Can someone in the office (or on the board) explain this for me:
Some overall TGI numbers are lower than any of the categories for dirt, synthetic, and turf. How is this possible?
For example, in today\'s ninth at AQU, Lumen\'s sire Johannesburg has the following:
13 overall
14-3 dirt
14 synthetic
14-3 turf
Similarly, in the same race, Storm Harbor\'s sire Giant\'s Causeway has the following:
9-3 overall
12 dirt
10-2 synthetic
11 turf
If I understood correctly, the numbers are averages of the offspring\'s tops in all categories.
Thanks,
Mike
Sorry about that. It\'s not really a \"dire\" question, but a \"sire\" question.
This question has come up before, and Alan explained how it\'s possible statistically (believe it or not). He\'s on vacation, ask this again Wed or Thu and he\'ll answer it.
If Alan can explain it, he is in the wrong profession, he should be a mathematician.
I don\'t believe it is mathematically possible and would wager quite a bit on that. In fact, all the money I lost on the Breeders CUp and all the money I bet on McCAin to win Florida and Ohio.........
But we await Alan\'s answer!!
I retract this comment.
I didn\'t understand the TGI index correctly. I thought this was the average \"figure\" run for horses by that sire, not the average \"top\".
I understand it now.
If a horse has tops of 15 on turf and 2 on dirt, the 15 for turf would count towards it TGI for Turf and the 2 would count for dirt. Similarly, if another horse by that sire had a 15 on dirt and a 2 on turf, both his figures would count.
For that sire, the TGI for Turf would be 8.5, the TGI for Dirt would be 8.5, but the overall TGI would a 2. (since the 15\'s wouldn\'t count)
That\'s a good, simple example and explanation Jim. I understand the confusion though. A TGI for overall lower than the seeming component parts appears wrong and is counter-intuitive. As Jerry notes this same question was raised years ago and initially we were confused and stumped as well. We didn\'t think it though. Once we started examining the data though it soon became apparent that all the formulas were working properly, the TGI for all categories was being calculated correctly and indeed, the overall TGI could be lowest, counter-intuitively, for any particular sire just as Jim suggests.
Given the way the TGIs are calculated, of what value would you say the overall TGI is, as opposed to the particular TGIs by surface?
If I am looking at a turf race, I should be considering the turf TGI, and not the overall TGI, which might be lower. No?
If you have dirt numbers on the horse, you should look at the relationship between the two TGIs. If a sire has a 2 point better TGI on grass, it doesn\'t mean his runners will automatically run 2 points better, but it means in general they tend to prefer grass.
I\'ve gone over the following in seminars at Saratoga, but let me cover this quickly-- in terms of trying to gauge ability, the dam side info, if there are relatives that have run, is much more important than the sire stats. Because one stallion can cover so many mares a year,only (roughly) the top 2% of males are bred a year, compared to close to 100% of the females. This means there is a much wider spread in \"ability\" in the broodmares-- there are some mares that will never throw a horse that can break 10 no matter who they are bred to. All stallions in that small band are capable of siring a good horse-- the biggest difference is in the books of mares they get, though obviously some will do better than others given equal opportunities.
What the Sire Profiles are extremely useful for is finding characteristics of the stallions, which is why we call them profiles. Because there is a much larger sampling for the sires than the mares,it\'s easy to track things like affinity for grass,precociousness and rate of development, although I look at the dam-side data to try to address those questions as well.
One of the projects we will be undertaking over the months to come will be to develop the breeding data in some new directions.
TGJB Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> One of the projects we will be undertaking over
> the months to come will be to develop the breeding
> data in some new directions.
As I have mentioned before, I think it would be helpful if Sire Index data
was provided for the \"Over 9 furlong\" category, even with the trend in US
racing going to shorter races.
Richie-- we tried that when we first started. The problem is that they write those races almost exclusively for better horses, so the the sampling is skewed. All the stallions had better TGIs there.