Full sheets with the figures they ran should be up later today, probably in ROTW for now, archives later.
This was a brutal day, featuring wind (small changes mean a lot when there is a long straightaway), and a dead rail on the inner turf (I would feel surer about this if there had been a second race over it, but you will see that every filly that was on the rail for at least one turn ran terrible). The only water added all day came right before the seventh (grass race), first dirt race after that was the eighth (Pleasant Home), and I took off quite a bit more from that one than the surrounding dirt races. That race also featured a shorter run-up than the other races.
The corrections for the dirt races overall were within a point either way, which means basically the same speed (especially considering the wind)-- except for the first (Sport Page) and eighth (Distaff). I took off more for those races, but not as much as I could have, as you will see. I also could have been more aggressive with the 2yo fillies, but finally decided against it, the thinking being that with the surrounding races tying pretty close together and no identifiable changes in conditions, it was more likely that the hot pace (into the wind) caused many to spit it out. If there had been a very clear alternative way that had lots of horses running about what they had been running I would have gone that way, but there was not.
I\'m sure there will be lots of discussion about this, I\'ll join in tomorrow. I\'ll also post sheets and comments about the California figures sometime tomorrow.
Dirt Corrections
1-- minus 3
2-- plus 1.3 (one and a quarter points)
3-- minus .3
4-- plus 1.2
6-- plus .5
8-- minus 3.8
10-- minus .3
turf
5-- (inner) plus .9
7-- zero
9-- minus .5
Brutal Day...like Derby Day sort of, eh?
TGJB,
\"I also could have been more aggressive with the 2yo fillies, but finally decided against it, the thinking being that with the surrounding races tying pretty close together and no identifiable changes in conditions, it was more likely that the hot pace (into the wind) caused many to spit it out.\"
For what it\'s worth, most pace handicappers would agree with you.
\"(Pleasant Home), and I took off quite a bit more from that one than the surrounding dirt races. That race also featured a shorter run-up than the other races.\"
That\'s consistent with the fact that the pace \"looked\" and was expected to be (at least by me) faster than the fractions suggest.
Is there any way to quantify how much the shorter run-up cost (very rough would be fine)?
Run-up for the Distaff was 28 feet, for the other routes it ranged from 50 to 76. Differences in run-ups make a bigger difference at the lower end (because of the rate of acceleration), around 60 feet is average. for something like the Pimlico 6f races (average runup around 5 feet because it\'s backed up into the chute) I think we have a built in 3 or 4 point correction. My guess is that the run-up difference here might be worth a point or so.
Hard to even comment and draw conclusions from the figures.
1. Most of the 2 year old fillies went backwards, many severely.
2. Most of the 2 year old colts paired or ran new tops.
3. Pleasant Home ran the fastest fillie/mare race ever? (not sure if Sightseek ran this as well)
TGJB, you do realize that Super Frolic has been a forwardly placed horse, at least this year, do you not?
He dwelt in the gate, that clearly cost him on the clock and you gave him credit for essentially his best. Additionally, the inside though not fatal, was NOT ideal.
With Perfect Drift you reached back to pull a figure he hasn\'t seen since he was four. He\'s Six years old now and though he\'s a tryer, there was some question about Belmont. I guess you concluded he relished it.
St. Liam had one other try at 10 Furlongs. He didn\'t handle it well. From outside, he did run far. He ran further than 10 furlongs, though he was on close to the ideal path.
My hunch is that you were dying to find a way to get Flower Alley back to his Travers \"figure\" so you started with that. These horses were 2 full points slower.
Now back to Leroidesanimeaux........his Breeders Cup Effort was right in line with where he had been running but for the Open Daylight Atto Mile. He had plenty of time to recover. Why didn\'t he stay a negative 2 horse? Why did he return to where he had been running all along as a six year old? The reason is...he never a negative 2 horse.
