The point people (and certainly Mike) don\'t get is how small a length (let alone less than that) is relative to the distances horses race. Again, 5 pounds is 1/200th (approximately) of the weight of a racehorse. 1/200th of a mile is... MORE than what we\'re using for a point at a mile.
Not that that\'s where the \"formula\" comes from. It\'s an approximation, and different versions have been used for many years by people quantifying performance (hence the term \"pounds the best\', among a million other things). Most ratings in other countries are in fact expressed in pounds.
One of the more ridiculous things Mike says (though not as ridiculous as ground loss doesn\'t matter on the first turn except in certain pace scenarios) is that 2 pounds doesn\'t make a difference, but ten does. Ten makes MORE of a difference. But either weight matters or it doesn\'t, and gravity says it does. It may or may not be the deciding factor in a race, it may not matter to a meaningful degree. But more weight makes the job harder to SOME degree.
Ragozin was using 5 pounds+ 1 point before I was, it\'s slightly different than what they use in Europe. After looking at how the figures mesh in tens of thousands of races it looks about right. The problem is that we don\'t know the weights of the individual horses, as I have said here several times in the past. The good news is that unlike with humans, racehorse size falls in a fairly tight range, like 1,000 pounds plus or minus 20%. So the degree of accuracy is probably about that-- five pounds = somewhere between 1.6 and 2.4 points, depending on the size of the horse.
And by the way, the post about weights not always being accurate raised an important issue. There have been at least two scandals I\'m aware of concerning clerks of scales letting certain riders break rules (in both directions, by the way). But that doesn\'t mean we can disregard the whole question. You work with the data you have. You just don\'t assume your figures are 1/4 point accurate, like that guy across town used to do (read his book).
