The Boxer Number; An Overall Horse Capability Rating.

[RonTiller]

Oh boy, I knew this would happen. Here we go:

I had and have no desire to enter into a debate over the values of Mr. Boxer's approach. My comments about Mr. Boxer's work, in an attempt to clarify a sidebar in a previous post, clearly opened the gate though. In fact, I am not qualified to critique the math, and I don't; I have been told by people who are qualified that it is spotless, given the assumptions. I did in fact read and study the paper, although my comments may have suggested otherwise. And I promise not to apply for a job at NASA.

Whether or not one is speaking strictly of friction (as in skiing) or creating an 'Equivalent Friction' force, a blackbox catchall for all the force responsible for decreasing velocity, it is still being treated as a friction problem. In fact, weight enters the velocity equation PRECISELY because weight factors into frictional force. All this embodies an assumption I am not inclined to make, namely:

'We structure the analysis in terms of the more usual case where speed decreases, BY ASSUMING THAT THE DECREASE IS PROPORTIONAL TO THE ENERGY USED TO OVERCOME FRICTION.' (emphasis my own)

Mathematically, Mr. Boxer expresses this as equation 2.

v(t) = Vm-uWx(t) (eq. 2)

v(t) = velocity at time t
Vm = starting velocity
u = the friction coefficient
W = the weight the horse carries (not the weight of the horse + rider)
uW = "equivalent friction".
x(t) = distance at time t

I have no personal beef with any of this. All avenues should be tried and the results objectively measured against other avenues. I hope Mr. Boxer continues his work. Godspeed and all the rest. My position has been:

1. I don't find this starting point plausible, but so what? (Goodbye NASA)

2. The work I have seen, developing velocity equations using different mathematical models, by experts in the requisite math, seems much more plausible an approach to me. Most importantly, I have seen the fruits of these equations measured and remeasured against each other, over hundreds of thousands of races, in an effort to empirically determine, in an as objective fashion as possible, what is the most predictive.

3. Regardless of how plausible or implausible I or anybody else finds a certain methodology, assumption or mathematical model, the only issue that matters is how does it measure up under objective testing. Period. You really CAN tell the temperature by counting cricket chirps, after all.

4. In the absence of large, statistically significant objective studies, I am not much inclined to embrace anything. I accept testimonial evidence in horse racing as quicky as I accept testimonial evidence for powdered beetle dung curing cancer - show me the placebo controlled, double blind study. I have worked side by side with a retired engineer for over 10 years and NOTHING, I mean NOTHING, leaves his computer without having first been measured and remeasured hundreds of ways, regardless of how pretty his equations are or how plausible his initial assumptions seem.

5. I am completely unapologetic about 1 - 4. There, I said it!

Ron Tiller
HDW

PS: To Totemaster: Ouch! I guess you woke up on the wrong side of the bed, so I won't try to make you look foolish. I'll just point out a few things.
First, part of the lengthy quotation (not MY dissertation) reads:

"Fluid Friction is the friction between a solid object as it moves through a liquid or a gas. The drag of air on an airplane or of water on a swimmer are two examples of fluid friction."

Aerodynamic drag is precisely fluid friction, by this categorization. I have in fact stuck my hand out of a fast moving car. I can recommend a few good books on the physics of skiing, swimming and bicycling (3 sports where aerodynamics is really important).

Track surface and its resistance is surely important, as you say. My beef is not that running on sand is much harder and uses more energy. I've read studies on humans precisely measuring the difference in energy expenditures running on sand and compacted dirt. Perhaps similar studies exist for horses.
And I have run 10k races in Italy where half the course was on beach sand. Thanks for the reminder of this awful event. My beef is that this is not an effect of increased or decreased friction. My understanding from physics classes in years gone by is that loose sand absorbs almost all the force of the foot impact and returns very little to the runner, whereas hard surfaces return enough to the runner to give an added boost. Not to mention that is is just plain hard to run on a shifting unstable surface. I am not wed to this explanation though, so I defer to your or anybody else's expertise on this.

[hurrikane]

One thing is very clear about this thread and horseracing in general....hell...life in general.

The people without any substantive data, the willingness to share their data findings, or even offer up anything to validate their claims....always seem to be the ones saying 'you have to do it their way!'

