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Old 05-25-2014, 01:13 PM   #31
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Quote:
Originally Posted by infrontby1
Would love to have CJ comment on this one.
There isn't a whole lot to comment on really. If you rate turf races on final time only, the resulting figures will be of very little value. Turf figures are very tough to make for a variety of reasons. I think anyone that makes them is doing them as "performance" figures more than speed figures.

Some reasons they are tough:
  • Not many run on a card
  • Some tracks have multiple courses
  • Timing is not reliable
  • Pace can be absurdly slow
  • Turf rails move
  • Run up is not consistent
  • Often times many runners are on turf for the first time
I could go on, and maybe will later this week if I have some time.
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Old 05-25-2014, 01:18 PM   #32
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Quote:
Originally Posted by infrontby1
Excellent video to reference this posting. And thanks for sharing.

A previous comment made by thelittleguy says otherwise though. But here we have it, straight from the horse's mouth: the man that invented these figures.
I don't know when that video was made, but I've read articles from Beyer, Jerardi, and Hopkins where each has discussed races where pace was factored into the numbers.
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Old 05-25-2014, 03:37 PM   #33
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I think its possible that pace is indirectly factored into the final number. While Beyer himself says that his numbers are not performance numbers, they end u being performance numbers if you "Assume" things.

For example.

Lets say that Wise Dan wins with a Beyer of about 100 give or take, he's always winning and he usually runs a similar type race. So, Wise Dan is on the card and he does what Wise Dan does and wins in grinding, extremely game, driving fashion and wins by 1 length. Another race on the card is a 20k claimer that runs at the same distance and surface.

Lets say for some odd reason the "Wise Dan Race" has an extremely slow internal pace, 53's 118's etc and the other race has a much faster pace, the winning times are fairly close. Now obviously, Wise Dan is far "Faster" than the 20k claimer...and since Dan usually runs about 100, it almost forces a figure maker to come close to that number no matter what happens. You can't have Wise dan look like 100, 100, 100, 100, 80.

So, they have a decision to make. They can give Wise Dan a 100 and the 20k claimer a 93 OR they can just give Wise Dan his usual 100 and make the claimer have his "usual" 80.

Here's why i say they're not necessarily using pace in the numbers. Because if they had a pace "formula" and the formula showed that Wise Dan and this 20k claimer both had numbers in the mid 80s, they would throw all that out the window under the 'eyeball test' and give Dan his usual figure. Its sort of the "by definition" theory.

The "fit" has to make sense, so they "tweak" it to make sense.
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Old 05-25-2014, 05:50 PM   #34
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cj
There isn't a whole lot to comment on really. If you rate turf races on final time only, the resulting figures will be of very little value. Turf figures are very tough to make for a variety of reasons. I think anyone that makes them is doing them as "performance" figures more than speed figures.

Some reasons they are tough:
  • Not many run on a card
  • Some tracks have multiple courses
  • Timing is not reliable
  • Pace can be absurdly slow
  • Turf rails move
  • Run up is not consistent
  • Often times many runners are on turf for the first time
I could go on, and maybe will later this week if I have some time.
That's what I would call my turf numbers.
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Old 05-25-2014, 11:05 PM   #35
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Originally Posted by the little guy
I think you make up most of what you post here.
I often speculate who on here is making things up and who isn't. I feel about 99.9% certain that Thask is telling the truth about everything he posts and I enjoy reading what he has to say.
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Old 05-26-2014, 10:37 AM   #36
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Stillriledup

Here's why i say they're not necessarily using pace in the numbers. Because if they had a pace "formula" and the formula showed that Wise Dan and this 20k claimer both had numbers in the mid 80s, they would throw all that out the window under the 'eyeball test' and give Dan his usual figure. Its sort of the "by definition" theory.

The "fit" has to make sense, so they "tweak" it to make sense.
This is correct.

Pace is NOT part of some elaborate formula. However, those guys can recognize extreme paces by looking at the fractions, watching the races and knowing the horses (or using Moss pace figures) just as well as anyone else.

So they can make adjustments to figures that were impacted by extreme paces so they make sense.
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Old 05-26-2014, 01:33 PM   #37
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Quote:
Originally Posted by classhandicapper
This is correct.

Pace is NOT part of some elaborate formula. However, those guys can recognize extreme paces by looking at the fractions, watching the races and knowing the horses (or using Moss pace figures) just as well as anyone else.

So they can make adjustments to figures that were impacted by extreme paces so they make sense.
Let's keep this simple.

Whether you are measuring horseracing, car racing, or human racing pace is the independent
variable and final time is the dependent variable.

There continue to be that assumption there is something about horseracing in terms of movement that is mysterious and only a few can interpret a racehorse movement with some innocuous metric called a speed figure.

It is good that there are people who develop handicapping methods, but please stop the nonsense, Newton's laws will always and absolutely prevail when it comes to the motion of any object: man, machine, or beast.
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Old 05-26-2014, 02:01 PM   #38
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Good thing Beyer, Ragozin, Brown, CJ don't know it's nonsense.
All of them have customers who think enough of their work to buy the numbers and then make money using them.
What fools we all are!
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Old 05-26-2014, 02:59 PM   #39
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I think the problem here is that what we think figures are, may not be the case.

