Are Racehorses Getting Faster- Part One

[TGAB]

Are Racehorses Getting Faster- Part One -- 12 November 2003 -- Jerry Brown

I\'ll be going into the question of the improvement of the horses themselves in another post, but one of the obvious issues becomes whether the pure times of race can be used as a measuring device. With that in mind, I just had another conversation with NYRA track superintendent Jerry Porcelli, and I want to get this stuff out there while it is still fresh in my head. The implications are pretty obvious.

1- When Secretariat was running, the cushion at NYRA tracks was between 2 3/4 and 3 1/4 inch. It is now about 4 inches.

2-- Terry Meyocks had a policy of keeping the track slow-- he felt a slower track was a safer track. To this end Jerry is constantly monitoring track speed-- on a day to day basis he keeps an eye on the times of races, and adjusts track speed by adding or subtracting dirt, changing the percentage of sand (which slows the track down), and controlling the amount of water, which speeds it up.

3-- He also monitors the track (and speed) RACE TO RACE, DAILY. He has an office on the roof at Aqueduct, and adjusts the amount of water being added between races by noting the times of the races, the color of the track (!), and how much dirt is on the horses when they come back from the races.

4-- There was a day Jerry was out sick, and miscommunication resulted in less cushion being put down than he wanted. Najran ran the 1:32 mile that day.

5-- He was out at SA for the Breeder\'s Cup a couple of weeks ago. I mentioned I had the track getting faster after the first few races Thursday to Saturday, and he said he was not surprised-- they dug up the track each day before the first race, then watered it and \"rolled\" it between races, meaning the track would have to \"tighten up\" as the day went on.


Jerry also confirmed a statement he made in an earlier conversation with me that the tracks today have a higher percentage of sand in them than they used to-- the theory being to make them slower and therefore safer (he isn\'t sure it does make them safer, by the way), and more importantly, so that they dry faster. This means they get faster with moisture (think of the beach, and how the ground is firmer near the water), but also means that in general they are slower when dry (fast tracks) than the higher clay content tracks that preceded them. Jerry said the higher sand track has been in effect since at least 1995, but he would check the logs to see if he could find out exactly when it started.

Conclusions:

1- This is a fascinating subject that is very sophisticated, yet one even serious handicappers know virtually nothing about. Charlie Moran did an interview with Porcelli that ran in the Saratoga Special this Summer and which we posted here, but someone should really do a very extensive article on this. Charlie, you listening?

2-- Directly to the subject at hand-- you can\'t use raw times to compare horses from different generations, any more than you can use raw times to compare horses who are running at different tracks.

3-- Ahem. While none of this PROVES that tracks change speed day to day or race to race, it proves conclusively that ASSUMPTIONS that tracks stay at the same speed race to race, let alone day to day, are pure fantasy. Using those assumptions to build a figure data base is dogmatic nonsense.


For those who want to know more on this subject-- my post on the first conversation with Porcelli can be found in the archives under \"The Two Sides Of The House I Can See Are White\", 2/25/03 (interesting stuff on percentage of moisture content, and how it is measured). \"Jerry Porcelli Interview\", 7/30/03, has Charlie Moran\'s piece from the Saratoga Special.

[TGAB]

Are Racehorses getting Faster 1A - 17 November 2003 -- Jerry Brown

Part one of this discussion raised some questions that prompted me to have a follow-up conversation with NYRA track superintendent Jerry Porcelli. Some quick points, and I\'ll get to part two as soon as I can.

1-- During the 80\'s many tracks on the East Coast switched from clay bases to limestone bases.

2-- The percentage of sand was increased at Saratoga and Aqueduct in 1988. They upped the percentage at Belmont around 1994, and the percentage gradually increased on its own due to the way the track was maintained until Porcelli became in charge in 2002. He changed the maintenance routine, and they monitor sand content now closely.