[Rick]

Ron,

Very well done. And, as I'm sure you know, fatigue involves glygogen depletion and lactic acid buildup and oxygen consumption, etc., that I don't understand a thing about but experienced human runners probably do. None of these things have anything to do with friction. Getting tired during a race doesn't involve wearing out your running shoes or overcoming air resistance much compared with these other factiors. There seems to be a LOT of theories about human runners and no one model seems to be accepted by everyone. But, a lot of testing has been done in order to try to determine the best approach. As for horse racing, as usual, it's mostly untested conjectures. Some talk about "velocity" as being the important thing when they really are measuring speed but that's just terminology. But, I still think it makes more sense to worry about acceleration though since F = m * a.

[Dave Schwartz]

Keith,

I still believe that Dave Powers, Clint Tracy, Dave Schwartz and Dick Mitchell are all the same person.

And all this time I thought we were friends...


Dave Schwartz

[NoDayJob]

Originally Posted by hurrikane

One thing is very clear about this thread and horseracing in general....hell...life in general.

The people without any substantive data, the willingness to share their data findings, or even offer up anything to validate their claims....always seem to be the ones saying 'you have to do it their way!'

Yup, you're right. It's my way or the hiway. The right way, the wrong way and the handicapper's way.

[Tote Master]

Paceadvantage
How very kind of you! For your benefit, I'll let you in on a little secret:

The phrase is "I COULDN'T really care less."

By saying you COULD care less, that means you actually care, somewhat....

Another pet peeve of mine.

A pet peeve of mine is to read undeserving criticism and commentary by those who apparently think they know the facts. If I’m wrong about something, I will stand corrected. However, since I’m not an expert in English grammar or colloquialisms, I thought I might just ask someone who is.
The following was my question and their answer:
Question:
A person is trying to say that they don't care about something. Which phrase is the correct English?

”I could really care less.” Or “I couldn't really care less.”

Reply:
The more usual phrase would be 'I really couldn't care less'.

You can think of it as meaning:

1. I could not care less (than I care).

i.e. I care about this so little, that it is not possible to care less than I care.

You also sometimes hear, mostly in American English:

2. I could care less!

This means exactly the same as #1. You can think of it as meaning 'As if I could care less!'.

So obviously your (little secret) explanation of my terminology is incorrect. In either phrase, the wording is apparently correct. However, if the phrase I used is American English, I also poised the question as to what type of English the other phrase is considered.

In any case, I could really care less.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
As for Ron’s recent rebuttal (this page) and Thoroughbred’s description (page 4) of his “Internal Friction” concept, my curiosity has been peeked. So I will attempt to read Mr. Boxer’s paper called “Engineering Analysis of Thoroughbred Racing." I doubt that I will draw the same conclusions as Ron, because I’ve already noticed a major flaw in this paper, if Ron’s description is accurate.

Ron Tiller
"Fluid Friction is the friction between a solid object as it moves through a liquid or a gas. The drag of air on an airplane or of water on a swimmer are two examples of fluid friction."

Aerodynamic drag is precisely fluid friction, by this categorization. I have in fact stuck my hand out of a fast moving car. I can recommend a few good books on the physics of skiing, swimming and bicycling (3 sports where aerodynamics is really important).

So Ron, you don’t believe that fluid friction has any effect on horse racing? Apparently Rick doesn’t, but I’m not sure if he understands the term “cause and effect” either. Perhaps he would also suggest that the horseshoes don’t wear, or that they shouldn’t be secured with nails. Horseshoe’s are available in different designs as well. I seem to recall a couple of names that might be familiar like “stickers” and “mud caulks”. If I’m not mistaken these types of shoes are designed for specific running functions, all related to friction.

Ron Tiller
Track surface and its resistance is surely important, as you say. My beef is not that running on sand is much harder and uses more energy. I've read studies on humans precisely measuring the difference in energy expenditures running on sand and compacted dirt. Perhaps similar studies exist for horses.
And I have run 10k races in Italy where half the course was on beach sand. Thanks for the reminder of this awful event. My beef is that this is not an effect of increased or decreased friction. My understanding from physics classes in years gone by is that loose sand absorbs almost all the force of the foot impact and returns very little to the runner, whereas hard surfaces return enough to the runner to give an added boost. Not to mention that is is just plain hard to run on a shifting unstable surface. I am not wed to this explanation though, so I defer to your or anybody else's expertise on this.

