So what do you use?

All the things in the form that Beyer used to handicap before he came up with that ridiculous number system. You know, back when he was still picking winners. Workouts, company lines, trainer stats, pedigree, the stuff that has been around forever. The idea that a bunch of infallible humans can rate every horse in every race run every day and come up with some phantom number that indicates a horse's ability to win his next race just misses the mark with me. If they meant anything, wouldn't they lead us all to the winner and every winner be 1/5??

what the figures SHOULD have been for Derby 136 Day:
1 84
2 80
3 79
4 86
5 93
6 91
8 100
9 103
11 92
12 92
13 75

I don't know which ludicrous argument to refute first, so I'll just say that using the hackneyed cliche "time only matters when you're in jail" about a sport called horse racing is akin to saying points don't matter in basketball and runs don't matter in baseball.

The other thing I love is the consistent insinuation by the flat earth figure hating crew that anyone who dares glance at any kind of speed number totally thinks every number is perfect and that figs are the only handicapping factor that needs to be considered. As if the rest of us who aren't deathly afraid of numbers don't also use workouts (really?), company lines, trainer stats, pedigrees, etc.

You left out '1st time gelding'. Now, THAT was a HUGE angle pre-numbers. :rolleyes:

Don't waste your time, Joey.

I don't think anyone is saying that.

Why is it that all you BEYER/DRF types seem to spin all the arguments your way. If you didn't go around FLEXING all the time, using your SLOW and FAST BS as if it were some kind of IRREFRAGABLE insight, then others wouldn't feel the need to throw the **** back at you. There's a reason, JOEY, why when they discuss the Tour de France, they never speak about how FAST a particular stage was (with the exception of the time trials). This is because they understand that there are many factors that go into WHY a particular stage was run in a particular time. And, that noting only the final time is to GROSSLY under model it.

It's already been conceded that BEYERS are USELESS on SYNTHETICS. Even CJ is on record. With all the synthetic horses crossing over and kicking the DIRT horses' asses, pretty soon the worth of Beyers on dirt will come into question.

I personally have no problem with using models in racing. I just have issues with poorly constructed ones. You know, the type you need to AD HOC tweak.:rolleyes: And, all the FLEXING by the adherents of this method.

I don't hate the figures i'm just telling you i don't put much stock in them, you feel free to glance at anything you want. I don't think they lead you to winners only to favorites and you don't need a number to tell you who the favorite ought to be, i'm sure you can look at a form for two minutes and know that or you would have stopped playing a long time ago.

Trainer stats have been around forever?

Define forever please.

1997 on

I guess that means this is the year 13ATS?

Another problem with final time numbers is they don't take into account any biases a horse may be running against. Atta Boy Roy was the only horse to wire a field all day on a visably tiring and closer's friendly track, he received a 101 for his effort but it may as well been higher than the number he received, which was still 3 lower than the pedrestrian derby.

Trainer stats were not in the form in 1980 when i started going to the races as a kid, i will give you that. But at least they are a definable, provable number that accurately reports what has gone on.

And how exactly did you accurately have these stats?

That isn't even remotely a " problem " with figures. Biases, should they actually exist ( ya know, unlike yesterday at Churchill ), aren't quantifiable.

Accurate final time speed figures do exactly what they purport to do. It is only misinformed people ( many of them, seemingly, internet posters ) that don't understand them and somehow blame them for things they simply are not.

There's a problem with the figures when they are made tragically poorly- like yesterday at Churchill. I don't know how anyone at DRF could defend making the Derby 3 points higher than the CDH when the raw figure was 12 points slower. It's a cop-out to defend a Derby which, on time, was flat out slow.

I'm wondering what that has to do with what I posted.

I don't know if I am one of those misinformed people but as I said in another post I don't use beyers exclusively so maybe I don't get them, for instance I do doubt their accuracy on synthetic tracks for the most when a final number is only used, when I do see a number that I deem as not being correct or distorted, as a bettor I will take it on as most handicappers do. If the derby beyer stands I will surely take on Super Saver if the chance presents itself in The Preakness, and perhaps Ice Box who's closing finish may be construed as actually closing.

I will never understand why people that claim to neither understand speed figures nor use them also feel a need to also criticize them.

I don't understand Latin....but I have no problem with it. I guess it's just me.