I have never seen past performances this messed up

[Milkshaker]

On a lark, I decided to download PP's for Ft. Pierre is South Dakota for 4/22/12. (I just like to look).

I have never seen PP's that are so messed up and riddled with errors, moslty in terms of a horse's lifetime record not matching what is shown in the PP block.

In the first race, we see 10YO My Pink Panther, who clearly shows back-to-back wins in 2010 in his cut in restricted handicap and stakes races, yet is listed as a 1-for-26 lifetime hoss.

In the 6th race, 7YO Flickit is listed as an 0-for-2 lifetime maiden, yet shows 12 races (including one win) in his PP cut.

7th race entrant Brite Storm clearly shows 7 lifetime races, yet is listed as a FTS who has never made a start.

I could go on...the entire card is riddled with similar glaring errors.

What gives? I know this track is on the periphery of the sport, but this "official" info is abysmal.

[Track Collector]

This may not explain your problem, but I can tell you that while FtP is very low on the totem pole, there are some even lower which are considered "unrecognized" meets. The race from such meet might be listed in the PPs, but the race itself does not count towards the official statistics like wins, etc.

Also, sometimes the conditions of the race are written to exclude certain other races. For example, the conditions might say "Non-winners of two in the past six months", then also say races for clm3500 and below not considered.

P.S. It could be that FtP is considered an "unrecognized" meet with regard to the data supplier, whose stats may ignore races from FtP and some other the other near-by low-level tracks like BCF (Brown County Fair in Aberdeen) and CWP (Chippewa Downs, which is on an Indian reservation in Belcourt).

[Milkshaker]

Appreciate the reply, but the races in question all appear to be meets Equibase covers (Ft. Pierre, Brown Cty Fair, Fargo, Fonner, YD, etc...)

[turninforhome10]

They are I believe unrecognized period. Saw a horse come into Prairie Meadows from Brown County Fair with 2 wins and ran as a maiden.

[Milkshaker]

Then what is the definition of "unrecognized"?

Other horses on the exact same card have races from the exact same circuit counted in thier lifetime PP cuts that match up just fine. Selectively, other horses do not.

(Kindly look at the PPs in question before lobbing a general reply).

[FiveWide]

There was a period, a few weeks back, where I was getting bad data for the current meet/year for trainers and jockeys. All from mid/upper class tracks.

The year had already shifted to 2012 . Some of the meet totals equaled the year totals, as they certainly could. But then other times the meet totals were greater than the year totals which made no sense. They seem to be fixed now from what I've seen lately.

-Five

[cj]

There was a period, a few weeks back, where I was getting bad data for the current meet/year for trainers and jockeys. All from mid/upper class tracks.

The year had already shifted to 2012 . Some of the meet totals equaled the year totals, as they certainly could. But then other times the meet totals were greater than the year totals which made no sense. They seem to be fixed now from what I've seen lately.

-Five

There is a simple answer to this one. Not all meets begin on January 1st. Some tracks designate it that way, others don't. The inner track meet in Aqueduct begins in late November or early December and runs as late as April. That stats don't reset on Jan 1.

[RonTiller]

These are not errors - they are unofficial races, in practice no different than a farm in Kentucky racing 6 horses at their training track on a Sunday afternoon.

Yes, they are run at "regular" tracks, yes, people bet on them, yes Equibase collects data for them, yes they are races.

No they do not count as official races any more than the training track race, no they do not go on a stallion or mare's breeding record, no they do not count in eligibility conditions for official races (horses that have won 5 unofficial races are still maidens).

We show unofficial races on our PPs with a footnote that the race was unofficial. The horses' box scores are their official records and do not count anything unofficial. PPs for tracks that run unofficial races just look bizarre, no matter what you do. Without an explanation (or at least a footnote) they frankly look exactly like you described: "messed up and riddled with errors".

