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Originally Posted by oracle80
I completely agree with what you are saying and have said repeatedly that when they went public and Beyer allowed these guys to change numbers based on "what made sense" to them, that much of their validity went out the window.
Beyer's initial two books are the greatest racing books ever written, PERIOD!!
Everything you need to know about the basics is in those books, everything.
Biases, trips, how to watch races, trainer intent, etc. Its all there. Noone entering this game should read anything but those two books to start out with.
The problem I have is that they should have just kept publishing the raw numbers. Let us decide "what makes sense". The other problem is that if you read the guys who make many of these numbers, they are always talking about a figure "being in line" with what makes sense. Just post the raw number ok? You take away the ability to spot potential bounces when you keep "evening out" the numbers to "make sense".
Too much of the published figs are now a couple of guys opinions. I respect Mark Hopkins and Dick Jerardi both. Jerardi writes a column for the DRF quite often and its one of the best reads in the DRF, always entertaining. But I don't particularly want or care about what their opinions are on how fast a horse ran, just give me the raw number as determined by Beyer's formula. You know, the formula that made him successful and a pioneer in the first place?
I always have said that Summit of Speed Day at Calder in 2003 was the final straw for me, although it worked out great for me!!!!
On that day Valid Video and Shake You Down ran 6f, about one hour apart, on the same track and both ran identical times. Shockingly, they gave them far different figs. Shake got a much higher fig.
I'm sorry, but that made no sense to me whatsoever.
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Actually it's interesting you bring up that example, that was the sequence of events that drove me to create my own figures. It was almost like they had to "justify" the figures they have been given to Shake You Down; when in their next race Shake failed as the 1/2 favorite and Valid Video won the Kings Bishop at like 8-1 (who could forget Ghostzapper's incredible rally in that race...) I began to question the validity of the Summit of Speed figures.
Sadly, SYD is a shadow of his once great self- finished last of 7 for a 20K tag last Friday at Laurel.
Beyer and Crist are definitely my two favorite writers as well.