3-- When Najran ran the 1:32:1 mile at Belmont on opening day this Spring, the cushion was 3 1/2 inches. Jerry added half an inch of cushion that night, but it was tough to make an immediate comparison because it rained overnight. By the next week, following the dark days, the track in Jerry\'s estimation was the same as it was the day Najran ran, save for being deeper-- meaning soil content was the same,and moisture content (which Jerry measures by taking a piece of the track, weighing it, baking it, then weighing it again) was roughly the same. In fact there was some variability in the track speed that week, but the range was from about 5 to 10 points slower than the day Najran ran, meaning 1 to 2 seconds different at six furlongs. (By the way, you\'re not going to believe this, but there is one figure maker who assumes the track stays the same speed overnight unless it rains).

That was with the addition of 1/2 inch of cushion. As I mentioned in part one, Jerry says the cushion Secretariat and others raced over in New York in the 70\'s ranged from 2 3/4 to 3 1/4 inches, or about another half inch less than Najran raced over. How fast would Najran gone over that track?

It would be interesting to get detailed information from other tracks, and to see if it is possible to work out some similar correlations. Even so, those correlations can only be valid for comparative purposes if all other things stay the same, and as we have seen, they do not. I don\'t know the nature or number of changes at each individual track, but I know enough not to assume things stay the same, which is the only way you could compare raw times from different eras.

And all of this, of course, is why we make performance figures-- to compare horses that run under different conditions, on different days.

[TGAB]

Are Racehorses Getting Faster pt 2 -- 17 November 2003 -- Jerry Brown

Okay. We established in parts One and One A that it is not possible to compare thoroughbred racehorses from different generations by comparing the raw times of races, because the track surfaces and cushion depths have changed over the years, and there is no accurate way to quantify the differences.


From “The Nature Of Horses”, by Stephen Budiansky, published in 1997:

“One idea that has been little explored is the relationship between track surfaces and speed in horses. Studies of human runners by the biomechanician Thomas McMahon led to the discovery that a track whose natural springiness is ‘tuned’ to match a runner’s stride frequency can markedly improve performance. The ideal surface should ‘give ‘ as the foot first comes in contact with the ground, then begin to rebound halfway through the stance phase, and reach full rebound just as the foot lifts off. That way the track’s springiness works in concert with the leg’s motions; it allows the runner to regain some of the energy he loses to the environment as his foot strikes the ground.

By the same token a surface that is too stiff rebounds too quickly, which merely adds to the shock of impact; a surface that is too mushy rebounds too late to be of any help. A properly tuned track for runners feels unusually springy to those unaccustomed to it, but runners report markedly fewer injuries and find running on such a surface to be unusually comfortable. When McMahon helped to build such a track at Harvard, running speeds increased by about 2 percent.

A similarly tuned track for horses would be about four times stiffer than the track for humans, and in fact would feel unusually firm to human athletes; calculations suggest that a properly tuned equine track would be one firm enough that the hoofprints of a galloping horse would make an impression about half a centimeter deep.”



Well, if horses had all been running over that imaginary track over the last 20 years, we would be able to compare their times and relative abilities. The problem is, we wouldn’t have any horses left—the reason that tracks for thoroughbred horses are different is that no other athlete moves as fast, is as big, lands with as much impact, and does so as often in competition. So tracks are built with the safety of the athletes in mind-- increasingly so over the years, as horses have gotten bigger and stronger, and studies have increased knowledge of the cause and effect relationships.

There have been quite a few studies done on track surfaces, many of which don’t apply directly to the issue at hand. Mall posted one a while back about moisture content affecting energy returned to the horse when he lands and rebounds. As an aside, it included a passing reference that “Several studies have shown that the composition of the track surface alters the dynamic responses of the soil, and that THE COMPACTION OF THE TRACK SURFACE MAY VARY WIDELY OVER DIFFERENT AREAS OF THE SAME TRACK (emphasis added). Like, for one and two turn races? I’ll be trying to get my hands on those studies when I get time, so Len, this is a heads-up— incoming.

I won’t claim to have done a tremendous amount of in-depth research to write this, but what I did come up with focuses on the improvement of the breed itself, as opposed to those things that could improve the performance of an individual athlete, other than passing comments about the possibility that such things exist. In general, the reasons for improvement in the breed itself can be traced to:

1—Selective breeding for specific racing traits. This is not done with too many other species, certainly not with humans, and a generation for thoroughbreds is about half as long as for humans, so the breed could conceivably improve twice as fast.

