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An idiot – what leads you to that conclusion Stav?
I do think you are over-sensitive to any remarks made which go against your opinion (but you are not alone there, I’m a sensitive soul myself).
Quote: from EC on 6:11 pm on Sep. 20, 2006[br]Nick is one of the few people that really interests me in racing..he can annoy me most as well.
The main problem is that he has to have horses to bull up every week."
Nick Mordin has a website, and being something of a jounalist has to keep himself in the public eye. Therefore its good to be controversial and I often get the feeling that many journalists dont really believe in what they are writing but agreeing with the majority just doesnt fly as well. I jsut cant bring myself to have it that Mordin believes that HR and SHirroco are being prepared for other races then the arc..
This is often what makes Journalists the scum of the earth……though i exclude most sports journalists from this…incase Zorro is around. <br>
SHL
Speed ratings, logically derived are a very useful tool in form analysis, but horses with the best ratings are frequently overbet. This is probably down to many people using the same(or similar) models when rating races using form and speed ratings combined with other factors. I know because many of the horses I had near the top of my ratings were well backed once the market livened up. To try and counteract this, I have fairly recently reduced the weighting I give to speed ratings in the model I use, but it’s too early to say whether this will restore the edge I enjoyed for most of the 2005 turf season.
The principles behind compiling and using speed ratings are very sound, providing the only ‘proof positive’ that a piece of form is very solid. There are many other ways to infer that form has merit, but they are all circumstantial despite often being compelling. The bottom line, as always, is:
Fast time = solid form, Slow time = doubtful or questionable form.
The principles behind compiling and using speed ratings are very sound…
Depends upon whose principles you are adhering to.
Some principles are anything but sound, IMO. There is certainly a big difference between the way Mordin approaches the subject and the way others do.
He would, doubtless, describe it as his "edge". I would use a different term.
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Quote: from Sal on 10:44 am on Sep. 21, 2006[br]’Perhaps you keep missing them as you only ever seem to have a go at me and EC.’
FFS.  I’m making a balanced point here – and mostly agreeing with you, as you say in your post!!  I was actually giving you a form of compliment in there, in case you didn’t notice – but I was just trying to suggest that some people may smile at your speed figure passion for the same reason that you smile at them.  I’m not trying to start a fight.
I don’t think I’ve ever had a go at you.  I’ve grumbled at EC in the past, but I agree with much of what he has to say, and he and I have had some very interesting sire stats discussions in the past. ÂÂÂ
What I hate is the whole ‘paranoia’ approach – as (apart from reet hard’s continuing pathetic vendetta against you two) there seems to be no justification of it.
If other forumites have a go at you and EC occasionally, it is probably because, like me, they get sick and tired being accused of bias and sniping, when they are just trying to join in the debate. ÂÂÂ
You are becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. ÂÂÂ
Sal
Stav writes 2 lengthy posts on this thread, mainly having a pop at yours truly; I reply with 2 words, and I am conducting a "pathetic vendetta".<br> Balanced view, my butt!
Spectait particularly interests me for the Cambs, EC, as I have a very suspicious mind about bookies’ prices and their ploys with regard to them.
I’ve noticed for a while now that though Spectait has been gerenally quoted at14/1 for some time now, it has never appeared on the short list put up on the RP card pages  by Hills, while others have. This, mark you,  when he had broken the track record at Kempton, I think, after being pulled up from some way out, so easily did he win.
Rightly or wrongly, that on top of Nick’s encomium sets the alarm bells ringing for me. It’s an old ruse of bookies, to rave about punts on cetain well-favoured horse while ignoring the real one they fear – until there’s a big punt on it nearer the day. I’ve just checked and Hills now go 12s on it – but on the RP card page, they’re not even quoting it.
Of course, I may have it completely wrong and there’s some other very good reason why, but why quote it on their own site?
But as regards Mordin, I’m baffled, amazed that on this site of all sites, so many of you seem to be blaming him for not spoon-feeding you.
True some of his stuff, I take with a pinchof salt, but two things always interest me a great deal:
Imho, he’s usually very informative about real quality horses, athough, you still have to use your own discrimination.
His speed figures are usually, though maybe  not always, indicative, but only on a secondary level. His rating of Rumplestiltskin seems  at considerable variance with the pretty high one given her for one race by the RPSF, and if he’s wrong, there’s a decent race in her at a ludicrously good price.
Many of his horses, (alas not all) goodish handicappers as well,  tend to win again and again. Lower quality horses, as has been noted here before, don’t seem to be his speciality.
I can’t wait to read his updated site, each Tuesday. I think I’ve phoned him just twice so far. The first time he put me on a winner, the second, I wasn’t interested. He told me nothing new, but did offer confirmation about one or two I fancied.
(Edited by Grimes at 8:48 pm on Sep. 21, 2006)
Rise above it EC.
At the risk of being accused by you of "having a go", I have to say, however, that your remark:
[Mordin] calls horses Grade 1 horses when they aren’t…As far as I know…not one other speed figure maker has sussed this about NM’s ratings…
Is completely untrue. Or was it meant to be ironic?
