Trotters vs. Pacers
 

I should be specifically asking Ray this question since he is the numbers guru here. I'm in the process of finalizing a daily track chart related to class and final time and I was curious about getting any feedback concerning this question. Its been assumed that concerning the final times of races, the basic difference between trotters and pacers of identical classes is 1 second or thereabouts. At least that is what I read in a long ago written book about the subject.

My question is does this apply across the entire spectrum of all classes run at each track? In other words is there an across the board trotter/pacer difference of about 1 second related to all identical race classes or is there a proportional difference between gaits related to class? An example being at say the Trackmaster 90 level there may be a 1 second difference but this time difference between trotter and pacer may increase as the class levels decrease to a higher than 1 second difference.

Its a lot more than 1 second. The FFA and invite pacers go 147 and 148 depending on the weather, track and whatnut. I would think the top trotters don't break 150 too often, so its probably closer to 3 seconds than 1.

SRU, I quite agree with that premise....Especially so, as the class of the horses decrease the time variant decreases exponentially more so...

The good news is that Pacers are apples and Trotters are oranges, so there isn't a big problem that I have with the differences between the two gaits...:jump:

The data on 30,000 races shows
pacers average class of 77.6 giving average time of 115.6 secs
trotters average class of 76.2 giving average time of 118.6 secs
(includes off tracks)

There is a problem in using TM class to section (bin) the groups because the number itself is a derivative of the racetime. So that brings us back to the old discussion of how to measure class.

There's also the effect of track size, track condition, DTV

I've got too many things going right now so I'll just post the numbers and let others do the work. :)

http://wikisend.com/download/752730/racetimes.csv

It didnt appear to me that the 1 second difference was an accurate assessment for todays races, that may have been the case many years ago but not presently. To SRU, thanks very much for your input, what you stated makes complete sense.

Kash, the two gaits never compete in any pari-mutual race so in a sense one does compare apples with apples so to speak. Thanks as always for your comments.

Ray never lets any of us down with his charts that contain graphs and numbers and this thread is no exception. Thanks very much for sharing your Excel chart. You are worlds ahead of us all with your numbers.

Ray is great. Hey Ray how about running for president? I mean you might be very good at it but you surely can't be any worse!!! :D

Been playing the trotters since 1968
There was never just one second difference between pacers and trotters.
I'd say anywhere between 3 2/5 to 4 seconds back in 70s with the good old wooden sulkys.

What I would like to know is why there is such a higher percentage of trot races now than back in 70s?

In 70s there were over 50 races a week carded per track and maybe you would see 8 trot races,

Nowadays about 35 races a week carded per track and about 15 are trot races.

Saw Loosh Sunday night at Pompano he looked in good shape.

Arnie

In the 70's the trotters were much harder to get to the races. People who were considered master horsemen almost always specialized in trotters. Now the breeding has improved to such a high level that most trotters can at least function. Where in the past many could not be rigged to go fast enough to race without breaking.Of course that means all the top dopers have now moved over to the trotting side at a much higher level than when higher horsemanship was required .

I 100% agree with this, partiularly your last statement... the trotting game used to be a place for the very best horsemen, or the horsemen that could spend a lot of time with a horse to figure him out. These days, particularly with trotting hobbles more in vogue now than they were 20 years ago, any chemist can get a trotter to go fast and stay flat without any real horsemanship.

Arno - Pompano has a ton of trotters for some reason, I would guess more than just about any other track. In addition to BSF's post, I would think the state sire stakes programs make it very tempting to breed and race trotters... since the money is the same for trotters compared to pacers, and there are fewer trotters, it just seems to make sense that it would be easier to make good money with a trotter.