Comparing Different Tracks

[RunForTheRoses]

I know in Beyer's books he wrote you compare horses that travel between different circuits. You would try to aggregate those horses that ship between Oaklawn and Churchill for instance.

[headhawg]

And then it rains, the track gets sealed. Or track maintenance crew gets lazy or decides to have fun with the inside lanes. Seriously? Do people really think getting more "precision" out of their numbers is the answer? The adjustments probably introduce more error into the mix and is overall not worth the effort. And what if the horse that looks like a lock because you added two point to its figs because of the track adjustment just isn't feeling it today? And, of course, we are making our bets...today.

There might be better ways to handicap races than what most of us are doing, but trying to eek out (very) slightly more accurate numbers seems like a waste of time. Threads like these -- while great for discussion -- seem more academic than practical. When I read them I always recall what Dick Schmidt wrote in the Goodenough Numbers chapter in Pace Makes the Race. It's truly a must read.

And honestly, the whole "i can do this and you can't" mentality is not very becoming.

[Thomas Roulston]

Originally Posted by green80

I agree here, too many other factors involved. Even if you could equalize the times, the class factor is involved. A horse that is running for $5000 claiming with a 8000 purse at track A is not the same kind of horse as a horse running for $5000 claiming at track B with a $23000 purse.

But of course the latter couldn't happen at NYRA because of its dumb rule capping purses at twice the claiming price. I remember when $7,500 claimers at AQU had $30,000 purses in 2012 and the fields were large and the races competitive.

[steveb]

Originally Posted by headhawg

And honestly, the whole "i can do this and you can't" mentality is not very becoming.

you can't expect peole that have done all the work to just offload.
by saying that it can be done should be sufficient.
not to mention there was info given that if one applies oneself to, then they would likely get somewhere, if they were interested enough.

[steveb]

Originally Posted by Prof.Factor

I will go even further and say there are people that can measure a horse's action, max burst and stamina, and can project how a horse will likely fare on a new/different surface. My first encounter with this was the 1993 Breeders' Cup Sprint at Santa Anita, when BIRDNTHEWIRE shipped from the east coast as the favorite (or heavy co-fav). While his speed figures dominated, one could determine he did not have the action to take advantage of the speed surface at Santa Anita. He finished 11th with Mike Smith.
I'm no genius, and if I could start doing this back in the day of Windows 3.1 ..... then there are many people doing it today.
Burst and stamina are subject to fatigue via track surface/distance/pace, naturally, but also drugs used.

you are probably correct in what you are saying, but i think we are talking different things.

all i am saying is that it is possible to line all the places up.
if you know that track 'a' and 'b' are the same standard, it does not necessarily translate to any horse handling both tracks equally.
that's a different subject entirely.
they could be the same standard, but one is turf and the other dirt, and that alone is enough to know that the same horses won't run the same on both.

[green80]

Originally Posted by steveb

you are probably correct in what you are saying, but i think we are talking different things.

all i am saying is that it is possible to line all the places up.
if you know that track 'a' and 'b' are the same standard, it does not necessarily translate to any horse handling both tracks equally.
that's a different subject entirely.
they could be the same standard, but one is turf and the other dirt, and that alone is enough to know that the same horses won't run the same on both.

Good point, some horses won't handle 2 dirt tracks the same. I have seen as much as 1 or 2 seconds difference in time at the same distance by the same horse at different tracks.

[ultracapper]

Originally Posted by headhawg

And then it rains, the track gets sealed. Or track maintenance crew gets lazy or decides to have fun with the inside lanes. Seriously? Do people really think getting more "precision" out of their numbers is the answer? The adjustments probably introduce more error into the mix and is overall not worth the effort. And what if the horse that looks like a lock because you added two point to its figs because of the track adjustment just isn't feeling it today? And, of course, we are making our bets...today.

There might be better ways to handicap races than what most of us are doing, but trying to eek out (very) slightly more accurate numbers seems like a waste of time. Threads like these -- while great for discussion -- seem more academic than practical. When I read them I always recall what Dick Schmidt wrote in the Goodenough Numbers chapter in Pace Makes the Race. It's truly a must read.

And honestly, the whole "i can do this and you can't" mentality is not very becoming.

An interesting post that I never thought I would see on this forum.

[Tom]

Some horse don't handle the same track all the time.
When FL used to open in March, we had DRF TVs of 25+ for sprints and 40+ for routes. Pace times were 49, 115

Later in the summer, the TVs were 10,12, and 20, 22. Pace times were 46, 113.

You can adjust anything - I can adjust my uncle to make him equal my aunt. But the horses can't be adjusted. One of our better trainers used to run his horse in the spring and fall, giving them the summer off.

The number one rule of mine in racing is I am betting on living creatures who have moods, feel pain, joy, have minds and think with them, NOT mathematical equation results.

No one knows everything and half of we do know was probably mis-calculated. Our only hope is there are enough mistakes made to cancel each other out in the long run.

