2007 TG BC Figures Available

[TGAB]

On the archives page, we\'ve put up the 11 BC races for 2007 with final TG figures. Note that the archives page also has BC cards from 1999 on.

[SoCalMan2]

Interesting tidbit.....War Pass\'s number would have been good enough for second place in the Classic (and if you factor in the weight a 2 year old would be spotted under the scale....good enough to win).  I didn\'t go an check,.....but i wonder how often the best Juvenile fig would be good enough to win the classic.  Have to think it is relatively rare.

[slewzapper]

Midnight Lute pairs up the fastest figure ever? What did Coco Belle earn?

You could relabel the link on the archives page as the X-files...

Could we have a little elaboration as to how the track speed variant changed throughout the day (and day prior)?

[miff]

Slew,

FWIW,Beyer and TG agree very closely on all BC races except Midnight Lute where TG has it a little faster after adj for ground/weight. It will be interesting to see what RAGS has because they do not normally adjust for changing track speed like Jerry(TG) and Hopkins/Beyer.

The War Pass fig for both TG/Beyer may only be relevant to a future wet track performance for this horse.Wet tracks can sometimes produce freaky fast figs for free wheeling speed horses.Zito a mud caulk affection ado.

Mike

[fkach]

>The War Pass fig for both TG/Beyer may only be relevant to a future wet track performance for this horse.Wet tracks can sometimes produce freaky fast figs for free wheeling speed horses.Zito a mud caulk affection ado. <

This will be the last time I bring this subject up, but I do believe it\'s worthy of discussion.

The margins between horses tend to be very exagerrated on some sloppy tracks relative to the norm (the BC at MTH is an example).

The figures for winners tend to be based partially on how many lengths they beat the horses that finished behind them and not just based on how fast they typically run.

That combination has a tendency to result in one of three things on these very sloppy tracks depending on the figure maker.

1.  The winners tend to get figures approximating their normal level, but much of the remainder of the field gets poor figures relative to their normal level.

2.  The winners tend to get much faster figures than their normal level, the rest of the close finishers get figures a little more in line with their normal level, and the rest of the field gets figures below their normal level.

3.  A little of each.

To my knowledge, no one has discussed this phenomenon in depth other than to note that a lot of horses may not like some sloppy tracks.

I have offered some insights into the existence of this phenomenon, partial explanations, and even some ways of coping with it, but IMO it\'s a problem without an exact solution. I have been trying to solve it since the late 70s when I first noticed the problem.

[TGJB]

The only two races I broke out were Coco Belle and the Classic, and in both cases I added. Kind of amazing, considering the intermittent rain, and the sun coming out late.

After giving it a couple of days I went back and looked at the BC figures last night, and they came up very tight. The only thing you could change would be to maybe make the Sprint a half point better, but I couldn\'t bring myself to make ML\'s figure any better.

About half the horses didn\'t fire at all, obviously due to the conditions. The rest ran right to their figures, I don\'t see how you could do any of those races differently.

Amazing how well the Euro figures hold up.

Fkach-- the other way of going is just to get it right.

[fkach]

>Fkach-- the other way of going is just to get it right.>

LOL.

I obviously think a lot of people that think they are getting them right actually aren\'t. Others may or may not understand the problem, but run into greater difficulties with result interpretation when assigning the figures - which leads to lower quality.

Not referring to the figures here. I haven\'t even looked at them yet.

Personally, I operate with a different beaten length chart for days like that.  My adjustments to other people\'s figures don\'t reflect \"time\", but IMO they might reflect \"performance\" better. I don\'t think all those horses that got buried actually hated the track conditions. I think the track conditions caused the larger gaps that left them badly beaten.

Another wise person just pointed out to me that this is similar to turf beaten length compression (in the opposite direction). I agree with him.

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

I thought the Classic could be a bit faster. Maybe by about a point, but the race that makes one reflect is the Juvenile.

War Pass improved by approximately 7 full points. It seems a bit of a stretch, until you factor he ran approximately 10 lengths faster than the fillies. Pyro also improved dramatically. Two young colts in the Negative range early in their careers? This has never really happened before.

The clincher though is a quick review of Street Sense\'s sheet. In the Juvenile last year he also forged into Negative numbers off an amazing 7 point improvement. Street Sense never really ran any faster in his races thereafter, but he was fast enough to win the Derby and compete for Horse of the Year.

The difference of course was the moisture in the track and the fact that Won\'t be running at Monmouth if he makes the Derby gate. Its also quite possible that if he stays together hes\' gonna meet some speed down road to test his running style at greater distances. Still, it was an amazing effort...

Almost forgot the punch line:

There is however, a vast difference between a 7 point improvement from a 2YO colt that is trained and asked for his best at the end of October and a 5 point plus improvement from an established 4YO late in his junior season.

TGJB Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The only two races I broke out were Coco Belle and
> the Classic, and in both cases I added. Kind of
> amazing, considering the intermittent rain, and
> the sun coming out late.
>
> After giving it a couple of days I went back and
> looked at the BC figures last night, and they came
> up very tight. The only thing you could change
> would be to maybe make the Sprint a half point
> better, but I couldn\'t bring myself to make ML\'s
> figure any better.
>
> About half the horses didn\'t fire at all,
> obviously due to the conditions. The rest ran
> right to their figures, I don\'t see how you could
> do any of those races differently.
>
> Amazing how well the Euro figures hold up.
>
> Fkach-- the other way of going is just to get it
> right.

