prime power ...turf?

[johnhenry81]

Handicapping the breeders cup, I couldnt help but notice the following head scratcher.
Bris prime power claims that its figure is universal, across distances, tracks, surfaces etc. How can it be that 28 horses, all entered in turf events... headed by the mare Tepin with a PrimePower of 191, topped California Chromes top dirt race figure of 157? Answers welcomed!

jh

[Speed Figure]

Originally Posted by johnhenry81

Handicapping the breeders cup, I couldnt help but notice the following head scratcher.
Bris prime power claims that its figure is universal, across distances, tracks, surfaces etc. How can it be that 28 horses, all entered in turf events... headed by the mare Tepin with a PrimePower of 191, topped California Chromes top dirt race figure of 157? Answers welcomed!

jh

Prime Power numbers are always much higher on turf then they are on dirt. Top dirt horses top out around 165, but the turf horses are always much higher on days like the BC. Big Blue Kitten was 188.4 in last year's BC turf while American Pharoah was 164.3. I don't know why the turf numbers are inflated like that.

[VigorsTheGrey]

Originally Posted by Speed Figure

Prime Power numbers are always much higher on turf then they are on dirt. Top dirt horses top out around 165, but the turf horses are always much higher on days like the BC. Big Blue Kitten was 188.4 in last year's BC turf while American Pharoah was 164.3. I don't know why the turf numbers are inflated like that.

Thanks good to know....I hear from folks on PA that a rough conversion from bris to beyer is to deduct 20 points from bris number to arrive at beyer speed figure...I wonder if this holds for both turf and dirt and synthetic surfaces....?

[NorCalGreg]

Originally Posted by johnhenry81

Handicapping the breeders cup, I couldnt help but notice the following head scratcher.
Bris prime power claims that its figure is universal, across distances, tracks, surfaces etc. How can it be that 28 horses, all entered in turf events... headed by the mare Tepin with a PrimePower of 191, topped California Chromes top dirt race figure of 157? Answers welcomed!

jh

Bris says their Speed Ratings carry from track to track--surface to surface--distance to distance.....but I've never seen that claim for PRIME POWER.

Bris guards the formula for Prime Power like Ft Knox, but my own guess is Turf Races are weighted heavier by class--giving a distorted higher number.

Such is the bane of any mechanically-weighted method--fill in one discrepancy, another pops up.

[jk3521]

So if a high priced claiming grass horse that never ran on dirt runs against Beholder, it has a higher Prime Power # ?

[jk3521]

This gives a new meaning to the old handicapping angle "off the grass and down in class".

[NorCalGreg]

Originally Posted by jk3521

So if a high priced claiming grass horse that never ran on dirt runs against Beholder, it has a higher Prime Power # ?

Exactly. That's why---back in the 50's they were regularly losing their a$$ on Prime Power betting the top picks.

Seriously Joe...you know there's LOGIC written into their algorithms--it's obviously not a paper-and-pencil type method.

The reason I took a guess on the Turf/Class thing is--I came up with a more crude "turf score" --it's also much higher than my "power" score.

[johnhenry81]

So..... Chrome had a higher PP than Arrogate. Chrome also had won a Turf race (Hol derby) Did this inflated turf "credit" pump his PP past Arrogate?

[Robert Fischer]

i don't know if you guys have any baseball geek in you


prime power = batting average
High BA correlates to the better hitters, but has it's flaws as a metric.

PP turf = batting avg in Coors Field

PP dirt = batting avg in Astrodome

[VigorsTheGrey]

If beholder and highland reel were in a match race on woodbine tapeta surface, who would win and what prime power number would result....? At 9 furlongs....

[johnhenry81]

So with Roberts example, a race where all horses that have not run all dirt or all AW or all turf becomes very ambiguous.

And howabout that Astrodome reference...are we talking JR Richard, Cesar Cedeno and maybe an Alou brother. Good stuff!

[therussmeister]

Originally Posted by johnhenry81

So..... Chrome had a higher PP than Arrogate. Chrome also had won a Turf race (Hol derby) Did this inflated turf "credit" pump his PP past Arrogate?

Prime Power of said to be based only on the most recent starts. I don't know how many starts, but last week I encountered a horse that did not finish in its last two starts and BRIS did not give that horse a number, although I find it hard to believe they only use two races.

[duncan04]

From BRIS website:

If a horse ranks high on the Prime Power rating but his last three races have been dirt sprints, it doesn’t mean very much if today’s race is nine furlongs on the grass. The same is true if the horse bled, had trouble in a race or caught a track he didn’t like (sloppy or muddy track, poor post, etc.). Be forgiving for a low ranking if the runner has not been competing at his correct distance and surface.

http://www.brisnet.com/cgi-bin/static.cgi?page=ulthowto