That was exactly my point. However, the friction that you described earlier only covers a limited number of examples. The following is an excerpt from another authoritative source that describes another facet of friction. (I have taken the liberty of underlining the areas that apply).

Causes of friction
Friction is caused by the roughness of the materials rubbing against each other, deformations in the materials, and a molecular attraction between materials.
Surfaces not completely smooth
Most friction results because the surfaces of materials being rubbed together are not completely smooth. If you looked at what seems to be a smooth surface under a microscope, you would see bumps, hills and valleys that would interfere with sliding motion. Of course, the rougher the surface, the more the friction.
If both surfaces become ultra-smooth and flat, the friction from surface roughness becomes negligible, but then friction from molecular attraction comes into play, often becoming greater than the normal friction.
Deformations
Soft materials will deform when under pressure. This also increases the resistance to motion. For example, when you stand on a thick rug, you sink in slightly, which causes resistance when you try to move your feet along the rug's surface. Another example is how rubber tires flatten out at the area on contact with the road.
When materials deform, you must "plow" through to move, thus creating a resistive force.

Note that the word "slide" along the rug's surface was not used. In the same respect, we all know that there are varying descriptions of a racetrack’s condition. Any one of which can fall into a category that would cause the track’s surface to deform to a certain degree under the force of a horse’s weight while standing, walking and yes even running.

While my comments about “running on a sandy beach” reminded you of your own personal unpleasant running experiences, this thread likewise reminds me of the painstaking approachs to traditional (speed) handicapping. I feel very fortunate to have abandoned it all many years ago. But then again, “To each his own”.

Best of luck!

[PaceAdvantage]

Originally Posted by Tote Master

So obviously your (little secret) explanation of my terminology is incorrect. In either phrase, the wording is apparently correct. However, if the phrase I used is American English, I also poised the question as to what type of English the other phrase is considered.

In any case, I could really care less.

Well then, it's your loss I suppose. Don't say I didn't try to educate you. If you hear someone snicker the next time you utter "I could care less" make sure to say hello!

[RXB]

"Irregardless"

[Dave Schwartz]

RXB,

LOL - I lost money on that one once.


Dave Schwartz

[Dan Montilion]

What race was Irregardless in?

Dan Montilion

[Rick]

Hey guys, don't go "nukuler" about it. Anyway, I didn't say that friction wasn't a factor at all, just that it's not a very significant factor compared with others better described as exercise physiology. Horses with the best physical abilitity and in the best shape win much more often than those with the best shoes. It's entirely possible that horses slow down according to the Boxer equations anyway, but we don't know because it hasn't been tested. If you want to get picky about semantics, I'd say that it's not an "engineering" analysis at all but rather a "physics" analysis because he's not designing or building anything.

In reading about pacing for human runners, it's interesting that the experts say that you should run at either an even pace or (preferably according to most) with "negative splits" (run faster in the last part of the race). If this also applies to horses, it might explain why frontrunners can usually improve their times if allowed to set a slower pace but late runners run their best times more consistently.

Anyway, I'm still going to be more worried about whether there's enough gas in my car's tank than I am about optimizing the friction of my tires by setting the air pressure exactly right.

[socantra]

Originally Posted by Rick

Anyway, I'm still going to be more worried about whether there's enough gas in my car's tank than I am about optimizing the friction of my tires by setting the air pressure exactly right.

And if you don't set your air pressure right, you will be putting considerably more of that expensive gas in your tank than you would otherwise.

socantra...

[Rick]

socantra,

As usual, you didn't understand that I was comparing the relative importance of two things, not saying that one of them had no effect whatsoever.

Anyway, I'm not learning anything from this debate, so I'll let the rest of you fight it out. I really need to go do something worthwhile. It's amazing how much effort people will put into arguing about things and how little effort they'll put into finding out if what they're saying is really true.

[SAL]

Originally Posted by Rick

It's amazing how much effort people will put into arguing about things and how little effort they'll put into finding out if what they're saying is really true.

This is very true. I think this is what keeps a lot of lurkers from actually participating in a lot of discussions on this board. I'm amazed at the direction this thread took.

[Rick]

I hereby give my blessing for anyone here to believe what they want to without proof and to express their opinion in an illiterate way. Hey, if it's good enough for our top government leaders, who am I to argue.