Quote:
Originally Posted by GMB@BP
Using Beyer figures to compare horses from across anything from say about 2009 is a giant waste of time, this was covered extensively in another thread.
I dont believe for a second Justify would have trouble keeping up with Grade 3 horses of the 80's and 90's, but if you believe the figures he would not have.
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There's no question that in general the figures have declined at the very top of the scale. I think I estimated it at about 6 points since the early 90s among the top males and a little less among females. I looked at the data and may even still have it somewhere. Now, in the last couple of years we've had a few 120 figures again (hmmmn).
There could be a lot of reasons for all this, but I'm not buying that horses are getting slower anymore than I'm buying that there are Grade 3 horses now that could beat Secretariat based on Thorograph.
Figures are a great tool in general terms, but they are not a good way to compare horses across years when we are talking about a few 1/5ths of a second, new surfaces, and all the problems with keeping them in line.
