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Flightline Given Fastest Ever Thoro-Graph Number

Thoro-Graph, which has been computing speed figures for 35 years, gave Flightline (Tapit) a negative 8 1/2 for his win in the GI TVG Pacific Classic, the fastest number it has ever assigned to a horse. The previous record was a negative 8, the figure Frosted (Tapit) ran when winning the 2016 GI Metropolitan H.

Flightline was given a 126 Beyer figure. That is the second fastest Beyer number ever, trailing only the 128 that team gave to Ghostzapper (Awesome Again) when he won the GIII Philip H. Iselin H. at Monmouth Park in 2004.

Even though he gave Flightline the fastest number he has ever given to a horse, Jerry Brown, who owns Thoro-Graph, said he chose to err on the side of caution and that had he not the figure would have been much faster.

“When I first looked at it I could have given this horse a much better number,” he said. “There were only two dirt routes on the card and neither had big fields. When substantial proportions of those fields don't fire you're left to make figures off a very small number of horses. That makes it difficult. If I had the other horses he beat running anywhere near what they usually run he would have gotten a negative 11 1/2.

“As a figure-maker, you have to sometimes decide which scenario is most likely. You're already going to give a horse the best number of all time, even if I did it the way I did it. You have to decide which is more likley, that several other horses he ran against did not fire or they did fire and Flightline ran a figure that would be like breaking the sound barrier or a human running a three-minute mile. If you give a horse a minus 11 1/2 you're talking about Bob Beamon stuff. (Beamon shattered the record for the long jump in the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, breaking the old record by nearly two feet). That was my choice, go with a figure that would have been the sort of thing that happens once in a billion or have several horses that ran behind him, ones who are usually pretty consistent, just not run their race. I chose to go the way I did and he still wound up getting the best figure of all time.”

Brown said that if Flightline runs another sensationally fast race in the GI Breeders' Cup Classic he may take another look at the Pacific Classic number.

“If he wins the Breeders' Cup and it looks again like the figure should be a minus 11 1/2, I'll give him a minus 11 1/2,” he said. “That would also make me go back and look at the Pacific Classic again. We do review races.”

While Brown has no problem rating Flightline's Pacific Classic as one of the greatest performances ever in racing, he will be picking against the 4-year-old in the Classic. One of the theories behind the Thoro-Graph numbers is that very fast performances take their toll on a horse.

“If you look historically at the horses that have run almost this fast, a couple of them, Midnight Lute (Real Quiet) and Ghostzapper, held it together,” he said. “But if you look at horses who have run very fast, either relative to what they have done before or relative to the breed, where they have run a figure that is incredible compared to the rest of the horses out there, these horses generally don't hold together. That doesn't always necessarily always manifest itself in the same way, but it usually manifests itself in some way. And you're dealing with a horse here who, apparently, has enough issues that he's only made a few starts. So the question is what happens now? People say there is plenty of time between now and the Breeders' Cup. Yes. But there's also plenty of time for things to go wrong. A lot of training will take place between now and then. A race is not the only place where a horse could get hurt.”

Brown bet against Flightline in the future wager bet for the Classic.

“I spread out a fair amount in the future wager,” he said. “He's odds on and I don't think he's 1-2 to make the race. That's not to say that he's an unsound horse or anything like that. It's just that horses generally don't survive running that fast.”

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Letter to the Editor: David Powell

I read with interest the article about using speed figures to “flag” trainers who may be using performance enhancing drugs.

Whereas it may be a useful tool to focus on which trainers to keep an eye on, we should not jump to conclusions too hastily : there are plenty of other reasons a trainer might frequently improve a horse he has received.

He may have treated the horse for ulcers, any physical discomfort ranging from the cervicals to the sacro iliac, improved his shoeing, or just given him more work or less, trained him differently, better work riders, found the appropriate distance, surface or tactics, used a different bit, etc.

This could be the sign of a trainer simply more attentive to his horse's welfare and therefore a better trainer than the previous one.

One should not forget that one of the main advantages of the claiming system in the U.S. is that it encourages “upward social mobility” (remember Bobby Frankel, among others) in that it gives young trainers the chance to show their ability, specifically because they improve horses they claim. If the successful ones are systematically suspected of doping …..

It is a much better system than the all-handicap one in Europe, where the horses take turns in winning, and where making mistakes is nearly an advantage because you are “well in” as a result, once you figured out what you were doing wrong.

The handicap system preserves bad horses but also moderate (or “clever”) trainers, and is much less honest than the claiming one.

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Speed Figure Pioneer Len Ragozin Dies

Len Ragozin, who started a handicapping revolution when inventing the Ragozin Sheets, passed away Thursday. He was 92.

Ragozin grew up in Manhattan, where he learned the game from his father, Harry, a textile production manager and a part-time horseplayer who developed his own speed figures. In the late 1960s, Ragozin went out on his own, refining his father's system. He began to publish The Sheets, which boiled a horse's performance down to a single number or speed figure. Ragozin found that he could combine final times, track condition, weight carried and ground lost into a number used to rate a horse's performance. He liked to look beyond the raw numbers and for form cycles and patterns, one of which became to be known as the “bounce theory.” Horses, he found, often regressed and run poorly after a particularly fast and taxing effort.

The Ragozin Sheets would soon become a popular tool for legions of followers, including horseplayers and owners and trainers, among them Bobby Frankel. In an era prior to the Internet and computer printouts, the Ragozin team entered a horse's numbers by hand on sheets of paper that were sold to customers.

“We're trying to find out the true value of a horse's performance,” he told Sports Illustrated in 1978. “In other words, when is a fast race really worse and when is a slow race really better?”

In a 1987 profile, The New Yorker had this to say about Ragozin: “In a profession crowded by shams and romantics, Ragozin looms like a Descartes–the supreme rationalist codifier.”

“Len was a trailblazer,” said Andy Beyer, whose popular speed figures are included in Daily Racing Form past performances. “He created a really strong following for his philosophy of the game. He made speed figures, we make speed figures, other people make speed figures. What was unique about him was the concept that you could look at pattern of numbers on a page and foretell a horse's form cycle. Most notable was his bounce theory.”

In 2012, he sold his business to Thoroughbred owner and breeder Steve Davision and a longtime employee of The Sheets, Jake Haddad. Davison, the majority owner of Twin Creeks Racing Stables LLC., called the Ragozin sheets “the premier speed figure producers in the Thoroughbred industry.”

Ragozin donated much of the proceeds from the sale to his Len Ragozin Foundation, which is devoted to progressive causes. According to his bio on the Ragozin Foundation website, the Harvard graduate was working for Newsweek during the Red Scare when he refused to inform on college classmates. He was denied a promotion because of his unwillingness to cooperate with the FBI, which prompted him to look for a new line of work and go into handicapping.

In 1997, he released his autobiography, titled “The Odds Must Be Crazy: Beating the Races With the Man Who Revolutionized Handicapping.”

Ragozin is survived by his sister, Nikki Keddie, his brother David Ragozin, a daughter, Alexa Manning, granddaughter, Adeline Manning, and ex-wife and longtime best friend Marion Buhagiar, who was with him during his final days. As he wished, Len was cremated without ceremony. No memorials are currently planned. Donations from friends and comrades who remember Len and share his ideals are welcome at the Len Ragozin Foundation (lenragozinfoundation.com).

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