Track Speed Ratings

[pacer]

Where can I get up to date track speed ratings?

[Ray2000]

Where can I get up to date track speed ratings?
As far as I know the answer is "Nowhere". :)
USTA discontinued speed ratings in 2006

http://xwebapp.ustrotting.com/absolutenm/templates/article.aspx?articleid=20485&zoneid=1

Canada in 2008

http://standardbredcanada.ca/content/track-speed-ratings-standardbred-canada.html

If you find a chart that lists "Elmira", it is really ancient.

If you just want a comparative table of times, I have this one made from Class 75-80 races a few years ago. The time difference between tracks is still fairly reliable.


1:56.4 Alberta Downs
1:55.1 Balmoral
1:59.7 Bangor
1:59.1 Batavia
1:59.5 Buffalo
1:57.0 CalX
1:55.8 Chester
1:55.8 Chester
1:56.1 Colonial
1:59.2 Delaware
1:55.8 Dover
1:56.4 DuQuoin
1:58.9 Flamboro
1:57.6 Fraser Downs
1:58.2 Freehold
1:59.2 Gatineau
1:58.3 Georgian
1:59.7 Grand River
1:57.2 Harrington
1:55.8 Hawthorne
1:59.5 Hazel
1:56.9 Hoosier
1:56.3 Indiana
1:58.7 Kawartha
2:01.2 Lebanon
1:56.5 Maywood
1:54.9 Meadowlands
1:55.6 Mohawk
1:59.8 Monticello
1:58.5 Montreal
1:58.2 Northfield
1:58.1 Northlands
2:00.7 Northville
1:59.5 Ocean Downs
1:58.1 Plainridge
1:56.7 Pocono
1:57.0 Pompano
1:56.4 Prairie
2:00.1 Raceway
1:59.1 Rideau-Carleton
1:57.5 Rosecroft
1:57.5 Running Aces
1:58.8 Saratoga
2:01.3 Scarborough
1:57.4 Scioto
2:02.6 SportsCreek
1:56.4 Springfield
1:57.4 The Meadows
1:57.0 The Red Mile
1:57.8 Tioga Downs
2:03.1 Trois Rivieres
1:57.2 Vernon Downs
2:00.0 Western Fair
1:58.0 Windsor
1:55.4 Woodbine
1:59.0 Yonkers

[wilderness]

The closest you'll come is in the current version of the Trotting and Pacing Guide, and that books section on track records (http://www.ustrotting.com/trackside/tpg/pdf/2013/TPGuide2013_006-060.pdf) rather than "ratings".
(see pages 37-51)

While we're here. Many of the track ratings were published locally in programs for the surrounding tracks. It was thought by most people (myself included) that these were inserted as a handicapping tool, when in fact, they were initially created as a tool to classify horses for entry and evaluation by racing secretaries.

[pacer]

Thanks appreciate it. You would thik this would helpful for the bettors.

[wilderness]

Thanks appreciate it. You would thik this would helpful for the bettors.

pacer,
The problem is two-fold:
1) The USTA which accumulates statistical information is supported primarily a dues paying membership which has been declining for decades. These members are primarily horsemen and owners.
2) The USTA offers for sale various statistical data via both its Pathway and RTS system.

Generally speaking the wagering pubic expects these piles of data for free, and although I do agree that a portion of the data should be provided for free (and is; such as the online Trotting and Pacing Guide (http://www.ustrotting.com/trackside/tpg/tpg.cfm) A $10 book (http://shop.ustrotting.com/tpguide.aspx), as well as the Annual USTA Handbook(unable to locate link))

There is simply not enough paying customers and/or membership and/or staff to support the increasing costs of accumulating statistics that are not generating revenue that assures the survival of the USTA.

[Charlie]

Ray .... thanks for always sharing your data with all of us. I'd bet it's appreciated by many.

[wilderness]

Ray .... thanks for always sharing your data with all of us. I'd bet it's appreciated by many.

Ray should have dues paying members to support his efforts.

[pandy]

Rays track ratings are as good as you can find, very similar to my personal track speed ratings. Pocono should be faster, I now have it two fifths of a second slower than the Meadowlands.

