Are Racehorses Improving, Part One-- Track Speed

[TGJB]

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.

[Michael D.]

ALL tracks have a higher % of sand in them than they used to? Dmr? CD? SA? Bel, yes, I can understand. Bob Baffert has stated a few times that some of his horses did not like the sandy Bel surface. I have not, however,  heard Baffert make that claim about any other track in the country.

[TGJB]

The point is that assumptions about tracks or an individual track staying the same over the years are invalid. Porcelli indicated that tracks in general have more sand, but that wouldn\'t necessarily make them \"sandy\" in Bafferts estimation, even assuming he was right about Belmont being sandier than others. And yes, an individual track may or may not have added sand, or may have added it in different quantities.

As an aside, Elliot Walden told me that CD went to a lot more sand some time back, but  added clay again starting the year Monarchos won. He said you could see the difference in the color, and certainly the Derby times got faster, although I would have to sit down and look at the times and figures to work out the correlation.

When I first started making figures tracks used to get much slower when it rained, which it now appears was because of high clay content. Most now either get faster with rain or don\'t get much slower. This also probably has a lot to do with Ragozin\'s unwillingness to give out good numbers on off tracks-- back when he started more horses just spit it out in the muck, and races collapsed more often.

[Michael D.]

thanks for the response........ very interesting discussion. looking forward to part II.

[charleym]

I\'m listening as always.
The article is also at thesaratogaspecial.com. I think it ran on 8/4 or 8/3. Its definitely a subject worthy of further research, but I think that you\'ll be reliant on the subjectivity of horsemen and people in charge of maintenance over the years. Its not like you can go to the Keeneland Library and substantiate claims of various tracks\' depths. However, given what Mr. Porcelli said to me, its pretty obvious that track surfaces have changed through the years and frequently change during the course of individual days.
Maybe I\'ll speak to him again before next year\'s meet, but I just got engaged so I\'ve got more pressing matters about which to worry.

[Mall]

Porcelli sounds a lot different than the \"hard boot\" track super I talked to & posted about a number of months ago. I am guessing there are more like him than like Porcelli, but I do think that for the most part their primary concern on a day to day(as opposed to big stakes days) basis is safety rather than the times of the races. I have read & heard that the best is the guy at FG, where the times are often slow, but the horses who spend the winter there almost invariably run better at Kee than the horses coming from GP,OP & TP. Not sure if that is goig to be as true now that Palm Meadows is fully operational. A high percentage of the horses which trained there last yr won at GP, & I\'ve heard trainers say that it is very safe & produces runners who are dead fit.  The one track that is hard to figure is Hol, where the number of horses which break down during training has always been off the charts. Why something has never been done about the situation is a mystery to me. Not to beat a dead horse, but as important as it is to know what happened in the past, what would be great to have is a more exact understanding of the condition of the track prior to the time the race is run.

[TGJB]

Charlie-- I\'m not sure whether to go with \"congratulations\", or \"another one bites the dust\". Ralph Kiner on marriage-- \"_____ has a great wife, if there is such a thing as a great wife.\"

As far as track maintenance goes, if you go back far enough the evidence is anecdotal. But most of these guys are now at least  sophisticated enough to keep records of what they do. I know this because sometimes we ask what they did on a particular day, between two races.

At least one guy out there is jumping up and down right now, saying \"If you make the figures based on the histories of the horses, what do you need track maintenance info for.\" Answer-- you don\'t, and you can\'t quantify the work done on a track (or moisture) into a variant. But if you come up against a tough call or an anomaly, it is useful to have as much info as possible.

Incidentally, if you are too busy to do the larger story, I think Bob Barry might be interested, although I haven\'t mentioned it to him.

[charleym]

First of all, I always preferred Murphy\'s Oklahoma optimism to Kiner\'s prolonged stupors. Go easy on me. I\'m still hopeful.

Secondly, maybe Mr. Barry should tackle this right now. I\'m getting bombarded with questions regarding matrimonial stuff (i.e. where to register and what needless things to get).
TG doesn\'t have a registry program does it?

>When I first started making figures tracks used to get much slower when it rained, which it now appears was because of high clay content. Most now either get faster with rain or don\'t get much slower.<

I agree, but I never knew why until now.

>At least one guy out there is jumping up and down right now, saying \"If you make the figures based on the histories of the horses, what do you need track maintenance info for.\" Answer-- you don\'t, and you can\'t quantify the work done on a track (or moisture) into a variant. But if you come up against a tough call or an anomaly, it is useful to have as much info as possible. <

Good answer. :-)

[Michael D.]

TGJB,
i think the general public will demand more evidence supporting your point that tracks across the country are a lot slower than they used to be. personally, i have no idea. your analysis, however, really does not
address tracks in the midwest and out west.

[TGJB]

Once again, Michael, I\'m not trying to prove that all tracks are slower-- I\'m showing that conditions change, making using raw times for purposes of comparison impossible unless you know that circumstances were the same. This, by the way, is the idea behind making ratings in general-- we all can see (I hope) that grass times this Summer and Fall in California have been very fast, but does that mean all those horses got faster than they were last Winter and Spring?

More to follow in Part Two, but I don\'t know if I\'ll get to it today.

[Michael D.]

TGJB,
your figures, however, suggest that conditions today are such that route horses will run equal or slower times than horses of past years, yet run \"faster\". i just think your analysis needs concrete proof explaining why the conditions have changed.
Dr. Roman\'s article does not prove that horses of past years were faster because a few experts say they were. At the same time, you have not proven that today\'s horses run faster just because you say that conditions are not as conducive to fast times....... just something i wanted to toss out while i had it on my mind........ don\'t want to waste your time, please go on to part two.

Has anyone done any controlled experiments on horses under laboratory conditions like they do for elite track and field athletes?

Perhaps if they measured things like strength, muscle type, heart recovery rate, breath recovery rate, and other things along those lines it might be possible to at least demonstrate that current horses are either superior or equal to those of 10 or more years ago. From there you could at least make a logical leap if not quantify it exactly.

[TGJB]

While not that exactly, I\'m going to be getting into related issues in Part Two. Someone else might know if anything along those lines has been done-- Mall?

[P.Eckhart]

Classhandicapper, there is an article I read recently where they describe a number of experiments that were carried out on 7 time Group1 winner T.M. Opera O.

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