2—Nutrition has improved. Humans are getting bigger, stronger and faster with each generation (check out the roster of a pro football team from 1980 and compare it to one from now—Bob Lilly would get pushed all over the field), and there is no reason to believe horses have not as well. If they were weighing and measuring horses regularly we might have a way of checking that aspect of this.



The following is from “The Genetics of Thoroughbred Horses”, an article by Patrick Cunningham that appeared in Scientific American, May 1991. Mr. Cunningham was professor of animal genetics at Trinity College in Dublin, head of animal breeding and genetics and deputy director of the Irish National Agricultural Research Institute, and director of the Animal Protection and Health Division of the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations.

“To assess the racing ability … we used Timeform ratings, which we consider to be the best available quantification of performance for horses in Britain and Ireland. … Timeform was established in 1948 by the late Phil Bull, a remarkable English mathematician turned punter (or gambler, for American readers). ..

The entire selection and breeding process in Thoroughbreds is founded on the belief that racing performance is inherited. Attempts to analyze the genetics of performance in a systematic way have involved some distinguished names, including Charles Darwin and Francis Galton. It is only in recent decades, however, that good estimates of the heritability of performance based on adequate data have been produced.

Toward that end, my colleagues and I have made several major analyses of Timeform data, the most recent of which included the end-of-year records for 31,263 three year olds that raced between 1961 and 1985. We have attempted to measure whether groups of half brothers or half sisters have ratings that are more alike than those of randomly assembled groups. Similarly, we have also looked at the extent to which the ratings of parents and their offspring resemble one another more than do those of random pairs of individuals selected from two generations.

Our best estimate says that track performance, as measured by the Timeform rating, is about 35% heritable. In other words, about 35% of all the variation that we observe in track performance is controlled by heritable factors and the remaining 65% by other influences, such as training and nutrition. If a mare and stallion are each rated 10% higher than the average for the population, then we can expect that their offspring will have ratings that are on average about 3.5% higher. Bear in mind, however, that there is not a straightforward correlation between a horse’s handicap rating and its actual speed.

With that performance heritability figure in mind, Barry Gaffney of Trinity College and I sought to estimate how much the performance of Thoroughbreds should be improving over time, based on the idea that the horses with the best track records are favored for breeding. The average generation length in Thoroughbreds is about 11 years. Approximately 6% of colts and 53% of fillies are selected for breeding. Putting this information together with the estimated heritability of performance, we calculated that, on average, genetic improvements in Thoroughbreds should raise the mean Timeform ratings by 0.92 unit each year.

We then tried to verify that genetic changes in the Thoroughbred population were taking place at the predicted rate. Working with 11,328 Timeform ratings for three year olds, we estimated the relative genetic merit of the stallions born in the years 1952 to 1977. Our analysis showed that although the average genetic value varied somewhat from year to year (as one would expect), it had a steady upward trend that averaged 0.94 Timeform unit per year. This figure was remarkably close to our prediction and confirmed our belief that selection is steadily improving the average racing performance in the population.”



Cunningham then goes on to wonder why the times of the English classics are not improving as much as with the “shorter” American classics. I would suggest that if the surfaces are in fact the same as they used to be (at least questionable), the answer probably has to do with the slow early paces of the European marathons. As we see here with “pace” races, a slow pace dramatically affects final time.

A couple of other points about the Cunningham piece. First, five Timeform points equals one Thoro-Graph point. At the rate of improvement he discusses, horses would improve a little more than 18 Timeform points over 20 years, or a little less than 4 Thorograph points over the time we have been making figures. Second, racing in Europe (at least in theory) is drug free—no lasix, etc. That certainly figures to keep improvement there closer to just the improvement of the breed itself, as opposed to improvement in performance of individuals that are getting help.

Which brings us to the question of improvements that are not inheritable.

1-- Training methods themselves improve over time as they are studied, especially when there is big money in it.

