TG Figures for Synthetics v. Dirt - Scale Compressed?

[BitPlayer]

TGJB –

Recently, there was a bit of discussion of figure-making (focusing on Beyers) in Steven Crist\'s blog on drf.com.  One suggestion that was made is that the scale may be compressed on at least some synthetic surfaces (particularly those that play fast).

Crist made the point that this isn\'t really a new phenomenon; it\'s true of turf Beyers.  As evidence of that, he notes that the best dirt horses may post Beyers in the 120 range, but turf Beyers rarely exceed 110.  The same seems to be true of TG dirt v. turf figures.

Is this something you\'ve noted in making the TG figures for synthetic surfaces?

[TGJB]

That\'s an interesting question. On grass, the pace is much slower than for dirt races, which may have something to do with it. That\'s not true on synthetic (except when things got out of hand when DMR and Kee were very slow). On the other hand, I don\'t remember giving out too many really big figures on synthetic surfaces. Now, that may be misleading-- the level of play in California has deteriorated substantially over the last few years, and with the exception of screwy Keeneland the other synths are not at really big league venues. But it is something to watch in the future.

[fkach]

I\'ve been looking at these pace issues for decades now. Even though I believe I have some unique insights, IMO there are no accurate formulas for these kinds of things. There are general tendencies that can be formulized, but horses are individuals with varying degrees of stamina, brilliance, overall ability etc... As a result they are impacted differently by these pace and surface issues.  

IMO, the trick is to look at the final time figure. If if doesn\'t make sense relative to the horse\'s typical performance, \"very often\" a close examination of pace and/or surface tendencies reveals a possible or even probable explanation.

Artificial track paces tend to fall somewhere between traditional dirt and turf paces. So I would guess it\'s likely there is some compression of figures, but not nearly as large as we see on turf.

Also, I am not entirely convinced that the relationships between distances are nearly as uniform as many people think on the different surfaces or even on the same surface depending on how fast/speed favoring/slow/tiring the track is.