[Thunder Gulch]

To each his own, but to almost completely brush aside pace considerations when creating "performance" figures is a big blind spot. Of course that puts it in the hands of handicappers to consider the race and how the figure was earned, which gets to one of the biggest positives of using Thorograph, and that's in that they aren't the most used figure by the masses. It's hard to get any value out of Beyers when they are under everyone's nose and anyone under 50 grew up learning to handicap with them. On the other hand, while Thorograph may not be in the hands of as many handicappers, the ones that use sheets tend to be sharper and play for more money than the guy who picks up a form on the way to his seat. Therefore, it's still difficult to find spots where other sheet players aren't driving the value out of a selection.

Bottom line IMO is that all figures have flaws, whether it be pace, ground loss, changing conditions...whatever. Some really smart people have and continue to make a one size fits all figure, and if even if it were possible, the parimutuel value would disappear when they hit mainstream.