Come to think of it, I know only 4 or 5 speed-figure compilers, of which you and I are two.
All of them have commented at some time about Mordin’s flawed methodology and absence of a sense of perspective. Not all of them bother to post about it or write about it, that’s all.
Mordin is like a mad uncle: he is a bit embarassing but probably best tolerated.
I have slowly grown to enjoy his formulaic but indefatigible prose.
Mordin has no grasp whatsoever of form handicapping: he has admitted almost as much in print and privately. Bizarrely, he almost seems to regard this as a badge of honour.
If he did have a grasp of form handicapping, he could not possibly have rated a horse like Planet a Group performer last summer when all it had done was win an ordinary handicap in a fairly good time (for an ordinary handicap).
There are other fatal flaws in his approach, but life is a bit too short to be pondering over such people’s inadequacies rather than one’s own.
I sneak a look at his website these days only when I am bored and in need of light relief.
Don’t agree. The wrong standard time is one factor, but he could not rate an 80 handicapper a 110 horse when it had lots of other 80 handicappers up its ass if he used form handicapping (or its poor relation class pars) properly into account. If he had, everything else on the card would have had a poor timefigure, but Planet would not have been given such a ludicrous figure. That figure reflects a fundamental flaw in his methodology and is not just the result of a bogus standard time. The same applies to so many of his other ordinary winners in "Group" time.
(Edited by Prufrock at 11:14 pm on Sep. 21, 2006)
Anyway, seems a bit pointless chewing over it yet again.
Let the mad old uncle sit in the corner grinning inanely and jabbering away to himself.
…in other words his methodology is flawed, as it allows figures to escalate (perhaps because one of the standard times used is wrong) with no limiting factor of plausibility provided by form…
Anyway, we are both agreed that it was wrong!!!<br>
EC, what I mean is speed figures are not, not ever can be an exact science.
Making a profit from horse racing is never going to be easy enough to reduce  your methodology to a system, or to trust in speed figures as a kind of cure-all panacea. It’s an art, not a science. A bit like medicine, I believe.
Of course, there are many helpful indications of what to look for and how to stake, (and a range of those to best suit your own temperament)  but it can’t be reduced in the manner so many of you seem to  think.
I think by expecting too much from the experts, many  people find it easier to blame them than accept that they are confronted with a incredibly difficult challenge they themselves must master.
And that, in turn, leads to a cardinal error in every area, but very noticeably, racing: failing to respect experts (in a way, that often means failing to respect many other very admirable people, generally, who will have forgotten more about their field than we’ll ever know. They will often have a superior aptitude in that field, as well as superior knowledge and experience).
Of course there are experts who are dunderheads, who can’t see the wood for the trees. But with racing, it’s the quick and the dead, because the connecction with money and financial survival is so immediate.
How many times have I read on here that such and such trainers are dummies, when they would win many more times if they respected the trainers’ judgement, and watched out for their tips with gratitude. If a handicapper is entered for a Gp I, the chances the horse really is a decent sort to be handicapping. But nothing’s certain, only statistics.
You’re right, EC, I’m sorry. I’ve a lot of respect for you, and it was far from my intention to offend you. I was painting with a very broad brush, and you’re taking it that because I addressed the speed figure comment to you, I was criticising you on just about every score.
When the truth of the matter is that, I’m was really commenting on is the general impression I often get on here, that, instead of factoring into their own calculations the perceived shortcomings of the pro tipsters/experts they consult, and happily availing themselves of the positive contributions they make, many posters here seem to expect the sun, the moon and the stars to be put in their lap by them.
Well of course, tips that are paid for aren’t quite the same, but I was talking about all the free stuff provided by the likes of Nick Mordin, jockeys’, trainers’ and tipsters comments in the Racing Post, the Sporting Life, attheraces and so on.
it’s also true, regrettably, that I do tend to scan posts too hastily and consequently am likely to good miss points made and get a skewed view of them.
I have to admit though that, rightly or wrongly, I am bemused by the amount of attention paid to speed figures, which, as Artemis pointed out at the beginning should always be taken seriously as an indication of a horse’s ability and potential, but imho, frankly, it should be taken as a rough and ready guide, among many others to be imperatively taken into account also.
I used to think Ken Hussey’s speed figures in the Racing & Football Outlook was the last word, and any othe speed figures were likely to be pale imitations. But to my surprise, I found the RP ones to be at least as good.
Ironically, Nick Mordin’s sfs already seem to me to be more rough and ready than most, so I’m less interested in them than in his own enthusiastic comments on the horses and their abilities.
I hope this goes someway towards explaining my comments and you don’t continue to take it as a personal criticism of you. I accept that it was a clumsily conceived post, perhaps partly due to haste and inattention, and apologise unreservedly for whatever offence was caused to you or other posters.
I’ll try to be a bit more attentive as a reader and subtle as a writer, and avoid coming across as the sergeant breaking the news of the demise of the mother of one of his squad!
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