A sad statement on today's cards

[lamboguy]

we went through a period of time with lots of tripple digit numbers for a few reasons. steroids, and track surfaces that are spruced up on stakes days. the horses today are not faster than 40 years ago, but the tracks are, and without steroids and other drugs horses will have tough times keeping up.

[GARY Z]

One of my bud's thinks horses run faster when you
bet more money in the race(s).

[Robert Goren]

Originally Posted by GARY Z

One of my bud's thinks horses run faster when you
bet more money in the race(s).

I am pretty sure the added weight of my money on a horse slows them down.

[kenwoodall2]

Are the top horses slower or just closer to the speed of today's average horse? I want to see a hisotrical comparison of regular and Beyer pars compared to early 1990's.

[cj]

One theory I have on why the Beyers are shrinking at the top end has to do with racinos. The claiming horses are getting better and better because the purses are higher than ever, by a lot. Owners are a lot more willing to drop horses from the allowance ranks because the purse structure makes it easier to swallow. Further, there really is very little claiming class any longer at the top class tracks. They have all left to greener pastures. There was a time when the open claiming race was the staple of the big circuits. Those days are gone.

Further, the racinos offer lots of conditioned claimers so by the time a horse is running in open claimers, it has 4 or 5 wins...the horses have some ability. What this tells me is the gap is smaller between claimers and stakes horses, smaller than it has ever been. Maybe 20, or even 10, years ago the par for a 10,000 older claiming male race may have been 70, and the top stakes horses was 110. (Just rough estimates!) Now, the claimers are better. The gap may only be 30 points instead of 40.

One of three things had to happen. One, the claimers figures gradually increased to an 80 while the top horses stay at 110. Or, the claimers stay at 70 while the stakes horses drop to 100. Of course the third option would be the claimers rise a little and the stakes horses drop some. I think this is what happened. Since claimers race a lot more often, I think it is a lot more likely the claimers are remaining stable while the better horses shrink some.

Side note, this is why I don't think comparing Beyers across generations is a very good idea. They are meant as a tool to compare horses racing at the same time, not to compare horses racing against totally different groups of horses.

[Robert Goren]

Open bottom claiming race very often contain some very fast that are about two steps away from dog food. Thank to the wonders of modern drugs they are able to put a near top effort. The winner 10k claimer is often a 30k runner that no one is willing risk claiming. JMO

[skate]

Better competition, brings on More Sustain/pressers to the win. Hence the time should be a little slower.

[cj]

Better and more competition leads to faster times, not slower. Of course that isn't true for each individual horse, but the final time of the race will be faster on average.

[skate]

not so with animals, some humans also, they get nervous, hit a wall.

Humans use a lone Pacer to increase times.

With more horses going for the Ely, they (not always) break, hence closers, with an overal slower time win.

[cj]

Originally Posted by skate

not so with animals, some humans also, they get nervous, hit a wall.

Humans use a lone Pacer to increase times.

With more horses going for the Ely, they (not always) break, hence closers, with an overal slower time win.

We'll just have to disagree on that one. I find fast paces lead to faster times. When did Monarchos run his fastest race? Even closers run faster times when the pace is fast in my opinion. Of course if a race is devoid of any quality off the pace types, what you say is true. I'm just saying that on average, faster paces lead to faster final times.

Isn't that for another thread though? If what you say is true, and the overall field size is obviously decreasing, shouldn't horses be running faster overall times?

[OTM Al]

Originally Posted by cj

Side note, this is why I don't think comparing Beyers across generations is a very good idea. They are meant as a tool to compare horses racing at the same time, not to compare horses racing against totally different groups of horses.

This is certainly dead on as any long term bias would be irrelevant.

[Tom]

The winner 10k claimer is often a 30k runner that no one is willing risk claiming. JMO

Many of them are 3500 claimers, but the track dosen't card them that low.

[ddog]

Originally Posted by cj

One theory I have on why the Beyers are shrinking at the top end has to do with racinos. The claiming horses are getting better and better because the purses are higher than ever, by a lot. Owners are a lot more willing to drop horses from the allowance ranks because the purse structure makes it easier to swallow. Further, there really is very little claiming class any longer at the top class tracks. They have all left to greener pastures. There was a time when the open claiming race was the staple of the big circuits. Those days are gone.

Further, the racinos offer lots of conditioned claimers so by the time a horse is running in open claimers, it has 4 or 5 wins...the horses have some ability. What this tells me is the gap is smaller between claimers and stakes horses, smaller than it has ever been. Maybe 20, or even 10, years ago the par for a 10,000 older claiming male race may have been 70, and the top stakes horses was 110. (Just rough estimates!) Now, the claimers are better. The gap may only be 30 points instead of 40.

One of three things had to happen. One, the claimers figures gradually increased to an 80 while the top horses stay at 110. Or, the claimers stay at 70 while the stakes horses drop to 100. Of course the third option would be the claimers rise a little and the stakes horses drop some. I think this is what happened. Since claimers race a lot more often, I think it is a lot more likely the claimers are remaining stable while the better horses shrink some.

Side note, this is why I don't think comparing Beyers across generations is a very good idea. They are meant as a tool to compare horses racing at the same time, not to compare horses racing against totally different groups of horses.

Racing more often all things being equal will enable faster times.
The way some of the top horses racing is spaced it's a wonder they can put up a time at all.

The less you work the faster you go idea is nuts.

[cnollfan]

Originally Posted by cj

One theory I have on why the Beyers are shrinking at the top end has to do with racinos. The claiming horses are getting better and better because the purses are higher than ever, by a lot. Owners are a lot more willing to drop horses from the allowance ranks because the purse structure makes it easier to swallow. Further, there really is very little claiming class any longer at the top class tracks. They have all left to greener pastures. There was a time when the open claiming race was the staple of the big circuits. Those days are gone.

Further, the racinos offer lots of conditioned claimers so by the time a horse is running in open claimers, it has 4 or 5 wins...the horses have some ability. What this tells me is the gap is smaller between claimers and stakes horses, smaller than it has ever been. Maybe 20, or even 10, years ago the par for a 10,000 older claiming male race may have been 70, and the top stakes horses was 110. (Just rough estimates!) Now, the claimers are better. The gap may only be 30 points instead of 40.

One of three things had to happen. One, the claimers figures gradually increased to an 80 while the top horses stay at 110. Or, the claimers stay at 70 while the stakes horses drop to 100. Of course the third option would be the claimers rise a little and the stakes horses drop some. I think this is what happened. Since claimers race a lot more often, I think it is a lot more likely the claimers are remaining stable while the better horses shrink some.

Side note, this is why I don't think comparing Beyers across generations is a very good idea. They are meant as a tool to compare horses racing at the same time, not to compare horses racing against totally different groups of horses.

Excellent post, CJ.

[gm10]

Originally Posted by Edward DeVere

Which would be quite the contrast with Thoro-graph, which has horses getting faster and faster.

And in contrast with all these world records being set.

I'm not a specialist on BSF but I think it has to do with his projection method. He is reverting every performance back to the established level of ability horse.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing, it makes for tidy speed figures, day in, day out, and maybe he is getting more stable estimates of the true DTV with this method, but it also brings the horse's top and bottom BSF closer to the horse's average BSF. Using the projection method basically lowers the standard deviation of the horse's BSF distribution, which will make the horse's BSF fall in a narrower range.