Before the variant is applied, you have a raw pace figure that simply measures the time of that portion of the race, in a different form, but still represents the same thing, raw time. Then you have a raw speed figure, which does the same thing that a raw pace figure does, except for the whole race. Then you have a performance figure that does not do the same thing as the pace or speed figure, it includes other factors besides the time measurement of the pace portion or the whole race.

Then you have the variant, which is used to adjust the pace and speed figure. The performance figure could already include the variant or that figure could be further adjusted by the variant later.

So, IMO, there are "real" pace figures, and real "speed" figures, and then there are those that aren't really real, they are combinations of other factors. A real pace or speed figure would only represent real time, not adjusted time.

Everyone's pace and speed figures are not the same animal, because they include factors, in different weightings, other than raw clocked timings.

So, who is right with their figures? Probably nobody is right all the time, and maybe not right ever, but close enough to be useful. But, if I were going to use pace or speed figures, I certainly would not use them at face value, I would want to know how they were assigned and that theory would have to agree with my own beliefs.
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Old 05-27-2014, 10:07 AM   #40
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Cratos
Let's keep this simple.

Whether you are measuring horseracing, car racing, or human racing pace is the independent
variable and final time is the dependent variable.

There continue to be that assumption there is something about horseracing in terms of movement that is mysterious and only a few can interpret a racehorse movement with some innocuous metric called a speed figure.

It is good that there are people who develop handicapping methods, but please stop the nonsense, Newton's laws will always and absolutely prevail when it comes to the motion of any object: man, machine, or beast.
I'm not sure where this comment is coming from. The question was whether Beyer includes pace in his numbers.

To make it simple, assume 2 horses ran the following races and all else was equal.

A: 21 3/5 - 43 4/5 - 109
B: 22 ---- 44 3/5 - 109

They have the same final time, but clearly did not run the same race.

Beyer generally focuses on the 109 final time and gives both horses the same number.

There are some figure makers that will look at both the fractions and final time and give Horse A the better number because of the faster pace. When you do that, it becomes a performance figure instead of a final time figure.

Beyer generally chooses to leave pace analysis to the player other than in extreme cases. That's a very simple point.
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Old 05-27-2014, 10:42 AM   #41
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For those that doubted Beyer will adjust figures in extreme pace scenarios, this is from the DRF FAQ page on Moss figures:

Quote:
Q: Beyer adjusted Summer Doldrums' figure down after one of his recent races. Do the Moss figures also adjust figures or do they keep the figure intact ?

A: Our pace figures are based on the variant obtained from the Beyer Speed Figure. Thus if a Beyer figure changes, so does the pace figures.

However... and I hope this makes sense... sometimes a Beyer Speed Figure is “projected” upward or downward because of a slow pace or sometimes a fast pace, and when this happens, it will almost never be reflected in the pace figures.
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Old 05-27-2014, 10:45 AM   #42
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Here is a quote from Beyer himself, from the Paulick Report:

Quote:
Nevertheless, synthetic tracks pose other problems that we rarely encounter on the dirt. The early pace on synthetics is sometimes so slow that the horses can’t accelerate fast enough at the end to run the fastest final time of which they are capable. If a horse is capable of running a mile in 1:36, but the first six furlongs of a race have been run in 1:14, he won’t get to the wire in 1:36. In such cases, we don’t want to give the horses in the field figures that are ridiculously low, so we’ll assign a figure to the race that more accurately reflects the horses’ true level of ability.
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Old 05-27-2014, 11:15 AM   #43
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It is kind of a contradiction from what he said in the Horseplayer Now video, where he stated that Beyer figs are determined by time, not how wide a horse went, if a horse got in trouble, pace, etc. Didn't he say the figure is used as a frame of reference and then other circumstances and factors can be looked at.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cj
Here is a quote from Beyer himself, from the Paulick Report:
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Old 05-27-2014, 11:24 AM   #44
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Originally Posted by Horseplayersbet.com
It is kind of a contradiction from what he said in the Horseplayer Now video, where he stated that Beyer figs are determined by time, not how wide a horse went, if a horse got in trouble, pace, etc. Didn't he say the figure is used as a frame of reference and then other circumstances and factors can be looked at.
Like I said, I didn't watch the video, but I know reality. I also don't know the date of the video. Maybe it was earlier?

Races are broken out from others all the time by figure makers, and pace is just one of many reasons.
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Old 05-27-2014, 11:29 AM   #45
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cj
Like I said, I didn't watch the video, but I know reality. I also don't know the date of the video. Maybe it was earlier?

Races are broken out from others all the time by figure makers, and pace is just one of many reasons.
Not arguing. I know, this stuff as been going on for a long time. I'm just pointing out the contradiction. I'm old school though, if a speed figure is supposed to be only a speed figure, pace shouldn't matter. The case for a high wind during a race or a changing track is a different story though.

When I used to do my own speed figs, if a race was too slow or too fast, I wouldn't use it the average to determine the daily variant, but I would apply the variant to it in the future.
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