Part 2...
 

SPEED

It may surprise the younger breed of horseplayers to find out that speed was not always the important handicapping factor it is considered to be today. There was a time, not too long ago, when speed handicapping was practically laughed at...and its few practitioners were regarded as the least sophisticated members of the betting crowd.

But it only took one man to change all that...

Andy Beyer did not invent the concept of speed handicapping -- nor were the speed figures that now bare his name his own creation -- but it was he who brought this methodology to the people...and he presented it in a flamboyant yet sophisticated way, which made speed figures the talk of the grandstand...and Beyer, the leading voice in the game.

The reasoning was simple...and powerful:

The fastest horse in the race is the one most likely to win; and the primary measure of speed is the final time of the race.

This was hardly news, of course...but, before Beyer, the crowd lacked an accurate way of determining who the fastest horses in the race were. The only figures at their disposal were the speed figures and variants already displayed in the Racing Form...which were so riddled with inaccuracies, they were practically useless to the serious player.

The Beyer figures -- and the other professional-type figures that followed -- allowed the player to be able to assess, at a glance, the general quality of a horse's performance...and this horse's pecking order among the rest of the field. It was a great time to be a horseplayer...

Or was it?

IMO...these speed figures were both a blessing and a curse for the horseplayer.

They were a blessing because they were the professional tool that the horseplayer longed to have in his possession, in order to better understand this confounding game.

But they were not "the way, the truth and the light" that they were initially advertised to be...and those who regarded them as such, and considered speed handicapping to be the "shortcut" they were always looking for, paid a heavy price at the betting windows.

Before these figures became part of the public domain, serious profits could be generated just by blindly betting on the horses who had run the fastest figures in their most recent races...without any further "interpretation" needed from the player.

Horses who were beaten by 4-5 lengths in their most recent starts sometimes towered over the rest of the field, speed figure-wise...while the other, slower but sharper-looking horses in the race received most of the betting support. It was as if the speed handicappers had a licence to steal.

But with the figures now in the hands of every player on the grandstand, these "fast balls down the middle of the plate" were gone...and the speed handicapper had to be more creative if he hoped to survive. The figures, while still pointing to the winners of the race a respectable percentage of the time, could no longer be entirely depended upon to produce a profit.

The game was undergoing one of its many changes, and the speed handicapper would have to change as well...in order to keep a step or two ahead of the crowd.

Enter the all-important art of "figure interpretation".

As Andy Beyer himself later proclaimed...the most important handicapping question to ask no longer was "how fast did the horse run?"; the main question now became..."how did the horse run fast?"

When a horse is favored by the circumstances of the race -- either by setting a comfortable pace, or by running a few lengths behind the dueling leaders -- then this horse will deliver the best performance that it is capable of putting forth. But the same cannot be said about all the other horses in the race. While the "dynamics" of the race often promote the chances of some of the horses in the field, a careful review of the circumstances of the race often reveals that these same "dynamics" work against certain other horses...thus depriving them of the chance to put forth the best performance that they are capable of.

Are the speed figure standouts going to repeat their lofty figures today...or will the "dynamics" of the race be so different now, that they are likely to work AGAINST these "standouts"...and for the benefit of some other horses, who were on the wrong side of these "dynamics" last time out?

And what exactly are these "dynamics" of the race, which often play such a pivotal role in determining who the winner of the race will be?

Well...PACE is one of these key determining factors...and this will be the subject of our next discussion.

Nice synopsis of speed figures. :ThmbUp:

Time = Speed
 

Yes. Very well presented indeed.

However, perhaps Thaskalos maybe you or anyone else would care to comment about why Speed figures are better than final times. Or are they?

After all when I watch a marathon and one runner comes in 2 hours and 10 minutes and another runner is 2 hours and 15 minutes I know who is the fastest.
Also when I see a kid has ran a 100 yard dash in 11 seconds I know he's not as fast as a kid who just ran it in 10.5 seconds without actually seeing them run.

We don't put "Speed Figures" on any other type of racing except horses?
Why aren't raw times good enough?

Greyfox,

Go to tullyrunners.com. You'll see a Beyers version for runners.

Mike (Dr Beav)

Thank you. Having coached Track and Field years ago, Speed Ratings for human athletes is a new one for me.

Because of different distances and tracks and surfaces.

Which is faster, a mile in 1:34 at Aqueduct or on in 1:35 at Turfway?

Horse A earns a Beyer of 85 at Aqueduct.
Horse B earns a Beyer of 85 at Turfway.
Supposedly those Beyers are equivalent and transportable. But are they?

Perhaps that's unfair as Aqueduct is dirt and Turfway is poly.
Horse C earns a Beyer of 85 at Aqueduct.
Horse D earns a Beyer of 85 at Churchill.
Both are on dirt. Are they equivalent?

Try betting raw times sometime and compare them to well you do when you bet speed figures. It won't take long for you to have the answer. We have speed figures because they are an improvement over raw times.

Far more so than looking at the times. Remember, all the fig tells you how fast the ran that race that day.

If you really wanted to prove your point, you would ask if an 85 at Aqueduct was the same as an 85 at Delta Downs. :)

Look...there is no denying that Beyer made a few mistakes in initially assessing the accuracy of his speed figures...and he also underestimated some of the weaknesses inherent in the method of speed handicapping itself.

Both he, and William Quirin who came on the scene afterwards, operated under the assumption that the abilities of the $10,000 claimers were the same regardless of race track...and that, of course, was later proven to be wrong. Improvements were made to the figure-making process...and the figures are more "track transferable" now than they had been in the past.

That's what makes Andy Beyer so popular in this game...IMO. He is "fallible"...like the rest of us.

He may be quick with an opinion, even if it's a controversial one, but he is just as quick in admitting his mistake once his opinion is proven wrong.

The notion that the raw running times can be compared to the Beyer figures (or to CJ's PaceFigures, whch I consider superior to Beyer's), cannot be taken seriously...IMO.

The fact that speed handicapping was ridiculed for so many years was a direct result of the inaccuracy of these raw running times in determining the quality of the performance of these horses.

What do you think the saying..."Time only matters if you are in jail"...was referring to?

Don't get me wrong. I use Speed figures as well.
But surely the starting point of the construction of Beyer Speed figures or whoever's Speed figures has to be time.

You are wrong, my friend,

The speed figures that the Racing Times published were the very same Beyer figures later published by the DRF.

And nowhere do I portray Beyer as "The handicapping God who came to save the horseplayers".

I am just giving the man his due...which is something that you, yourself, are incapable of doing...under ANY circumstance...

I still have all the issues from the very 1st week The Racing Times was published. I do believe the figures presented within were Beyer figures.

Teach

The point was that the Racing Times forced the DRF to make major changes in their data such as including speed figs.

I believe the Racing times also forced the DRF to eventually publish classes within classes,such as $10Kn2L as opposed to just $10k.

No...

I think the point was that you underestimated the role that Beyer himself played in these "major changes"...