Speed Figures Evolution

[Tom]

Some talk about speed figs and pars lately, I thought a thread to discuss more in depth would be worth it.

CJ remarked he thought slot money was making claimers better and it was the opposite of what I though off hand.

I looked at Belmont dirt races for older males from 2000 - 2011.
I did not use any races with conditions and if the race was an AOC, I only used it if it was won by a claimer - maybe another discussion on its own?

I used 10K and 50K races. Looks like 10K is pretty flat over the years, but 50K might be getting slower. There are the Beyers of the winners.

What caught my eye is that we are seeing less of each type of race over the year. That and no 10K claimers pre-2006.

I'll do allowance and stake later, but any thought on this topic?

[PhantomOnTour]

I was thinking the Clm10k standard was becoming outdated with all the new fancy race conditions and inflated purses but this data seems to show that this level is very consistent.

You just don't find non restricted open 50k claimers that much anymore.

[cj]

This was my whole point Tom. Beyer keeps the lower claimers (the ones that run the most) static, and the others fall in line with that standard. If Beyer had made the 10 claimers improve, The 50k claimers would have held steady, keeping the difference between them the same as your graph.

[therussmeister]

Although a change in quality of claimers at Parx and Delaware would have some effect on the quality of claimers at Belmont; if the hypothesis is that slot money is making claimers better, it would be better to look at tracks that have slot money.

[cj]

Although a change in quality of claimers at Parx and Delaware would have some effect on the quality of claimers at Belmont; if the hypothesis is that slot money is making claimers better, it would be better to look at tracks that have slot money.

Horses ship around so it isn't that easy. Also, slots without tracks have still increased purses for cheaper horses to remain competitive.

[Capper Al]

Here are my speed figs for the 9th race at Lone Star today. This is a beta test of my new speed figs that are manually entered into a spreadsheet. I'm picking key PP lines here.


#Horse My fig rnk -- BRIS spd rnk

#1 92 11 -- 75 11
#2 104 4 -- 78 8
#3 100 9 -- 71 12
#4 109 1 -- 81 6 ++

#5 103 3 -- 82 5 ++
#6 102 7 -- 85 2
#7 94 10 -- 77 10
#8 89 12 -- 78 8

#9 104 2 -- 87 1 ++
#10 104 3 -- 85 2 ++
#11 104 5 -- 84 4 ++
#12 101 8 -- 80 7

++ denotes both speed figs are in top half in both methods

[Saratoga_Mike]

This was my whole point Tom. Beyer keeps the lower claimers (the ones that run the most) static, and the others fall in line with that standard. If Beyer had made the 10 claimers improve, The 50k claimers would have held steady, keeping the difference between them the same as your graph.

This is any interesting point, but for it to hold true, don't you have to assume pars aren't adjusted over time? The par for an open 5k claimer at PHA is probably 70 now (guessing), whereas it was probably 60 five yrs ago. I certainly understand why this has happened, but hasn't it always been the case that all 5k claimers (at various tracks) were not created equal? Maybe I'm missing your point?

[Lasix67]

Horses ship around so it isn't that easy. Also, slots without tracks have still increased purses for cheaper horses to remain competitive.

You took the words right out of my mouth CJ. I believe the increase in purse money per the claiming level at casino tracks has obvious impact on the numbers.

[Tom]

CJ, I misunderstood. Makes sense.

I used Belmont because I have the data going back a few years. It wold take a while to bring any ther tracks, other than Finger Lakes, up to speed, and no Graded stakes at FL anyway.

Here is GR 1 Belmont, same criteria.

[illinoisbred]

I think synthetic surfaces are also compressing the gap from a 10,000 to a 35,000 claimer. Seeing that here-the spread is considerably smaller than it was back in the 80's,90's and early 2000's.

[Capper Al]

Race 9 at Lone Star came in 9-11-5-10-4. This one went to BRIS slightly. All of these were top selection horses in both systems. Speed is evolution is here!

[Greyfox]

http://www.paceadvantage.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=7584&stc=1

And steroids (or lack thereof) aren't part of the picture, eh? Just slots?
I'm from Missouri.

[FenceBored]

http://www.paceadvantage.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=7584&stc=1

And steroids (or lack thereof) aren't part of the picture, eh? Just slots?
I'm from Missouri.

Okay, if steriods were making horses run faster, how would the banning of steriods in 2008 cause horses in 2005 to run slower than those in 2000? The trend lines extend too far back prior to the banning of steriods to be explained to any large degree by that ban.

[BIG49010]

I made my first figures back in 1987, and when I started a 10k male claiming horse would run 85. I like many thought that that 10k claiming horses didn't do that any more, but a quick look at my database shows many over that, but the amount of races was next to none anymore. I can remember 1 on most cards, or at the minimum a couple a week, now 1 a book or less.

[PhantomOnTour]

I am starved for ANY open non conditioned Clm race. It doesn't even have to be at the 10k level.
The open and non-cond. races at or above 20k are virtually non-existent. Seems races restricted to 3yr olds are the only Clm that run for 30k or more. Any tag that high ususally has the Opitional Clm condition in there.
The mark of the Clm horse is consistency, and they are the most reliable/predictable runners at any track when looking to determine your daily variant for fig making. Many of them have 'found their level' and are running speed figs within a reliable/predictable range almost every time. That's my bread-n-butter when doing figs...the consistent horse.

[Robert Goren]

The problem doesn't seem to be that winning horses running for higher claiming or non claiming race are running slower but that the winning horse in bottom claiming races are running faster. That is what is throwing off attempts to produce Beyers type speed ratings. These things are not straight line correlations anymore if they ever were.

[ceejay]

Some talk about speed figs and pars lately, I thought a thread to discuss more in depth would be worth it.

CJ remarked he thought slot money was making claimers better and it was the opposite of what I though off hand.

I looked at Belmont dirt races for older males from 2000 - 2011.
I did not use any races with conditions and if the race was an AOC, I only used it if it was won by a claimer - maybe another discussion on its own?

I used 10K and 50K races. Looks like 10K is pretty flat over the years, but 50K might be getting slower. There are the Beyers of the winners.

What caught my eye is that we are seeing less of each type of race over the year. That and no 10K claimers pre-2006.

I'll do allowance and stake later, but any thought on this topic?

Tom,

How many points (n) are in each of those samples? There need to be at least about 50 for your 50 K version the significant at the 90% level.

[Tom]

Looks like 48.
Can only plot races that were run.

[ceejay]

I understand. The data is the data. We are often required to make interpretations from less than pristine data.

For what it's worth the "T" score for that data is 1.274. It falls off of my "critical value" tables but I guesstimate it is significant that the 80% level. In other words, there is a 20% likelihood that the distribution is really just random. Given all the other uncertainties, I would say that is pretty good.

[Valuist]

This is any interesting point, but for it to hold true, don't you have to assume pars aren't adjusted over time? The par for an open 5k claimer at PHA is probably 70 now (guessing), whereas it was probably 60 five yrs ago. I certainly understand why this has happened, but hasn't it always been the case that all 5k claimers (at various tracks) were not created equal? Maybe I'm missing your point?

As far back as I can remember, par for an open (male) 5k claimer was 70. Maybe it was 60 at some specific circuit years ago but that was more likely just a weak colony at that time.