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[mountainman]

More scattershots:

Today's first race sadly exemplifies the growing problem of "pace scratching," which often results in non-competitive cakewalks and renders early handicapping useless. It's not only that sharp horses landing in competitive fields get scratched in pursuit of walkovers, but any contender deemed unsuitable to the pace scenario is likewise scratched, which changes everything.

I'm guessing the beyer guys don't trust Mahoning times-at all. Why else would (virtually) identical clockings at the same distance (and class level) result in a 9-point spread????? This tinkering happens a lot there. With no weather changes involved. For the record, mvr continues to clock each race, for purposes of comparison, by hand and with both the old and new systems. Six furlong races produce the widest discrepancies.


I have never seen a track, absent rain and not in the process of drying, change so much and on so many occasions during the course of respective cards. Or does it?? Real or imaginary, whatever surface-trend that seems to influence early results will usually contradict itself as the day wears on. Which, i'm starting to think, presents opportunity to outflank all the wise-guy wannabes who see Mahoning as uncharted territory and are ohhh so eager to plant their flags by proclaiming a bias. There might be value in backing some post position or running style that seemed disadvantaged in the first several races.