2-- Sportsmedicine is improving, and improving athletes, especially when there is big money in it. This goes for everything from therapeutic assistance to steroids and all the other additions that have helped Bonds, McGwire, Sosa, and all the others who are carrying 30 or more pounds of muscle than Aaron, Mays, and Mantle were. And, as opposed to humans, horses don’t get a vote about what gets put into their bodies.

3— Specific performance enhancers. Interestingly enough, both Budiansky and Cunningham discuss a ceiling of performance for thoroughbreds based on physiological issues, specifically regarding ATP, oxygen, blood, lactic acid etc., and exhaustion. As it happens, the drugs that have come under discussion over the last few years (EPO, milkshakes etc.), deal directly with eliminating this ceiling.

At a more practical level, we all can think of some trainers whose runners improve quite a bit when they get their hands on them. There are two possibilities—the first is that when they run the horses, all the competing runners are getting magically slower, allowing them to win while not improving. The second is that these trainers are getting improvement out of their runners. If that is true, there are maybe 500 thoroughbreds racing at any given time which have been moved up, meaning a significant percentage of the races are going faster than they otherwise would— performance of the breed is in effect improved.

That aside, there are LEGAL drugs that can either be considered sportsmedicine or performance enhancers, depending on how you look at it, and which were not legal or in widespread use 20 years ago. Most notable of these, of course, is Lasix, but a trainer could probably give you a list of others.


So, how do we quantify the improvement? We can’t use raw times, but is there some way we can extrapolate to estimate how much thoroughbreds have improved? Well, we can look at some other breeds.

The mile record for humans when Thoro-Graph began making figures in 1982 was 3:47:33. It is now 3:43:13, a difference of almost 2% of final time (and that represents a lot less improvement than in the previous 20 years, for whatever reason).

But the closest thing we have to a parallel is standardbred racing, since they are horses, and the economic forces driving that industry are very similar to those in our game. While there have been some changes in racing surfaces, harness tracks are for the most part hard and flat, since the injury dynamics are different, and they almost always run exactly a mile, which makes things easy. Just for starters, in 1980 there were 138 miles trotted in less than 2 minutes—in 2002 there were 5,972. Pacers broke 2 minutes 3,760 times in 1980, 42,598 times last year. Records are kept broken out for individual ages, genders, and gaits, as well:

Trotters 2002   1990   1980
2yo c&g  1:53:2 1:55:3 1:57
2yo f    1:55   1:55   1:56:3
3yo c&g  1:51:3 1:52:1 1:55
3yo f    1:52:1 1:52:4 1:56:3
4+ c&g   1:50:4 1:53   1:54:4
Mare     1:51:4 1:54:4 1:55:2

Pacers   2002   1990   1980
2yo c&g  1:50   1:51:1 1:54
2yo f    1:51:2 1:51:2 1:56:1
3yo c&g  1:48   1:48:2 1:49:1
3yo f    1:49:2 1:51:2 1:53:3
4+ c&g   1:46:1 1:49:2 1:52
Mare     1:48:4 1:50:4 1:52:4

Based on the above, and assuming track speeds have stayed relatively constant (a big assumption), standardbreds have cut their times (improved) by about 3.25% since 1980. Using six furlongs for convenience, since one fifth of a second equals one Thoro-Graph point at that distance, and using a base time of 1:10 because it makes the math easy, the same degree of improvement in thoroughbreds would result in running about two seconds and a fifth faster, or 11 points. Which would be an awful lot.

But ultimately, Patrick Cunningham had exactly the right idea. The best way to compare horses from generation to generation is through using accurate performance figures, since their whole purpose is to compare horses which run on different days, over different tracks. The one caveat is this: you can’t do it with figures that use claiming pars that anchor the data base in place by ASSUMING that the breed does not improve over time. That becomes a self fulfilling prophecy by definition—if you decide the claimers can’t improve (particularly ridiculous given the move-up trainers), the figures for the stake horses can only improve if they get better RELATIVE to the claimers.

So, how much have racehorses in this country improved, using the best available means (Thoro-Graph) as a measure? The answer is, not as much as harness horses. If we get the time we’ll run a study division by division (25k older male claimers, etc.), at least for the data from 1992 on that we have stored electronically. But it’s pretty easy to make a rough estimate by looking at two things:

1—The figure it takes to win big races like the Derby (winners from 1982 on are available on this site) is about 5 points faster than it was when we started making figures.