[pacer]

Thanks to all very helpful

[Ray2000]

thx guys



Pandy

That number agreement with your figures is good to know, thanks. I've been meaning to correct Pokie for some time now, this time I'll do it....:)


Don

Nice idea........but people would have to know I belong to the "Close Enough" school of accounting.... :D

[pacer]

Ray

What sb the speed rating for pocono? I do appreciate all your help

[Ray2000]

pacer

The updated Pocono Speed rating for 250 races, class 75-80, Track listed as "FT" is 1:54.2

The average of all 1,219 'FT' races is 1:53-flat

Covers 3/23-8/17 of this year

But I really should update all Tracks, I'll put those numbers up later.

[Just a Fan]

No one would ever be able to come up with speed ratings that everyone would agree with... I'm probably being an *** to quibble with ratings that actually have some statistical basis (and effort) behind them, but I would say that Balmoral and Maywood are too fast on Ray's list in post #2. From my experience BmlP is at least a second slower than Springfield, and BmlP can't be 2 seconds faster than Lex or a second faster than Colonial.

Prairie Meadows seems fast too - they are now out of the harness business anyway, but when they ran a harness meet, the times were pretty slow and I think the track was pretty "deep".

Sports Creek and Lebanon's ratings are hurt by the fact that they only race in cold/poor weather.

Cool stats though. I got my start in harness racing, I am now "all in" on QH's, and I have a comparative speed chart for about 20 tracks that conduct QH racing, and I definitely appreciate the difficulty in nailing the relative speed of each track.

[Ray2000]

just a fan

all valid points

For your QH, have you found any pros/cons for establishing the rating by using
1. all races or
2. all races of comparable class say 20 claimers or
3. some percentile of races (interquartile) ?

just curious as to what works for you...

[Just a Fan]

Generally if I am establishing speed ratings for a new track, I look at the most common claiming classes that the track runs. Maiden, allowance and stakes races aren't good gauges because the overall quality of horses at one track will be different from another track, but claimers are the best barometer that I have to compare from track to track... they aren't perfect, but they are usually close. I would think that line of thought would translate to harness fairly well. I would be uncomfortable assuming that a NW4500L5 at PcD is equivalent or close to a NW4500L5 at Maywood. For one thing, NW4500 I think is the "bottom" condition rung these days at PcD, so you get some horses that are non-competitive in that class because they don't want to race in claimers or leave Pocono. But at Maywood, they can drop a level to NW2500, so all the horses in NW4500 generally "belong". Also, the purses are higher at PcD so its fairly easy to win your way out of NW4500 at PcD, but you have to be a somewhat sharper horse to earn 4500 in 5 races in Chicago. These sorts of things make the NW4500 comparison somewhat of an apples and oranges game in my mind, but I would think 8, 10, 15, and 20 claimers are probably pretty comparable from track to track. Claimers pretty much classify themselves IMO, and are usually pretty comparable from track to track, with the exception of the lowest claiming rung at the track.

The next track that I set ratings for will be Fair Grounds - that will be relatively easy because it is part of a circuit with DeD and EvD, with a similar purse structure and caliber of horses (particularly with DeD) so it shouldn't be that hard to align par times in the 5 claimers, 10 claimers, etc with the par times at the other tracks on the circuit.

It's a little tougher to do speed ratings for a track like Prairie Meadows or Hialeah because they aren't really part of a circuit... but in that case I still rely on par times for claiming races at a variety of other tracks, preferably with a similar purse structure. I don't try to have 5 claimers get the exact same par time at every circuit... some circuits just have better horses! Ultimately its not an exact science, you have to use some judgement when you make the speed ratings, and then sometimes you have to be open to the possibility that you were a little off at one track, and you need to recalibrate.

With the racinos, I usually let them run a year or 2 with the slot purses to allow the horse population to improve to a level that is representative of what the quality will be like for years to come. In other words, if the slots came in 2006, I might not use the 2006-2007 races to calculate par times and track variants, because those races will be slower until the horse population gradually improves.

So there are some fudge factors, like assessing the overall quality of the horses at the track, and I even have a fudge factor for the time of year when assessing 2 year old races... I expect 2 year olds to improve as the year progresses, so if a track (say Los Al) hosts a lot of 2 year old maiden races on a night in April, I have a little fudge factor in place to ensure the track does not come out looking like it was slow that night, when the track was actually fine, but the times came out slower than the annual average because the horses are still developing.

There are some things that drive me nuts that I try to account for. For example:

1. Delta's 250 yard races mysteriously got slower after 2007... I had to readjust the charts without knowing exactly what happened. I would guess they measured the starting gate position and realized that they were a little short. Maybe something like this could quietly happen at Pocono if Pandy's hypothesis is correct?

