BJ,
Quote:
"If a maiden dog runs 31.00 seconds to win a race, and then in a free for all over the same distance, the winner also runs 31.00 seconds. To me the performance is equal, and the class of the race is irrelevant."

This is where I completely disagree. A maiden dog can run fast time in low class but put it into a third or fourth grade event and it will struggle to repeat the fast time. It's called "PRESSURE".

The other point I would be interested to get your answer on is track bias.
How do you account for track bias in your database. The Angle Park track will vary by up to 1 second in times from one meeting to the next with similar class dogs running on both nights. If a dog has had 60 career starts and won 10 races at the track in the following times - 30.2, 30.25, 30.33, 30.25, 30.35, 30.40, 30.21, 30.25, 30.37, 30.36 and 29.85, do you assess this dog as a 29.85 dog or something else? You might find that the night it ran 29.85 the track was on fire with all winners on the night breaking 30.00 seconds.
In my opinion it would be a costly mistake to rate this dog as a 29.85 dog if racing against GENUINE sub 30sec dogs.