2— Len Friedman posted on the Ragozin site a while back that the reason their figures could be used to compare horses from different generations is BECAUSE they anchor the figures to claiming pars—he had it exactly backward, but it sets up a useful scale. When we started making figures they ran about 3 points slower than Ragozin’s (zero points are arbitrary—you could put it anywhere). While there is tremendous variance race to race, track to track (depending on who is making the “Ragozin” figures), and distance to distance (don’t get me started), our figures now run about 3 points faster on average. So on that basis you could conclude horses have gotten about 6 points faster.

Which is interesting, if you keep in mind Cunningham’s Timeform study, which would indicate that genetics alone figured to improve the breed by almost 4 Thoro-Graph points over this time period. Factor in Lasix, improved nutrition, and everything else, and it certainly seems 5-6 points of improvement since 1982 is about right. Five points at 6 furlongs is one second, which using our 1:10 example means racehorses have improved about 1.5 percent.

[miff]

JB,

1- When Secretariat was running, the cushion at NYRA tracks was between 2 3/4 and 3 1/4 inch. It is now about 4 inches.

Are you inferring from the above statement that you believe that the three year olds of recent times, running on the old 3 1/4 cushion, would be as fast or faster than Secretariat,Fager was?

[TGJB]

I believe that the best 3yo\'s of today, WITH ALL THE OTHER CONDITIONS THAT EXIST TODAY IN PLACE (which covers a lot of ground), would run faster times over the track Secretariat ran over than he did. I don\'t base my statement on the cushion depth (although I do believe that is part of the reason, along with a different base and soil content for the slower track)-- I base it on our own data base, which measures incrementally small changes in track speed on a day to day basis.

By the way, as Catalin pointed out earlier, what is the logical argument in the other direction? Once you know it\'s a different track, what can you logically use to base your opinion on, other than figures? And given what has happened with human athletes and standardbreds since then, why would thoroughbreds not improve?

[miff]

JB,

Two points and I will let this go.

1. It is INCONCEIVABLE, as you suggest that say Smarty Jones, Mineshaft or GZ would run faster than Sec or Fager on ANY racktrack under ANY conditions.

2.Re Catalin,I do not see any 1.06\'s for six panels, any 1.19\'s for 7 panels etc, etc, since horses are 10 lenghts faster today.The fact that surfaces MAY be slower than years past is MORE than compensated for/offset by today\'s, better nutrition, modern eqipment,better legal medication(lasix, etc) and rocket fuel ( IllegalDrugs).

Where\'s the beef, or in this case, where\'s  the RAW faster times to support the theory you are espousing? TG figs are man made carrying certain built in dogma,the teletimer, on the other hand, is precise assuming proper functioning.

[BitPlayer]

I don\'t have a dog in this fight, but since it\'s dragged on so long I do have a couple of questions (and beg your pardon in advance if they have already come up and been answered):

1.  Have the TG figures of turf runners dropped commensurately with those of dirt runners?  Presumably, there has been less need to alter turf courses than the main track.

2.  I\'d be inclined to take your side of the argument over whether tracks change speed during the day.  As I understand your methodology, you adjust for such changes, in part, by adjusting the variant so that the resulting figures look reasonable.  To the extent that your view of what\'s reasonable diverges from \"reality\", it seems to me that there\'s some risk that your view of reality could become a self-sulfilling prophecy as far as TG figures are concerned.  This could result in TG figures improving more rapidly than the \"real\" performances of horses over the years, or (more significantly, unless Dr. Fager turns up in the entries for the Cigar Mile next week) produce Thoro-Patterns that reflect the figure maker\'s view of likely patterns, rather than patterns that \"really\" exist.  With that as background, my second question is: Do you have a means to detect and correct for such drift, if it is occurring?

