Beyer Figs Bogus?
 

Oscar Performance ran a mile on the Widener Turf in 1:31 1 and broke a 20 year-old track record at Belmont Park.

For this he gets is a 104 BSF. That's all.

What does a horse have to do these days for Beyer to give a big fig.

Just out of curiosity, does anyone know what fig Beyer gave Elusive Quality when he set the previous record of 1:31 3?

I think the BSF's have become highly questionable in the last decade or so.

Look at the increasingly large difference between them and the TimeformUS figs. Years ago, I recall there being about a 15 point difference. More recently the difference has increased to about 20 to 22 points.
In this years Triple Crown races the difference was even greater, something like 30 points.

What's going on?

Yes, they are bogus.

You should stop using them immediately.

Problem solved.

Beyer has always said he has difficulty making reliable turf figures. He also sometimes makes adjustments to previous figures after horses have run again.

CJ could probably shed some light on this.

Side note -- a lot of people have criticized Steve Roman for changing a horse's Dosage Index after more of a sire's progeny have run. I think it's good that Beyer and Roman change their ratings after more information becomes available.

A Beyer Speed Figure or a Dosage Index number is similar to a digital snapshot of some quality of a horse. The snapshot is based on sampling, but it's not the complete picture. Just like a digital audio recording is a sampling of the actual sound, but it's not the entire sound.

Beyer Speed Figures and the Dosage Index have proved useful, but they don't contain all information.

It was a VERY fast track. The chart below shows the figures I gave the race and also you can see the prior two races. In the product you can scroll through the entire history of the horse, forwards and backwards. I thought it was a relatively easy day to create a track variant.

https://image.ibb.co/nr0pXy/Poker.png

As for the Beyer figures, we are about 20 points apart usually so know disagreement on this one.

I almost hate replying because I don't want to steal your thunder. You rock! :headbanger:

What IF?
 

Figure makers tried something a little different? For example what if, a study was conducted to measure some or all of these factors and then assign a number, or Ft/sec. that directly correlates to these factors?
Possible factors that may correlate:
a. average depth of soil(dirt) at different points on track from rail
b. compaction number or durometer of track
c. stickiness factor? something like the viscosity of liquids.
d. waviness of surface(ruts, even grade, etc)
e. air humidity and percent of moisture in track surface(top several inches)
d. composition, sand, soil, ground up rubber, etc.
e. surface temperature/air?

To shoot holes in my own idea, these figs would have to measured every day, even throughout the day, and we can't even get timing into the mid-20th century technology at this point. Never having been a trainer like several on PA, some of Ruffian's comments a while back about the depth of the dirt in certain paths from the rail were kind of eye opening to me. I did have the opportunity to walk on the Penn's track many years back, and the depth of the dirt was surprising to me. This past year I was playing and watching races at Parx and after a few races, the track crew came out between races, and re-surfaced the track. 6 furlong times dropped by >3 seconds in the next several sprints, although the classes were relatively the same.

I'm not contending that all of the above factors have the same degree of correlation to ft/sec. but what if two of them are highly correlated? It would be nice to know what those factors were.

Why don't you ask Cratos?

In all honestly, it is easier to measure the sum of the parts than it would be to measure all of the parts individually and then add them up.

No Beyer
 

It's been said that Beyer doesn't make the Beyer figs for the DRF. They are now done by committee that injects a lot of subjectivity into them. Tom Brohamer, many years ago made some Beyer figures using the mathematical precepts laid out in Beyer's book and they were a lot different from the DRF's.

I'm 100% positive that Beyer does the figures for some tracks. He has a team that does the rest, splitting up the tracks among individuals. I'm sure Andy monitors those he doesn't do personally and I would imagine he gets consulted on some of the tougher ones.

As I mentioned in the first post, there seems to be an increasing gap between Beyer and TFUS.

The Preakness - 97 Beyer - 128 TF (cj is that right?) = 31 point diffence.
The differences seem to be growing in size.

Beyer's figs also made it look like Justify was going backwards.

SA Derby - 107
Ky Derby - 101 (from memory, need to verify)
Preakness _ 97

Made Justify appear vulnerable in the Belmont. He wasn't, was he?

Not the case at all with Tineform. CJ might verify if this is true. Believe Justify's numbers were increasing, or at least remained steady.

Sarcastic, are we?

I think DRF should stop using them ASAP and give it's customers something more reliable and accurate.

Not being sarcastic.

I've seen this before he even admitted it. The Jockeys, the trip and the turf condition just adds too many variables to these races. In the summer the track (especially Saratoga) can become speed favoring for days in a row, then change over night. And if the jockeys are playing grab and hold...……..it strengthens the bias. Saving ground and getting an opening are as vital as how fast a horse can run because the races are evenly matched. The odds (and figs)don't match a horses real chance and that's where the money is. I've said this before about grass races. You can take those figs and toss them, it will rarely give you the overlay or bomb that counts during the meet. Where literally, one or two horses like that can make the meet.


The bottom line is on turf you won't get the horses you need to score out by just looking at those figs. There will be many horses that run well on the turf courses that according to those figures make no sense at all.


Looks like Oscar Performance is taking the "cut back" move that World Approval did last year. With the kind of trip horses like these get, they can really be tough to beat when they get hot at the mile distance.

All the hotheads in the Restoring Hope thread still seem to think so.