NYRA Challenges NYTimes Analysis Of Injuries

[Grits]

http://www.nyra.com/aqueduct/stories/Apr122012.shtml

[5k-claim]

http://www.nyra.com/aqueduct/stories/Apr122012.shtmlNYRA asserts that it is unreliable and potentially deceptive for the Times to rely on chart callers’ descriptions of the running of a race to estimate how often horses get injured.... Horses may be vanned off for many reasons that have nothing to do with an injury. I think I read something like that yesterday... somewhere.

It did not make that much more sense when the Thoroughbred Times did the same "research" within the last week or so. I don't know much about the NY Times, but I would have thought that someone at the Thoroughbred Times would have stopped part-way through and said, "Wait a minute, guys. This is kind of dumb." But then again, I don't read the Thoroughbred Times regularly, so maybe I am wrong.

And no, just noting how many of these "incident" horses made subsequent starts does not really make it all better. Horse do, or do not, make future starts for all kinds of reasons-- linking all of them who do not make subsequent starts to a particular "incident" in a chart write-up does not exactly inspire much confidence with me in the resulting calculations.

With real stats, standardized and collected for the very purpose of tracking safety, we can more confidently draw real conclusions.

.

[FenceBored]

I think I read something like that yesterday... somewhere.

It did not make that much more sense when the Thoroughbred Times did the same "research" within the last week or so. I don't know much about the NY Times, but I would have thought that someone at the Thoroughbred Times would have stopped part-way through and said, "Wait a minute, guys. This is kind of dumb." But then again, I don't read the Thoroughbred Times regularly, so maybe I am wrong.

And no, just noting how many of these "incident" horses made subsequent starts does not really make it all better. Horse do, or do not, make future starts for all kinds of reasons-- linking all of them who do not make subsequent starts to a particular "incident" in a chart write-up does not exactly inspire much confidence with me in the resulting calculations.

With real stats, standardized and collected for the very purpose of tracking safety, we can more confidently draw real conclusions.

.

Yep, without real stats (like the EID, or the NYSRWB's database) you're left with parsing charts with all the flaws which comes with doing that. Heck, remember this gem commissioned from Equibase by TOBA?

The study (http://www.bloodhorse.com/pdf/NATB_CED_FinalDocument.pdf) is based on a review of official racing charts. The “CEDNF” statistics, as they are called, are for horses that didn’t finish their last races in 2009 and didn’t yet return to work out or start in 2010.
Read more: http://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing/articles/57670/study-looks-at-number-of-dnfs-by-surface#ixzz1rsayiwKM


It's a little hard to get too incensed with the NYT for doing what TOBA asked Equibase to do for them two years ago due to the lack of available real data.

[Tom]

If you are using charts at all, you are not dealing with accurate data.
any study based on charts is flawed and worthless.

[Robert Goren]

If you are using charts at all, you are not dealing with accurate data.
any study based on charts is flawed and worthless. And yet we bet our money based on information gleamed from those very same charts. How dumb are we?

[5k-claim]

Yep, without real stats (like the EID, or the NYSRWB's database) you're left with parsing charts with all the flaws which comes with doing that. Heck, remember this gem commissioned from Equibase by TOBA Oh yes... the infamous 'CEDNF'. I guess I had forgotten about that. Another virtually useless exercise.

I guess I was not as angry with the NY Times people, assuming they are just "common" (to use a horse term) and began with an agenda, as I am annoyed with the Thoroughbred Times for drawing conclusions from a similar exercise. I mean, doesn't that magazine have people working for it that have horse experience or horse sense? If not, then that is disappointing.

But like you said, the EID and New York databases are promising and useful.

.

[Tom]

And yet we bet our money based on information gleamed from those very same charts. How dumb are we?

Duh.
The charts are MEANT for racing information.
The are NOT meant to be used for what the Hack used them for.
Do you get your weather information from the charts? :rolleyes:

[FenceBored]

Duh.
The charts are MEANT for racing information.
The are NOT meant to be used for what the Hack used them for.
Do you get your weather information from the charts? :rolleyes:

The question is not "do you get your weather information from the charts," but rather "if you didn't have any other respectable source for weather information, could you get a basic idea from the charts?" That's the position the tracks/horsemen have chosen to leave us in by not collecting and/or publishing basic statistics on injuries/deaths for racing participants.

If I didn't have the NOAA climatological database or other sources, I could still get some idea of the weather from the charts.

Check out this chart comment from the 3rd race on April 29, 1925 at the Kentucky Association meet:The race was run in a heavy hailstorm.
-- http://kdl.kyvl.org/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=drf1920s;cc=drf1920s;rgn=full%20text;idno=dr f1925043001;didno=drf1925043001;view=pdf;seq=3_1;n ode=drf1925043001%3A3.1
The DRF story on the day's racing give us even more meterological goodness:LEXINGTON', Ky.. April 29.—Extremely
cold and threatening- - weather prevailed here
early this afternoon following another downpour
during the night. With the start of
the third race came a terrific hail storm and
it continued for some time after the horses
had finished, then followed sunshine.
-- http://kdl.kyvl.org/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=drf1920s;cc=drf1920s;rgn=full%20text;idno=dr f1925043001;didno=drf1925043001;view=pdf;seq=1_2;n ode=drf1925043001%3A1.2
How cold? Doesn't say, but we at least know it wasn't 80 degrees.

[Tom]

You have way too much time on your hands.