New Trainer Profiles-- One small step for man...

[TGJB]

Okay, we are now publishing the new figure based trainer profiles, and have added a lot of new categories. A couple of others (seasonal categories) are coming soon, and more will be added as we go on, based in part on your input. This turned out to be pretty complicated stuff, and there will almost certainly be problems with it-- errors, or just ways that the studies can be improved to better reflect racetrack reality.

This is how they work:

1-- The studies are based on the \"effective top\" of each horse at the time of the race being measured. Effective top is defined here as the horse\'s best figure from his last six starts, or last 12 months if he ran less than 6 times during that period. This means for example that when we look at an instance of a trainer running a horse second off a layoff, that effort is compared to his previous 6 runs at that time.

2-- The efforts being measured are broken out into 4 categories--

a) \"new top\", defined as more than one point better than the previous \"top\",

b) \"pair\", defined as within a point better or worse than the previous top,

c) \"off race\", defined as more than a point worse but less than 4 points worse than the previous top,

d) \"x\", defined as 4 or more points worse than the previous top.

3-- For the categories measuring how a trainer\'s horses do following a top, a pair of tops etc., we only used horses that have run at least 3 times for the trainer.

4-- We did not use a sequence where there was a trainer change in the last 6 starts (except for the \"trainer change\" studies). We are going to take a look at this and decide whether that is the right way to go or not.

5-- The bold face and italics indicate significantly higher or lower than average, respectively, not better or worse. Meaning, a trainer with a bold face \"x\" group in a category is getting more BAD performances than most.

6-- We are comparing efforts to tops on the same surface only-- if a horse raced on dirt we compared his effort to his best dirt number within his last 6 starts on any surface.

This is groundbreaking stuff, so we have no idea what to expect, and await your comments.

Coming soon: expanded dam-side profiles, and studies on figure patterns independent of trainer-- 3 year olds off a pair of tops followed by an off race in July, etc.