[cj]

Originally Posted by Tom

Some horse don't handle the same track all the time.
When FL used to open in March, we had DRF TVs of 25+ for sprints and 40+ for routes. Pace times were 49, 115

Later in the summer, the TVs were 10,12, and 20, 22. Pace times were 46, 113.

You can adjust anything - I can adjust my uncle to make him equal my aunt. But the horses can't be adjusted. One of our better trainers used to run his horse in the spring and fall, giving them the summer off.

The number one rule of mine in racing is I am betting on living creatures who have moods, feel pain, joy, have minds and think with them, NOT mathematical equation results.

No one knows everything and half of we do know was probably mis-calculated. Our only hope is there are enough mistakes made to cancel each other out in the long run.

I think we are going to see a lot of this when Aqueduct goes back to the normal track. The "new" winterized main track was very different than anything we saw before on the inner in my opinion.

[classhandicapper]

Originally Posted by Tom

Some horse don't handle the same track all the time.
When FL used to open in March, we had DRF TVs of 25+ for sprints and 40+ for routes. Pace times were 49, 115

Later in the summer, the TVs were 10,12, and 20, 22. Pace times were 46, 113.

Some of those kinds of variations are jockeys adjusting to track conditions.

If they know a track is carrying speed well, they will get more aggressive and vice versa. That can cause the relationships between fractions and final times to change over and above how fast the track is playing.

You have to ask whether the fractions were fast relative to the final time because the track was faster than usual, because the jockeys were more aggressive than usual, or a little of both. (and vice versa)

Then you have to ask, given the fractions they ran, did they have as much impact on the horses as usual or was the track carrying speed better or worse than usual.

It can really make your head explode if you are numbers guy.

That partially why I also like to make comparisons between horses within the same race without looking at times at all. If I more or less know how good the horses are in any race, I can compare horses with similar trips and see how they ran relative to each other and then compare them to horses that had the opposite trip. That will usually give me a good picture of how they all ran relative to each other and which trip was best.

[ultracapper]

Originally Posted by Tom

Some horse don't handle the same track all the time.
When FL used to open in March, we had DRF TVs of 25+ for sprints and 40+ for routes. Pace times were 49, 115

Later in the summer, the TVs were 10,12, and 20, 22. Pace times were 46, 113.

You can adjust anything - I can adjust my uncle to make him equal my aunt. But the horses can't be adjusted. One of our better trainers used to run his horse in the spring and fall, giving them the summer off.

The number one rule of mine in racing is I am betting on living creatures who have moods, feel pain, joy, have minds and think with them, NOT mathematical equation results.

No one knows everything and half of we do know was probably mis-calculated. Our only hope is there are enough mistakes made to cancel each other out in the long run.

True all that

[steveb]

Originally Posted by ultracapper

[/COLOR][/B]

True all that

well if you asked somebody like arkansasman then he would probably disagree with you.

as do i.

it might not be a mathematical equation as such, but it's no accident that all the BIG winners are academically inclined, and half of them probably know(nor care) sweet nothing about racing.

i would not even know the names of the horses when I was doing it.
just an ID number to stop any inherent biases showing.
then just use statisitics.

[Tom]

Originally Posted by cj

I think we are going to see a lot of this when Aqueduct goes back to the normal track. The "new" winterized main track was very different than anything we saw before on the inner in my opinion.

I changed the designation from I for inner to W for winter in my dbs so I can keep the races separate. I wish EB would do this too, for the career box.

[classhandicapper]

Originally Posted by Tom

I changed the designation from I for inner to W for winter in my dbs so I can keep the races separate. I wish EB would do this too, for the career box.

Good idea.

I do stuff like this sometimes, but I hate having to run weekly update jobs to keep my database the way I want when in some cases the data should be organized in a logical way to begin with.

[mountainman]

Originally Posted by headhawg

And then it rains, the track gets sealed. Or track maintenance crew gets lazy or decides to have fun with the inside lanes. Seriously? Do people really think getting more "precision" out of their numbers is the answer? The adjustments probably introduce more error into the mix and is overall not worth the effort. And what if the horse that looks like a lock because you added two point to its figs because of the track adjustment just isn't feeling it today? And, of course, we are making our bets...today.

There might be better ways to handicap races than what most of us are doing, but trying to eek out (very) slightly more accurate numbers seems like a waste of time. Threads like these -- while great for discussion -- seem more academic than practical. When I read them I always recall what Dick Schmidt wrote in the Goodenough Numbers chapter in Pace Makes the Race. It's truly a must read.

And honestly, the whole "i can do this and you can't" mentality is not very becoming.

If you're making numbers, why not be accurate? But accuracy on a scale not involving extreme minutiae is both good enough and more useful for me. I prefer numbers that are a tad obtuse, and I intentionally round all times and fractions to fifths as a constant reminder that more abstract and intuitive considerations are more important to me. And that time is just one component in assessing t-bred performance.

Or, to put it another way, if an intrepid hiker seeking the best way through rocky terrain obsesses with measuring alternative routes-right down to feet and inches- he has probably ignored other relevant considerations. Like poison ivy, challenging inclines, and those hillbillies from Deliverance.