GREAT JOB Jerry and TG. As a former Rags user who was burned often on big race days, congrats to TG and JB on coming up big on another big day. The figs all look like they make sense to me, including the Cal. stuff.
Sightseek had back2back -3\'s...........Is that right Arite got a 1.2 being 1w1w and Leroi got a 1 for being 5w3w?? He just lost by a short amount. Just wanting to know.
Also that 0-X-2 pattern worked on Ashado, too bad I didn\'t cash that race, after throwing both fav\'s in that race out.
Do the runups vary from day to day or are the usually consistent for races of equal distance? In others words, do 9f races usually have about 28ft at Belmont?
TGJB Comment on Juvy Filly Fig,
>and no identifiable changes in conditions, it was more likely that the hot pace (into the wind) caused many to spit it out.
I agree. There was such a rush to rave on how great of a race Wild Fit ran, when Folklore was not only on the pace but for most of the opening quarter was setting the pace. Wild fit was a good ten lengths off the pressured 45 opening half.
Folklore still won with something left.
CTC-- I would love to give SF extra credit, but I can\'t. I finally saw the head-on-- he broke with the field, then stumbled a couple of jumps later. I still think it cost him position, and enough for third, but very little in terms of distance-- our position has always been that energy not used is energy saved and used later. Obviously, others disagree.
It would be nuts to do a 13 horse race by trying to get one horse back to his top. Again, look what happens to the race if you do it other ways-- you can make PD look \"better\", but you will make a whole lot of other horses look worse-- you will end up with almost an entire field of stake horses not running their previous best. And by the way, things would have been a lot tougher if PD did not have those back figures.
You are placing an awful lot of weight on one race by SL at the distance, shipping to California, on short rest off a huge effort, where he spotted weight and raced wide, making the race look much worse to those not using TG. Which was why we said he was so strong in our seminar.
The rail on the dirt was fine. Check out the figures (not the finish positions) of the ones who spent a lot of time on it, like Pleasant Home. A lot of the faster horses raced outside, but it was clear from watching carefully during the day that the inside was okay, which is why I advised that SF be kept inside.
Leroy-- that\'s a joke, right? Horses are supposed to run the same figure every time? I guess I can get rid of the the graph, and just call us Thoro.
And that\'s aside from the shoe issue.
Pistol-- I would have to go back and look at a lot of mile and an eighth races to answer the second one, don\'t know offhand, could very well average shorter since they are backed into a chute. If so, my corrections might show taking a little more off those races on average. They USUALLY, at most places, stay within a range-- the 1 1/16th on this day were 60, 50, and 56 feet. But sometimes you get the kind of stuff they used to pull at a certain Maryland track years ago-- one day the 6f would be 70 and the 7f 20, the next day it would be the other way around. Have fun putting those together-- you get the kind of apple/orange juice I talked about at the Expo.
All of this is why I make as few assumptions as possible. As it happens, the Classic fit tight with the day-- but if I had to add or take off 5 to get to that I would have, because every other possibility was much less likely.
Kev-- right. Artie won on the trip. By the way, we don\'t count the chute partial turns on the grass at Belmont at full value.
JErry,
Excuse this if it is a stupid question, but what you are calling \"dirt corrections\", represent the variant adjustments for each race? If that is correct, then you are using 7 different variants for the 7 different dirt races?
And by comparison, there would be 1 variant for all 7 races when the Rags guys do their figures?
Ok thanks.
Jimbo-- by the time the day gets to me, it\'s in the form of a \"rundown\"-- we have input all the data, and the computer has spit out a winning figure for each race based on a \"mechanical\" variant (formula driven average for the day, sometimes turns out to be close and sometimes not), and a figure for every horse based on their relationship to the winning figure, due to beaten lengths, ground, and weight. I then make \"corrections\"-- which basically means decide what figures should be assigned to each race (as opposed to each horse-- you can only adjust a race as a whole, or I really would be doing the nonsense that Friedman claims I am of \"giving horses what I want\").
