Belmont Day Speed Figures

[PhantomOnTour]

Originally Posted by cj

https://www.drf.com/news/differing-p...lmont-brooklyn

Amazing...he's just going to ignore the official time of the race (when the rest of the days times all fit together) just because it looks too slow?
Basically, he's saying that he thinks the race was timed incorrectly.

Why can't it be plausible that they just ran a slow race?
It happens.

[classhandicapper]

Originally Posted by PhantomOnTour

Amazing...he's just going to ignore the official time of the race (when the rest of the days times all fit together) just because it looks too slow?
Basically, he's saying that he thinks the race was timed incorrectly.

Why can't it be plausible that they just ran a slow race?
It happens.

If you read the article, he's blaming the pace.

The fractions of the Brooklyn were way slower than the Belmont. That could lead to a slower final time, but if that was the case you'd at least expect them to come home quicker. Yet they come home quite a bit slower in the Brooklyn than Belmont also.

Either

1. The track suddenly slowed for one race (maybe they didn't water) and then got faster again (they watered again).

2. The track was slower for the 2 turn 1 1/2 mile races than the 1 turn races and the Belmont was actually 11 points faster and more like a 109.

3. The Brooklyn field ran an extremely slow race relative to their normal range.

4. Something malfunctioned

5. It was windy for that race and the wind went against them both early and late

6. Something is amiss with Beyer projections for the day and/or his 12F time chart.

7 Other?

This kind of nonsense happens all the time. We notice it when the difference is very large and it's a high profile race, but there are plenty of others in the mid range and even larger than this that no one notices. That's why I always suggest taking a qualitative look at a field too (no numbers). It sometimes clarifies what happened. Based on my own testing (and betting) I know it helps.

[Tom]

Thanks for the limk, CJ.
I didn't mean it bad either, just channeling "Hold my beer and watch this."

At least it was a distance that doesn't matter much.

[PhantomOnTour]

Originally Posted by classhandicapper

If you read the article, he's blaming the pace.

The fractions of the Brooklyn were way slower than the Belmont. That could lead to a slower final time, but if that was the case you'd at least expect them to come home quicker. Yet they come home quite a bit slower in the Brooklyn than Belmont also.

Either

1. The track suddenly slowed for one race (maybe they didn't water) and then got faster again (they watered again).

2. The track was slower for the 2 turn 1 1/2 mile races than the 1 turn races and the Belmont was actually 11 points faster and more like a 109.

3. The Brooklyn field ran an extremely slow race relative to their normal range.

4. Something malfunctioned

5. It was windy for that race and the wind went against them both early and late

6. Something is amiss with Beyer projections for the day and/or his 12F time chart.

7 Other?

This kind of nonsense happens all the time. We notice it when the difference is very large and it's a high profile race, but there are plenty of others in the mid range and even larger than this that no one notices. That's why I always suggest taking a qualitative look at a field too (no numbers). It sometimes clarifies what happened. Based on my own testing (and betting) I know it helps.

I did read the article, and he's ignoring what actually happened.
Slow paces usually lead to slow final times.
That is what happened on Saturday.
The End

[Robert Fischer]

Brooklyn was a riders-race.
slow early, faster middle

all the players tried to bunch up 'forward',
behind a rationed pace-setter that they didn't respect.
Warrant was a key player, but got shuffled back and never contended.
Fearless ran well and out-moved Lone Rock.

Belmont was more balanced race. The pace wasn't scalding hot, but it was honest. Irad wisely had Mo Donegal in position. We The People failed to separate from Skippylongstocking, around the quarter pole, and at that point Mo Donegal was moving like Jaws

[Brisk Urging]

Originally Posted by dnlgfnk

In "My 50k Year", he had already lowered the equivalent ratings by 16 pts.

you can find the book in the fiction section of the book store

[classhandicapper]

Originally Posted by PhantomOnTour

I did read the article, and he's ignoring what actually happened.
Slow paces usually lead to slow final times.
That is what happened on Saturday.
The End

He said he made the adjustment due to pace!

It's debatable about what you should do when the pace impacts the final time significantly. Should you give out the low figure that dramatically understates the ability of the horses or should you adjust it to reflect their ability better? What about all the smaller impacts when it's less clear? What should you do with those?

Personally, I think "pace" being the culprit in that race is highly suspect.

If the pace was slow relative to the final time they should have at least come home pretty fast. They didn't.

If the pace was slow relative to the final time the race should have flowed towards the front. It didn't.

[PhantomOnTour]

Originally Posted by classhandicapper

He said he made the adjustment due to pace!

It's debatable about what you should do when the pace impacts the final time significantly. Should you give out the low figure that dramatically understates the ability of the horses or should you adjust it reflect their ability better? What about all the smaller impacts? What should you do with those?

Personally, I think "pace" being the culprit in that race is highly suspect.

If the pace was slow relative to the final time they should have at least come home pretty fast. They didn't.