[twoshoes]

< 1. It is INCONCEIVABLE, as you suggest that say Smarty Jones, Mineshaft or GZ would run faster than Sec or Fager on ANY racktrack under ANY conditions. >

Not really as much of the above would suggest. Talk about dogmatic - there are many different takes on this in the selction above that would appear to fit nicely into an argument the breed has improved about 5-6 points on the given scale in the time frame suggested. Rather than offer any evidence to refute any of the thoughtful discourse we\'ll just label it inconceivable and move on. Yup - the earth is flat.
Now if Secretariat were born today and ran against these same horses? Better, but different question.

[miff]

TWO SHOES,

You are wrong, the earth is round.As I posted but JB did not answer,\"Who are these horses 10 lenghts faster than Sec, Fager,Slew to name a few.\"

I know, why don\'t we put up a wager, as big as anyone wishes, and pole say 10 knowledgeable people in the industry to get their thoughts.JB likes Smarty, on his best day, as faster than Sec, I like Sec, on his best day, by 5-10 lenghts.

[TGJB]

Very scientific.

[miff]

JB,
Some people hide behind science, where good old common sense equally applies.Still don\'t see the names of the faster horses and don\'t recall many raw times that are consistenly 2 seconds faster than 10/20 years ago.

Also, did not hear about the info posted about horses being bigger than years past. Most are still within very close physical specs(height, weight, girth etc) as they were years past, unlike humans who have grown rather dramatically in the same time period.

I should say the horses I owned up until 4 years ago were about the same,physically, as the ones I owned 25 years ago.It\'s possible that has changed in the last four years but I have not seen or heard it in New York.

[TGJB]

Are standardbreds bigger and stronger to the naked eye? Because as I demonstrated in the article, they have improved a lot more than thoroughbreds.

Are you sure your naked eye will pick up a 1.5% change that takes place gradually over 20 years?

[miff]

JB,

Standardbred RAW times have improved by more than ONE can imagine.From 1966 to 1978 I was the principal owner of KAMI Racing Stable(27) standard breds racing at Roosevelt and Yonkers(may god forgive me). Briefly, I can honestly say that the RAW times in harness have improved by leaps and bounds, 5 to 10 seconds which is unbelievable.I do not follow that game anymore but some old friends tell me the times are insane compared to years past, because of surfaces, in-breeding and science( aero dynamic rocket like sulkies) and DRUGS.

Honestly, I can\'t say that I am qualified to emphatically state that horses have not grown by 1.5%, but would that little growth equate to two seconds(ten lenghts) of improved speed? I know that you think so,but my personal feelings require confirmation of improved speed by the tele timer.I\'m at NY tracks very often for a very long time and I just have not seen faster horses.I honestly feel the horses of recent times are not worthy of comparison with the great ones of times past in terms of who\'s faster.

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

Smarty was very fast, as apparently is Ghostzapper. I think I know Ghostzapper\'s weaknesses though. We\'ll see.

Smarty ran a very game and fast 10 marks in the Belmont and he finished with some heart despite losing the race. He was the only pace horse around at the finish.

Here are Secretariat\'s Past Performances:

http://www.secretariat.com/past_performance.htm

This is pre T-Graph of course, so you\'ll have to rely upon the 1973 Racing Form\'s rudimentary way of making variants, but note the variant on Secretariat\'s record setting Belmont Stakes: \"05\". Note also that 3.5 months later Secretariat ran a 2:26:4 over the same track,(albeit sloppy), in a losing Woodward effort. (Note additionally the length of the Woodward when it was a real horse race)

Some may say: \"Discount that Woodward 12 marks, it was in the slop.\" Well, so were the Laurel Futurity and Bay Shore too. Secretariat lost to Onion and Prove Out. He lost 2 of 5 when facing older horses, one of which was at the track and distance he set his world record upon. He appears to have been a stellar turf horse, but I seem to recall Hawkster running a 2:22:4 on the turf if my memory serves.

Bottom line is Secretariat was fast. How fast is debatable. If he could be beamed as a 1973 three year old to the present to run against Smarty Jones at 10 marks could he beat him? I have an opinion on that, but we will never know.

CtC

[miff]

CtC,

Nice post with Sec\'s lines. Everybody has recently seen Smarty\'s lines.Is there really any comparison of these two. Sec put in some MONSTEROUS performances, Smarty ran great but never showed Monster Lines, IMO.