Del Mar - Initial thoughts?

[The Indomitable DrugS]

Originally Posted by Riot

Edit: that statement is as overtly simplistic as it seems, DrugS, in the sense that I don't particularly care what raw times are - I just want to find the fastest horse that day, that track. The discussions by the professional figure makers (Brown, Beyer, etc) last year regarding how they were going to deal with artificial surfaces within the context of their figure making are obviously critical to those of us who use those products.

I don't understand what final time speed figures (like Brown and Beyer make) have anything to do with fractional times.

By saying that you don't care what those raw fractions are---you are saying that you think pace is a meaningless handicapping factor---and it has no impact at all on the outcome of a horse race.

It might seem as though I'm giving you a hard time, but by dismissing those fractions, you are basically saying pace doesn't matter. Obviously, the best way to judge pace is to compare fractions with those in other similar races, on the same surface and card.