If the pace was slow relative to the final time the race should have flowed towards the front. It didn't.

Again...I'm aware of what Beyer did.
When you adjust the final figure because of pace you have left the realm of speed figures and entered the realm of performance figures, and there's a huge difference btw the two.
Speed figs are based on final time alone. That's what Beyer defined years ago.
He made a performance figure for the Brooklyn instead of a speed figure.

My point is that, when making speed figures (and pace figs,) you use the ACTUAL data. You don't tweak and adjust because you think this or you think that.
Let the figure reflect the official times and handicappers can make their own judgments about it when these horses run again.
It's that simple.

[dnlgfnk]

Originally Posted by Brisk Urging

you can find the book in the fiction section of the book store

Harvey Pack

[classhandicapper]

Originally Posted by PhantomOnTour

Again...I'm aware of what Beyer did.
When you adjust the final figure because of pace you have left the realm of speed figures and entered the realm of performance figures, and there's a huge difference btw the two.
Speed figs are based on final time alone. That's what Beyer defined years ago.
He made a performance figure for the Brooklyn instead of a speed figure.

My point is that, when making speed figures (and pace figs,) you use the ACTUAL data. You don't tweak and adjust because you think this or you think that.
Let the figure reflect the official times and handicappers can make their own judgments about it.

I hear you.

It's a dilemma for him and every other figure maker.

If he gave the race an 84 and then all the horses came back and ran their typical mid 90s next out, there will be a thread saying Beyer figures suck.

[cj]

I think part of the difference in the Belmont between Beyer and TimeformUS is that my speed charts are much newer than what Beyer uses. My times that equate races at, for example, 6f and 1 1/2 miles, probably look a lot different than those Beyer uses.

His charts were created in the 70s I'm guessing when horses were much better at the longer distances than they are now. Mine were created less than 10 years ago and get adjusted every two years. His are probably better historically, i.e. better for comparing Belmont winner from 1985 to one from 2022. Mine are probably better for comparing horses that are going to race against each other a month from now.

This was a long-winded way of saying our charts are probably very similar at sprint distances and start to differ at two turns, the longer the race the bigger the difference.

[Tom]

I'm speechless......

[cj]

Originally Posted by Tom

I'm speechless......

Whoever (whatever) made those figures is Fearless.

[classhandicapper]

Originally Posted by cj

I think part of the difference in the Belmont between Beyer and TimeformUS is that my speed charts are much newer than what Beyer uses. My times that equate races at, for example, 6f and 1 1/2 miles, probably look a lot different than those Beyer uses.

His charts were created in the 70s I'm guessing when horses were much better at the longer distances than they are now. Mine were created less than 10 years ago and get adjusted every two years. His are probably better historically, i.e. better for comparing Belmont winner from 1985 to one from 2022. Mine are probably better for comparing horses that are going to race against each other a month from now.

This was a long-winded way of saying our charts are probably very similar at sprint distances and start to differ at two turns, the longer the race the bigger the difference.

I think you are correct. The charts are different as the races stretch out. That accounts for some of it. But he has tweaked them quite a bit since the work he published decades ago.

[dnlgfnk]

I surrendered the explanatory power of a fractional time as being too simplistic some years ago. IMO, a blanket description of the previous 220 yards can be highly deceiving. I would watch a horse being hard used in the earliest strides and run a quarter in :23, while a half hour later another leader with similar frontrunning ability would stride smoothly to the lead in :22-2 on its own courage. I surmised over time (no pun) that as the early pace purportedly explained the race outcome, so too the earlier portions of a quarter help explain the fraction. I arrived at the conclusion that a slow naked fraction can actually represent a difficult scenario for those horses who contributed to recording it. Perhaps both use and then significant efforts to adjust to a beneficial speed. Kind of what Lezcano did with First Constitution in the Brooklyn.

The horse was obviously going too fast for his tastes, pulling back about the 3/16, then the dramatic wrangle back and sit-down-in-the-saddle at the quarter. Twenty-four and four just doesn't describe that. I've also long since given up regarding run ups, this or that timing mechanism. In the old days, I would have wondered if Lone Rock's bobble tripped the beam but didn't allow him to complete a faster recording of the initial strides. He'd clearly been slightly in front the first few strides. Anyway the first quarter was funky and the likely source of most of the consternation.

I also used to plot similar distance races linearly, to get an idea of the pace, wind, etc.
Brooklyn = :24-4, :50, 1:15, 1:37-2, 2:30-2.
Belmont = :23-4, :48-2,1:13-1,1:37-3, 2:28-1.

Beyer projected the winner's figs roughly equal to their previous ones. All things being mostly equal, and calculating the worth of a fifth of a second for the fractions, one could speculate that a similar group in the Brooklyn, running a half in :48-2 like the Belmont, ought to record a :24 first quarter. That lines up better with reality, not as a timing malfunction, but as a description of a deceptive fraction.