To my way of thinking, responsibility for bad chart data rests squarely on the shoulders of track management, horsemen, and state regulators.
Imo, the current situation at Gulfstream,
and the situation at many other tracks as well, has become what it is because track management, horsemen, and state regulators don't seem to think accurate timing of races and dissemination of accurate chart data to Equibase is a priority.
If track management, horsemen, and state regulators really thought accurate timing of races and dissemination of accurate chart data to Equibase was a priority:
The industry would become proactive.
They would be reaching out to players (and figure makers like CJ.) Behind the scenes we would be having conversations about
:
a. Identifying key areas where the current way of timing races and "sanity checking" of chart data before transmitting it to Equibase is lacking.
b. Improving those key areas.
c. Developing a vastly improved set of internal controls for validating runup, fractional times, and final race time.
d. Implementing these internal controls at the track level. This would include teaching track personnel how to validate runup, fractional times, and final race time from video using software.
Here's a link to a video on the DRF site where CJ explains some of the basics in plain English:
http://video.drf.com/detail/videos/o...autoStart=true
Hint: Fast forward to about the 23:25 mark and watch from there. (It's kind of eye opening.)
As an aside, I find it really odd that validating chart data from video using software is something a lot of serious horseplayers have been doing for years -- but somehow remains an area that many with jobs in the industry are clueless about.
That said, this isn't about making people who work in the industry look bad.
This is about empowering track personnel to vastly improve "sanity checking" of chart data.
Imo, the objective should be to catch and correct timing and data entry errors at the track level -- and PREVENT bad chart data from being transmitted to Equibase in the first place.
Sadly, to the best of my knowledge -- NONE of this is taking place, or even being discussed, behind the scenes.
Imo, the current situation at Gulfstream,
and the situation at many other tracks as well, is what it is because industry decision makers continue to bury their heads in the sand and hope the problem will somehow magically go away.
Imo, ignoring the problem isn't a solution.
Imo, it's time for the industry to get proactive.
-jp
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