I'd like to help in answering this question.
But first, a comment about using purse values.
The issue with using purse values is that it is a function of more than the quality of horses.
It is mostly a function of ATTRACTING HORSES within the scope of those available in the surrounding area at a given time of year.
To make this point easily, just look at CBY on a map that is to scale.
CBY is literally WAY OUT THERE.
In order to attract horses, the purse values are unnaturally high considering the level of races and horses.
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My belief is that what matters most is the degree of reliability in the handicapping.
That is, how often does handicapping lead to the winner?
At the bottom of this post you will find a link to download the entire report that will be described here.
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I am the builder of The HorseStreet Par Times.
Included with those pars is a document known as
The Speed Reliability Index.
This metric is based upon how well horses run back to their speed ratings in today's race.
The scale looks like this:
90-109 is considered average, with 100 being dead center average. That would represent 62% of all winners ranking in the top 3.
For those who are statistically minded, originally, this represented one standard deviation from average, and each of the upward or downward steps represented 2 and 3 Std Devs, respectively.
Over time, as most tracks have improved, I did not change the StdDev. Instead, I kept the same rating system.
Here's a quick look at the best SRIs.
This began as a project back around 2012 to improve my par times. This document just highlights the two best groups.
There are extenuating conditions to these, with the biggest one being TRAINER. This is why the EXCELLENT group is mostly small tracks: At those tracks a tiny handful of trainers tend to dominate.
BTW, a logical conclusion would be that this is a function of field size. Surprisingly, that does not hold up.
IOW, the top 3 win almost exactly the same percentage in a 6-horse field as opposed to a 10-horse field.
I have theories about that (and statistics to support), but that's for another day.
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The Alphabetical List shows a quick lookup of the the tracks over the years.
I've only shown 3 years of the last 7 but I do have all the years.
Generally, tracks show improvement year over year because the Pars have been in a significant state of improvement for over a decade.
When tracks turn for the worse there is generally a reason.
Here's the link to download the full PDF.
HorseStreet Par Times 2023 Speed Reliability Index.
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