2. EvD's 220 races are slower than they should be compared to the times that are run at EvD at other distances... I just have to award higher numbers at EvD for 220

3. the gradual decline of Texas racing makes it hard to keep those figures accurate and in line with the other tracks... I think Illinois racing would be the best harness equivalent of this problem

4. some tracks always soup up the racing surface when they run a full night of stakes trials... you want/expect your figures to show a faster than normal track variant for that night, but it comes out at around par, because the horses are running no faster than they did in years past for these same stakes trials (because the track was souped up in previous years for these trials too!), so they are running times at about the class par even though you KNOW the track was fast. I think this happens to an extent at some harness tracks when the sire stakes come to town, but usually you at least have some overnight races on the card to use as a barometer of track variant.

5. In QH racing, 550 yard races tend to be populated with horses that try 550 because they are failing at the more common distances (300,330,350). So 5 claimers running 550 yards generally speaking are actually going to be weaker than 5 claimers running 350. That fouls up the math... I have a fudge factor for that, so that I don't award an inflated number for horses running 550.

6. There are some tracks (EvD most notably) where I see a fair number of "outlier" races where the time simply doesn't align with other times that night. I don't really trust the timer at EvD, but any speed figure maker desperately relies on the posted times to be accurate. You just have to deal with it, and cringe when you see a horse that suddenly ran a better number at EvD... did he really improve, or is it just a bad number. I haven't noticed this problem anywhere in harness racing, but a fifth of a second difference is far less significant in harness than with QH.

I have some challenges that you don't have (different distances) but you have to deal with the possibility of races with a slow early pace that causes a slow final time that could mess up your nightly variant and class pars, and you also have to work with trotters vs pacers... I've always wondered if a typical pacer can improve by 3 seconds moving from YR to the Meadowlands, is it possible that a typical trotter might improve even more because trotters struggle a bit more around the turns? Does that throw all kinds of calculations out the window when you set speed ratings from track to track? I'd be curious to see if your track ratings showed half mile tracks getting ever slower if you ran your 75-80 comparison on trotters only, if the sample size was big enough.

Sorry about the long post, I know some of this stuff doesn't translate to harness, but I hope some people find it interesting. Good luck at the races, its like anything else in life, the more you put in to it, the more you will get out of it.

[pandy]

No one would ever be able to come up with speed ratings that everyone would agree with... I'm probably being an *** to quibble with ratings that actually have some statistical basis (and effort) behind them, but I would say that Balmoral and Maywood are too fast on Ray's list in post #2. From my experience BmlP is at least a second slower than Springfield, and BmlP can't be 2 seconds faster than Lex or a second faster than Colonial.

Prairie Meadows seems fast too - they are now out of the harness business anyway, but when they ran a harness meet, the times were pretty slow and I think the track was pretty "deep".

Sports Creek and Lebanon's ratings are hurt by the fact that they only race in cold/poor weather.

Cool stats though. I got my start in harness racing, I am now "all in" on QH's, and I have a comparative speed chart for about 20 tracks that conduct QH racing, and I definitely appreciate the difficulty in nailing the relative speed of each track.

It's tricky. Balmoral appears slow but we have to keep in mind that the horses aren't that fast. If you took the best horses and raced them at Balmoral they'd probably go just as fast as they do at the Meadowlands, if it was summer. As for Maywood, they start the races 200 feet early so this makes the races sort of artificially fast because of the faster first quarter.

[Ray2000]

Thanks Just_a_Fan, for that answer...


Here's what I have for average times so far this year.
All classes used, Surfaces rated "FT",.
Times are in seconds, Only 1 mile distances used at Yonkers

THESE ARE NOT SPEED RATINGS, (Yonkers is not a faster track than Balmoral :))
I don't think Trackmaster class can be used to group horses of comparable ability.
I've changed my mind on this,
TM class is derived from their Speed Ratings which have Track differences built in.
I'm still looking for a better way to assign a Speed Rating to a track to evaluate Shippers.