In order to see how I did a day, you don\'t really need to see what the overall variant was (in this cast about minus 6 from a totally arbitrary \"par\", before my adjustments). You just need to see how I did the races relative to each other. Adjustments of a point or so in either direction from where you think the day is (even assuming you think it did not change) are nothing-- the underlying data is not nearly accurate enough to support the position that what you have come up with is exact race to race (wind readings, wind formula, slight changes in track speed, let alone the significant ones I talk about in \"Changing Track Speeds\").
Except, of course, if you are a religious fundamentalist:
\"Now I am ready to change the variant to fine-tune the number based on an analytical look at each horse\'s development-- but if I change one figure, I must equally change them all. If I want to change Holy Bull\'s provisional rating for a 1 1/4 mile race from 5 1/4 to the more likely 4, I must subtract 1 1/4 from every other horse-- including sprinters-- running on the dirt that day. I can\'t tidy up the horses\' lines by subtracting a point here and adding a point there\".
--- Len Ragozin (\"with Len Friedman\"), \"The Odds Must Be Crazy\", page 53.
That is absolutely true. But only if you assume that the time you are using is exact, track speed is a constant (see \"Changing Track Speeds\" in the archives), that the relationship between distances is a constant (ditto, also note changing runups), that your wind information is accurate (it\'s an estimate, usually done before or after a race, not during), and your wind formula accurate (another estimate based on looking at the AVERAGE effect of wind over lots of races, and doesn\'t take into account the currents that are created when wind hits a big building at different angles).
Other than that it\'s fine.
\"In order to see how I did a day, you don\'t really need to see what the overall variant was (in this cast about minus 6 from a totally arbitrary \"par\", before my adjustments\"
Jerry,
Can you briefly elaborate on \"minus 6\" Does that mean dirt races were being run 6 lengths faster than the totally arbitrary par? or was the variant 6 points lower than par?Thanks
Mike
Miff-- 6 lengths slower than the arbitrary par, based on the \"mechanical\" variant. Since my adjustments ranged from minus 4 to plus 1 (roughly), the day ranges from minus 10 to minus 5. Most tracks these days run maybe minus 3 to about minus 20 (*#%@ Keeneland). They are much slower than they were when we started 20 years ago.
By the way, we do that mechanical variant different than anyone else, as far as I know. Most others use claiming pars-- we do it by using a formula based on the past figures of the horses running that day, just to get us started. On a lot of days there are not many claimers (sometimes not any, like BC day), and this gives us something that gets us in the ballpark, so the person doing the day doesn\'t have to juggle big numbers in his head (like minus 117) when looking at each individual horse.
This day should give everyone a good chance to see what happens if you don\'t break races out. Do you really want to have the first race going even (3 points) slower? Would you want to have to have all those fillies behind PH running even (4 points) worse? Or, would you want to have Stevie et. al. running faster?
Hell, you don\'t even have to think about it. All you have to do is wait for Friedman to post Ragozin\'s BC figures. And that won\'t even be the best part-- unless they do something really crazy, like break their own rules. We\'ll see.
Thanks Jerry,
I always have difficulty with the notion of what makes \"sense\" based on PREVIOUS efforts.Although it is highly unlikely that a majority of GR 1 runners would X in a race, (but it seems to have happened) then thats what I would always prefer to see, instead of figs adjusted to what makes \"sense\" based on prior efforts.You know as well as I that sometimes they just don\'t run.
I\'m not saying that with regard to your BC figs which I feel are excellent and in line with what I thought you would give and how the runners performed.Only Pleasant Home is a bit tough for me to accept knowing his previous plodding, ground loss style, although she did make a \"huge\"run thru the lane.
