New Trainer Stats - "Pleasantly Perfect"

[derby1592]

I really liked the sneak preview of new \"figure-based\" trainer stats for the BC races. I think such stats are far more useful to sheet players than traditional ROI and win% stats.

A good example of this is the \"2nd race off layoff\" stats for Richard Mandella. The stats showed that \"King Richard\" is off the charts in this category and that 40% of such horses run a new top for him (twice his overall average). Pleasantly Perfect was a couple points slower than the top contenders in the Classic but this trainer stat indicated that if he was ever going to run another top (which would put him right in the mix to win), now was probably the time and his overall sheet (solid, late developing with some apparent room left for further development) seemed to indicate that he could indeed have another forward move in him.

That is the sort of \"novel\" information that can improve decision making and provide a real edge to sheet players.

A couple of other interesting stats from the day:

David Hoffmans (Trainer of Adoration) had 61% of his horses run new tops in the last 90 days (note: based on small sample of 13).

Bobby Frankel only had 5% of his horses \"X\" (i.e., more than 4 pts worse than top) in the last 90 days (compared to the overall average for Stakes horses of 30%). I think that % just went up, which just goes to show that there will always be a few factors that we may never be able to accurately quantify or predict.

Cheers.

Chris

[HP]

While this may prove to be interesting, these particular examples are not too compelling (I must say I didn\'t see them before the races).

Hoffmans -- The small sample is the least of it. Adoration could have run a new top (1) and still finished behind five of her competitors in the race, right? If you could say \"61% of his horses ran six point (average) new tops over the last 90 days\" then you\'ve got something.

Mandella -- Ditto. How big are the new tops? Nobody needed this stat to use Pleasantly Perfect after he won three prior races on the card. He would have been 25-1 at least if it wasn\'t for everybody piling on the bandwagon. Also another who could have run a new top (negative 1-1/2?) and finished behind at least three or four horses in the race. You would need a stat like \"40% wins with horses running a new top second off a layoff in a race where the four or five other likely candidates don\'t fire or burn up dueling for the lead.\"

Frankel -- You said it. The \"5% X\" stat was overshadowed by the \"Frankel sucks in the Breeders Cup\" stat that everybody had ahead of time and still bet his horses like crazy right up to the Classic.

The main thing I would like to see in the trainer stats is more \"meet specific\" or \"track specific\" info. If the TG-based stuff could reflect this kind of data I would be a lot more interested. And obviously quantifying the \"new top\" thing would be good. HP