Quote:
Originally Posted by classhandicapper
I've been making, using, and studying figures decades. I know exactly what the problems are and how handicappers try to address them. I have no problem with them as a tool.
Where I differ with conventional wisdom is that most figure handicappers believe that even though there are huge variations in pace, different levels of ability and natural speed among horses within the same race, ground loss considerations, weight changes, different competitive races developments, positional considerations, variations on how tiring the track is, the wind, run up changes, maintenance crews allowing the moisture level in the surface change from race to race, etc... they can produce figures that accurately reflect performance/ability or make adjustments to them to do that.
I think that's a delusional view.
At best, you can get somewhere in the ballpark, but you will be wrong more often than appreciated and very wrong some of the time.
That does not make the information useless.
It means if you are forming very strong opinions based on the clock (even if you are making subjective adjustments for other factors), you should probably not be so confident. 
My only contribution and view beyond that is that if you understand the pecking order at your track (or in a specific race), look at a field in a qualitative way, look at who beat who with what trip (especially similar trips), you can sometimes bypass many of those complexities and get to a more accurate appraisal.
Just as a simple example.
The BC Classic got a 105 Beyer figure.
I have no problem with the accuracy of that figure. However, a 105 is about the PAR for a solid Grade 2 dirt race for older males in the US. If anyone thinks that was a Grade 2 quality race and you could just throw a 107 horse into the mix with those horses and he'd win, I think you are very wrong. There were several horses in that race that put up better numbers than that going in (some even got bet) and they predictably got buried in that field - as would just about any other legit Grade 2 older horse. That was a solid Grade 1 field even though it may not have been one of the better Classics we've ever seen. |
I don't know any good figure handicapper that is so overconfident that he thinks he knows it all. All one can do is start with the best indicator of a horses ability, which is a horse's speed at the distance, and try to get that as accurate as possible with adjustments for pace, ground loss etc, and then use that as an important tool in his comprehensive handicapping.
Your construction of the overconfident figure handicapper who is a slave to his figures is a straw man. Your willingness to accept Accelerates 105 figure in the BC classic is an error no good figure handicapper would make. All you have to do is adjust it for pace and all his ground loss and you see it was as good as any race he won, including the Pacific Classic with it's 115 Beyer. No good figure handicapper would make such an error. That is a straw man. No need to go into all the endless factors that you continually harp on.
You are always bring up multiple factors that influence a horse's performance, and true, there are likely dozens of them or more, but you eventually reach the point of diminishing returns and, unless you have unlimited time, you have to concentrate on the major factors. Such as speed, pace, pace patterns, ground loss, etc. Every added factor introduces the possibility of errors. Concentrate on the factors that have the highest impact values and weigh them in the most profitable combinations.
As for the "who beat who method of handicapping" it is a minefield filled with problems. To think if A beat B and B beat C then A must be better than C today is a fallacy. It rarely takes into account the current form of the horse or the horses it faced at the time and all the horses they faced. You would have to go back and handicap every race run by the horse and all the horses he faced and all the horses they faced and all their form cycles at the time, etc. It's madness. If you want to see an example of this lunacy look at the arguments on the thread on who should get the HOTY based on "who beat who". They make both Accelerate and Justify look like a couple of losers who never beat anybody. It can make even a great horse look bad by going back to every horse they faced and who they beat or lost to and who these horses beat or lost to, ad finitum. It never ends.