[jimbo66]

I guess I am about a week late to comment on the figures, but I just took a look at them in detail.  First off, thanks to TG for putting up the figures so we can look at them.

I for one, am not sure what to make of them.  Jerry, I am no figure maker (not even close), but looking at some of the incredibly poor performances by horses that had consistent figures coming into the Breeders Cup, I am not sure how you can feel so confident about the figures being \"tight\".  I haven\'t done the math yet, but I want to see how many of those horses ran \"x\'s\", of like 10 points or more.  Granted, a lot of horses didn\'t handle the track, but these kind of results, with spaced out fields and high percentages of horses not running at all, wouldn\'t seem to result in \"tight figures\".  I am really stuggling with the Breeders Cup mile.  It looks like Corinthian ran a new top, Gotcha Gold paired up, and everybody else ran between 6 and 26 points off their tops.  ouch.  So many horses never picked up their feet?  Negative 3 for War Pass.  What to do with that in the future?  Ignore it, unless the track is sloppy again, or look at this horse as a great bet against in the future, thinking that the negative 3 may have ruined him, so early in his development?  He would have won the classic with a ground saving trip.  The distaff is another race where some consistently fast horses, ran god awful races.  

I guess my point is not so much that I am questioning the figures, because I don\'t have any suggested adjustments, but just that I am not sure any of these figures are going to be of any value in the future, because of the uniqueness of the track condition and the seemingly skewed results of so many horses not picking up their feet at all.

[fkach]

>He would have won the classic with a ground saving trip.<

If he was in the Classic, IMO he would have gotten buried no matter how much ground he saved and what the figures say. Visit more often Jimbo.

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

I don\'t see anything in the result of the Distaff as TGraph scored it to be the least bit perplexed.

The first 5 Finishers essentially paired. Some were on the good race of an X/0 pattern. After that none of the contending mares ran outside of their worst X race but for Lear\'s Princess. The last two finishers ran bad races but they ran to their odds.

I can\'t see that result as problematic at all. Some horses may not have relished the sloppy surface, but thats par for the course.

jimbo66 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I guess I am about a week late to comment on the
> figures, but I just took a look at them in detail.
>  First off, thanks to TG for putting up the
> figures so we can look at them.
>
> I for one, am not sure what to make of them.
> Jerry, I am no figure maker (not even close), but
> looking at some of the incredibly poor
> performances by horses that had consistent figures
> coming into the Breeders Cup, I am not sure how
> you can feel so confident about the figures being
> \"tight\".  I haven\'t done the math yet, but I want
> to see how many of those horses ran \"x\'s\", of like
> 10 points or more.  Granted, a lot of horses
> didn\'t handle the track, but these kind of
> results, with spaced out fields and high
> percentages of horses not running at all, wouldn\'t
> seem to result in \"tight figures\".  I am really
> stuggling with the Breeders Cup mile.  It looks
> like Corinthian ran a new top, Gotcha Gold paired
> up, and everybody else ran between 6 and 26 points
> off their tops.  ouch.  So many horses never
> picked up their feet?  Negative 3 for War Pass.
> What to do with that in the future?  Ignore it,
> unless the track is sloppy again, or look at this
> horse as a great bet against in the future,
> thinking that the negative 3 may have ruined him,
> so early in his development?  He would have won
> the classic with a ground saving trip.  The
> distaff is another race where some consistently
> fast horses, ran god awful races.  
>
> I guess my point is not so much that I am
> questioning the figures, because I don\'t have any
> suggested adjustments, but just that I am not sure
> any of these figures are going to be of any value
> in the future, because of the uniqueness of the
> track condition and the seemingly skewed results
> of so many horses not picking up their feet at
> all.

[alm]

A couple of the people who moved out of the Equix Biomechanics family, on their own, published an analysis of at least one factor effecting a horse\'s fondness for slop.

Basically, it has to do with the length of the lower part of the hind leg, just above the ankle.  When that long bone is long in proportion to the rest of the hind end a horse has problems with slipping in the mud or slop, according to the authors.

The horse wobbles when it slips behind and never has the confidence or traction it needs to fire.  

They did an analysis of the Kentucky Derby a few years ago because the weather forecasters were predicting a lot of rain that year.  They pretty well called who could not compete in the slop, even though the contenders had not run in slop before.  They nailed this analysis.

I think this supports your idea that some horses don\'t necessarily excel in the slop, they merely reproduce their best form while horses who can\'t handle it just back up in form.  For what it is worth I keyed Hard Spun in the BC because he does well on poly and poly equates grass and grass equates slop for a lot of horses.  I didn\'t guess that Curlin would do an about face at Monmouth; he clearly didn\'t like the track the first time he ran there, but the sloppy condition clearly reversed the problem he had had.

In any case, I did guess right about Street Sense and eliminated him, figuring if he couldn\'t fire his best form on poly, he would be at a loss on slop.

It\'s a wonderful business, isn\'t it?