Mike
Mike-- The concept of the projection method (or any method) of making figures is that we use the horses\' previous figures to make today\'s-- we don\'t have a machine that gives us an \"objective\" measure of \"resiliency\", to quote Friedman\'s claims of what his figures represent. As such, there is no basis for deciding that a whole field of horses \"X\"d, except by tying the race to others. And as the science shows, (\"Changing Track Speeds\"), aside from common sense and experience, that\'s not a safe thing to do.
The PH race was obviously one of the reasons (the main one) why I said doing the day was brutal. SP had the questions right-- if the winner wasn\'t in the race, or you didn\'t have any surrounding races, how would you do it? Probably differently-- we go with the data we have. But there was no way you could make the case of that race going slow enough to tie it with the rest of the day-- even if you didn\'t know about the track maintenance. It would have given all the rest of them simply horrible figures-- and it was beyond unlikely mathematically that so many would do so on the same day. George took somebody on the other board through something similar recently, but try this-- look at all the fillies in the Distaff, count the number of times they have run this year, and the number of times they have run more than 3 points worse than their top. Then take that percentage, and work out the chance of ALL of them doing it at the same time. Let\'s say it\'s 30%-- the chance of 3 doing it is 30% of 30% of 30%, or 2.7%. And that\'s just 3 horses.
If I didn\'t have any other data to work with-- like, if it had been 2 turns, and the only one of the day--and PH had not been in the race, I would have given Ashado and the rest better numbers. Even with the additional data, if there was a way to do it that made complete sense for the rest of them I would have done it that way, even if it meant giving PH a minus 8. But there was not, and the more you took off, the further it got from the surrounding data, which is not conclusive, but yet another piece of evidence. So you put it together the best you can, all things considered, and find the most likely scenario. It\'s both art and science-- and has nothing to do with dogma.
TGJB,
Given everything you said about the PH race, let\'s suppose \"theoretically\" she wasn\'t in the race and you assigned the race a different figure. In both cases, \"as is\" and \"theoretcially\" would you keep this all (the fact that it was a tough day) in mind when these horse came back and you had to try to square another race in the future.
Jerry,
I do understand, but you must admit that PH\'s fig is only 1w re ground and to my way of interpreting your figs, that is a monster performance by a heretofore rather nice/decent horse.I\'m not saying it\'s wrong, just tough to swallow, and I want to see her next performance.
Mike
CH-- it\'s easier to answer this in the abstract. When there is significant doubt about a figure, I do review it again, starting about a month later, when the horses start running back. In this case, I would not pay much attention if PH went back, because she figures to. If she ran another big one-- a pair, or a little better or worse, I would pay attention. But it\'s all the other horses I would be looking at.
TGJB,
>But it\'s all the other horses I would be looking at.<
OK. I agree. I wasn\'t clear. PH could run practically anything in her next start and it might not indicate much about this last figure unless perhaps if she paired it. It\'s the rest that are important.
Getting senile. I BELIEVE that someone mentioned to me yesterday at the track that PH was being bred and if so we\'ll never know. Anyone hear anything about PH\'s future.
Correction-- I spoke without looking when I answered a question yesterday. Not that it really matters, but before corrections, we started the BC day at minus 8, not minus 6.
Plus PH ran well 2nd out and did not come forward after that for a while as also was the case 1st time she ran the 1 3/4 as a 4 yo and that was only about a 3.25 move , now off the that 5 pt top it remains to be seen but I would venture to guess that the BC effort took alot out of her and she probably should be retired for breeding purpose\'s now . In my opinion , the way she ran that number is supported by her pattern but the top itself is unsupported so a bounce next , at the very least , is likely with this one .
TGJB -
I\'m curious about the adjustments for races 2 through 4. If I understand your process correctly, the wind adjustment was already in the numbers before you made the adjustments listed in your post. That being the case, and with all three races being at the same distance over the same surface without any water being added, it looks odd that the adjustments for races 2 and 4 are the same (representing no change in track speed, I think), but the adjustment for the intervening race (the Juvenile Fillies) is 1.5 points different. What do you think accounts for the difference? Gusting or swirling winds? Pace?
