\'t break a race out simply because I think the track changed. If I have a strong opinion as to what it changed TO (variant), I assign a figure, otherwise I leave a box, and try to go back and fill it in after the horses have run back. And if we come up with a figure and there is any real doubt, we mark it for review later.

3-- Again, the \"slavish\" thing is making the completely unwarranted and unscientific assumption that the track stays the same speed. That\'s how Ragozin comes up with most of those ridiculous figures that are way off, and obviously so.

[TGJB]

Jimbo--

1-- I did look at the turf rail. Central City and Shared Account ran on the rail.

2--  I spent a lot of time looking at the Classic. You could make a case for taking off another half or full point (one TG = 3 Beyer). I\'m inclined to leave it where it is, but I\'ll look at it.

3-- Went back and looked at the Mile. You could make a case for adding half a point, but again, I think it\'s probably right-- if you don\'t give Goldikova a new top you are having an awful lot of very good horses run real bad on the big day, which would be unlikely even if it wasn\'t a grass race. The issue with SC isn\'t this one, it\'s the last one, which we had slower than everybody else (and I went over and over that race).

4 & 5-- I added a couple to the Juvenile, took a couple off the third race (mile FM stake). The problem wasn\'t Uncle Mo or the second horse, it was some of the others, including the one who was galloping along the outside rail for a while, and the two who were on the dead rail. Time will tell if I was right.

Jim P--

1-- The rail was bad both days, degree doesn\'t really enter into it. When there is a true dead rail horses running over it don\'t run their races, and you can\'t quantify it, since most just spit it out (see QR).

2-- The area that was dead, in this case, appears to be the second turn (and maybe the backstretch, but we didn\'t check that). We did break out the ones that raced on the rail just in the stretch, not the turn, it didn\'t appear to be a problem, but there weren\'t that many.

3-- The shading of paths is difficult to quantify, as I said. Horses seldom stay in one path all the way around, which makes it even tougher. Could there be an element of difference with paths other than the rail? Sure, but there\'s nothing we can do about it, given switching paths and small sample size for each path.

The best way to deal with the opportunities later in the meet is to look for the \"X\"\'s.

[JimP]

\"The best way to deal with the opportunities later in the meet is to look for the \"X\"\'s.\"

TGJB: Why does the X sometimes appear to the left of the number and sometimes to the right?

[TGJB]

Depending on how good the number it can be left or right, and there\'s room on the other side. No more meaningful than that.