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[classhandicapper]

I’m interested in 3 things when I look at pace.

1. How fast is each horse when doing its best (mostly early for dirt and late for turf)?

2. Did the horse run too fast or slow in the early parts of a recent race to maximize his final time/finish within the race given the way the surface was playing on that day and his unique attributes?

3. What is the winning pace profile for today’s race?

Converting fractions into numbers so you can answer those questions is very difficult. You need multiple sets of numbers and some subjective analysis.

You have to consider run up differences, the impact of turns at different distances, changes in the surface from day or day, changes in how aggressive riders get given how the surface is playing, wind impacting fractions more than final time, changes in the average relationship between fractions and final time depending on how the surface is playing and differences between horses in how they react to different pace scenarios.

Most of the time you are going to be working with rough estimates. That’s the bad news.

The good news is that TimeformUS (CJ) does a lot of the work for you.