(Respect omitted per your request.)
BitPlayer
Bit-- there certainly are slight wind issues race to race. But there are a zillion other things it could be-- see \"Changing Track Speeds\" in the archive section.
TGJB -
I can\'t find a \"Changing Track Speeds\" link on the Archive page. Are you referring the Las Vegas Expo presentation or the \"Are Racehorses Getting Faster?\" series?
BitPlayer
It\'s the Expo presentation. I wonder how many others have had trouble finding it.
TGJB Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It\'s the Expo presentation. I wonder how many
> others have had trouble finding it.
Len? :D (Sorry, couldn\'t resist!)
TGJB -
So I watched the Changing Track Speeds presentation (again, I\'d gone through it before, but in deference to you and my unreliable memory, I watched it again). To sum up (for those who don\'t want to spend the 22 minutes), there are three things that can change energy return/track speed:
1. Track composition (e.g., sand v. clay), which generally wouldn\'t change during the day.
2. Compaction, which can be affected by track maintenance (including sealing, flaking, water trucks rolling over the track, etc.) or by horses running over the track.
3. Moisture content, which can be increased by rain or track maintence (watering) and decreased by evaporation (which varies in rate depending on weather conditions, amount of sunlight, shadows, etc.). Especially on the high-sand-content tracks that prevail today, loss of moisture tends to slow a track.
The presentation is convincing (at least to me) that a track can change speeds during the day in the absence of rain and that different portions of the track (e.g., one- v. two-turn races) may have different speeds.
I did not, however, see anything (and certainly not a zillion things) that would have caused a track to get faster and then slower within a span of 80 minutes, as your variants suggest happened in races 2-4 on BC Day, in the absence of track maintenance. We\'ve talked a bit about wind. Do you think you built a pace effect into the figures for Juvenile Fillies (as your exchange with SP suggests)? Is there something I\'m missing?
BitPlayer
Evaporation alone could do it (as the studies in that presentation showed, small changes through a typicl range of moisture content can mean a lot in terms of energy return). That could be caused by wind, or the effects of sun (differing with changes in cloud cover, shade leaving as the sun got higher over a period of time), or just plain cumulative effects of sunshine and wind over time. Porcelli also told me there\'s also the effect of high or low humidity, and changes in humidity, and I have no clue how that works in.
The important thing to keep in mind is that we don\'t always know what is causing the changes (like with the separate watering of the two Belmont grass courses). If you aren\'t gathering or looking at or correctly accounting for information that we now take for granted (like wind, weight, ground), and you ASSUME you have all the relevant data, you will get figures wrong. Same goes for a zillion other things-- but ONLY if you make false assumptions about certain conditions being identical.
TGJB -
If I understood the presentation correctly, all of the things you mention (wind, cloud cover, etc.) only affect the rate of evaporation. In the absence of water being added by the trucks (which you said it wasn\'t), the track only gets drier and, hence, slower. Your variant adjustments have the track getting slower from Race 2 to 3, but then faster from Race 3 to 4. If you tried to explain the change in direction by theorizing the odd case that the moisture level dropped through its optimum, the effect would be the opposite: faster, then slower.
BitPlayer
Bit-- Drying out (or getting wetter) will have different effects on track speed depending on what the moisture content was to begin with. Since they didn\'t add water until before the Distaff, my guess would be they felt it had quite a bit in it. Not that I know for sure what that would mean-- that\'s my point about the interlocking variables. In this case it appears that the adding of water made it slower-- since (if I\'m right) the track they raced over in the Distaff was slower.
As for the second and third-- the way I did it, with that small a difference in corrections, means that I was treating the track as being the same speed for both. Even on a less windy day, and even without the races having the long straightaways, that difference would be insignificant-- check out the \"Wind Adjustments\" string from last week.