I googled the topic and found a thread here with my response from several years ago (in other words, what you write on this BBS, good, bad, informative, pointless, funny, insulting, etc. lives forever). I'll just quote what I said there:

There are a number of very small tracks that run unofficial races as part of their race cards - e.g. Brown County Fair, Dayton, Fort Pierre, Sandy Downs, Walla Walla, Blackfoot, Western Mountain Fair. As it was explained to me, a track may get a certain number of race dates from their state's regulatory authority and decide to race more races. Those "more" races are run as unofficial and do NOT go into the official pedigree records for the sire, dam, etc. They are not official wins, places, losses or anything.

The data is collected by Equibase, stored as unofficial races, and distributed to value added resellers to be distributed at their discretion. We distribute these unofficial races as part of a horse's PPs, with those races identified as unofficial. So you sometimes get horses at these tiny meets that have 7 or 8 unofficial races and 0 official races, giving them a record of 0, 0, 0, 0. Whether you want to call them first time starters is up to you. We only consider official races in compiling statistics. So few of these horses with unofficial races make it to larger mainstream tracks that the issue seldom even arises as to what to do about them. Informal races run at farms are even 1 more step removed from these.

http://www.paceadvantage.com/forum/showpost.php?p=362429&postcount=9
Ron Tiller
HDW

[FiveWide]

There is a simple answer to this one. Not all meets begin on January 1st. Some tracks designate it that way, others don't. The inner track meet in Aqueduct begins in late November or early December and runs as late as April. That stats don't reset on Jan 1.

Maybe that was what was happening. That certainly makes sense for meets starting near the end of the year, overlapping into the following year and the stats not being reset at the beginning of the new year. But if that was the case I'd still be seeing the issue which I'm not so I dunno. Either they reset their stats or it was an error.


-Five

[Milkshaker]

Thanks for the detailed response, Ron. That was very helpful.

So my only question now is (and I am referring to DRF.com PP's): Where do the PP lines denote if the race was a Brown County Fair "official" race or an "unofficial" race? They don't right?

Do the charts make any sort of distinction?

Is it just up to the handicapper to guess which was which?

When horses travel to recognized meets, what data does the racing secretary rely on to determine eligibility if these PP cuts aren't any help?

[Track Collector]

This thread reminds my of how I found one of those small, unique-type races meets that I love to go around and visit.

Back a number of years (I think it was 1996) I was at the horse races in Columbus, NE. There were two different PP programs available at that time. There was the usual DRF, and one from Equibase. After a horse had won at 25.1, I looked at his PPs from DRF and he looked pretty bad. The equibase program however had his two most recent races about 2 and 3 weeks ago respectively from another track where he had a win and a place finish. The track abbreviation was Anf which really perked my curiosity.

Turns out Anf was the Anthony Fair association races held in very small Anthony, KS. I think it was the next year that I visited them and what a neat experience. (They have not raced for a few years now, after racing for over 100+ straight years.).

The track was of the very tight 4f variety, with a mixture of TB, QH, and Paint/App. horse races. Activity at that time was parimutuel. Inside the 4f track was a dog track, so the days activities were a mixture of horse and dog races, totaling about 15 races. It was so unique I went back another year, taking my wife along to see. The track is sunken, and the wooden grandstand butts right up against the track, so if you were in the very first row, you could almost look the jockey in the eye as his/she passed by you.


Chris

[saevena]

Many years ago, I attended the races at the Adams County Fairgrounds just north of Denver. A horse won a maiden race and set a track record for the distance. I spoke with the horse's trainer after the race and he told me that he was going to ship the horse to Florida (Hialeah or Gulfsteam) and fool everybody by entering him in a maiden race there. I hope he didn't bet on his horse when he raced in Florida.

[maclr11]

Even here locally we have that occur.
Horses ship in from Portland Meadows or BCF or FtP and for conditioning purposes ASD does not consider them if the winners purse is under 2,500.
This means you can win at Fort Pierre and then run back in a MClm here. It happens a lot actually especially out of the Ardell Saylor barn, who I believe cleans up the South Dakota fair meets.