Pace Trot
Track Races Ave Races Ave
MOH 350 111.8 164 115.6
Big M 523 111.9 252 114.9
PCD 845 112.2 374 115.6
PHL 814 112.9 302 116.1
WDB 578 113.3 290 116.5
TGDN 305 113.6 165 117.0
VD 231 113.7 190 116.7
DD 901 113.7 202 116.5
SCD 488 114.1 130 117.6
HOP 727 114.2 293 117.8
PPK 474 114.3 344 117.8
MEA 860 114.4 712 117.5
YR 1,203 114.5 322 117.5
BMLP 800 114.5 181 118.0
RCR 227 115.4 88 119.2
ACES 299 115.5 87 118.8
HAR 447 115.6 108 118.8
HP 273 115.9 124 119.3
STGA 683 116.1 412 119.5
PRC 298 116.3 84 119.1
CALX 463 116.3 125 119.2
NFLD 1,033 116.8 413 119.9
FRD 246 116.9 -
RIDC 343 116.9 177 120.0
MAY 726 117.2 -
OD 228 117.4 48 120.9
BR 709 117.6 206 120.6
RP 220 117.8 67 121.9
FHLD 525 118.0 125 120.6
FLMD 443 118.1 201 121.2
BANG 235 118.3 45 121.5
MR 800 118.4 311 121.6
SCAR 407 118.5 137 121.8
LON 572 118.5 231 121.8
LEB 218 119.2 17 122.4

[grant miller]

its kinda hard to make speed figures for harness tracks ,each week it seems horses are breaking track records like pokiie-batavia ect--- the breeders crown at pokie will have a record set in each race J.M.O.:)

[pandy]

its kinda hard to make speed figures for harness tracks ,each week it seems horses are breaking track records like pokiie-batavia ect--- the breeders crown at pokie will have a record set in each race J.M.O.:)

Did you read my column on Pocono? I put the link below. The 2yo filly Cooler Schooner went 1:51.3 at Pocono, a world record, then came back Friday and barely held on in 1:54.2.


http://www.drf.com/news/bob-pandolfo-fast-time-pocono-downs

In today's Harness Racing Update Mike Tanner from the USTA noted that the USTA measured the Pocono Downs track prior to the Breeders Crown races in 2010. But the races are much faster now than 2010 so it still seems suspiciously fast.

[Just a Fan]

I'm still looking for a better way to assign a Speed Rating to a track to evaluate Shippers.


Cool stuff.

If I were attacking this, I think I would try to establish 4 or 5 regional tracks to serve as "patient zeroes". Tracks that run a fair number of races, and are in the midst of a region, preferably tracks that run stakes races that attract out of towners. Lets say I chose Mohawk, Balmoral, Meadows, YR, and Nfld. And then it would probably become a manual exercise, comparing the times of shippers that race at these tracks, somehow excluding horses that break or lost by more than 20 lengths or so, and excluding sloppy tracks or nights where the TM variant was more than +/- 8 or something like that.

So when you are done, you might have enough data to see that BmlP is 1.4 seconds faster than Scioto, and Meadows is .2 slower than Scioto, and Nfld is 1.8 seconds slower than Scioto. And as other tracks data are added, you could kind of start to align things to figure out the average differences between the tracks. And Raceway Park might only have enough data to tie into one "patient zero" (Nfld) but you could live with that because Nfld will tie into plenty of other tracks.

At the end you might have some leftover tracks like CalX that didn't have enough data to work with any patient zero track, but you could at least look at CalX shippers at Aces, and fit CalX in that way.

Seems like a great idea... for someone else to do! And just think, after 6 months of doing this, the Meadows can resurface their track or Lebanon can move to a new location or PcD can mysteriously start getting faster for no apparent reason, or YR can shock the world and convert to a 5/8, and you can start all over again!

[imofe]

In my opinion, creating speed rating for shippers to see how they will run is a mistake. The question is why. Why is the horse shipping? Trainer change? Someone bought the horse? Did the trainer bring a bunch of horses he is trying to sell? Who is driving today? Who was driving at the previous track? If the horse is shipping to a track that runs for less money, but the horses are just as competitive, then why? Is the horse prepping for a 2 or 3 yr old stake the following week? You also must know the bottom line conditions at both tracks. Too many of these unknowns and I will almost always pass the race.

[pandy]

One thing I'll say, as far as track speeds, tracks of the same size are usually pretty close. There aren't many track, like Pocono, that are not normal. So, that being said, the biggest problem is comparing times from different size tracks. For instance, a horse shipping from a half to a one mile oval. But, on the same size tracks there's not as much of a difference than some people think.

For instance, if a horse ships from the Meadows to Harrah's Philadelphia, they are both 5/8 tracks and most horses will go about the same speed.

I agree that you have to try to figure out what the trainer's intentions are. But, shipping is more expensive now because of gas prices. So if a trainer is shipping a horse from its home base, chances are he or she thinks that the horse has a good chance to win the race. If you believe that the trainer is smart at knowing how to spot his horses, then chances are the horse is live in the race.