Quote:
Originally Posted by mikesal57
Has anyone ever do a side by side comparison?
The numbers I know are Timeform's, Beyer's, and HDW's....are there more?
And to answer my question..its probably NO because of the cost it will occur.... 
Mike |
For speed figures in the most widely used past performances, there are Bris, Trackmaster (Equibase), Timeform, Beyer. I actually think that the speed figures that Trackmaster generates in their pps are different from the regular Equibase speed figures that appear in the track programs that are sold at simulcast centers. So there are five different types of speed figures regularly available in the most well-known past performance publications. Every one has occasional bad or suspect figures. We know this because one could have a horse's last race as clearly the fastest in the race, while another may show the same last race performance as the third fastest in the race. Obviously, one of them is wrong. When you make speed figures, you're taking your best guess. Sometimes you guess wrong. Equibase and Brisnet are computer generated figures, but because of tricky track changes (such as a track that gets faster or slower as the day goes on), or limited data (six turf races, only three dirt races), it can be tough to compute an accurate variant, be it by computer or a real live handicapper.
Obviously, Maloney makes some really big bets. In his book he pointed out that if, for instance, the Beyer speed figure is much different than the Timeform speed figure on a particular horse, that raises a red flag. If you think about it, say you are a big chalk bettor who likes to bet $500 to win. You see a horse that ran a 95 Beyer in his second career start, and the horse looks at least two lengths better than anything in the field. The horse is 7-5 today. Now you check Timeform and see that the horse was given an 85 for its last race and two other horses in the race are ranked ahead of it. Are you still going to bet the $500? Is the horse the fastest in the race or not?
