fig makers question re: off the board runners

[elhelmete]

I'm curious if any of the figure makers observe or adjust for horses who finish up the track and who obviously stopped persevering at the 16th pole or before.

[pandy]

Originally Posted by elhelmete

I'm curious if any of the figure makers observe or adjust for horses who finish up the track and who obviously stopped persevering at the 16th pole or before.

I believe the answer from everyone who does figs will be no.

[deelo]

i'd say it's up to you to upgrade/downgrade raw figs with your own trip handicapping

[cj]

Originally Posted by elhelmete

I'm curious if any of the figure makers observe or adjust for horses who finish up the track and who obviously stopped persevering at the 16th pole or before.

No. It would have to be subjective, and to be frank, it probably wouldn't matter anyway. Horses in that situation rarely run a figure that is going to have much relevance when they return anyway. It does help to look at the pace figures for horses like this to see if that is one of the main culprits for the lack of try late.

[Prof.Factor]

Originally Posted by elhelmete

I'm curious if any of the figure makers observe or adjust for horses who finish up the track and who obviously stopped persevering at the 16th pole or before.

My cut-off is 17 lengths beaten for up-the-track finishers.

[sjk]

I do not adjust the speed figure but I have adjustment that gets added into the speed figure when it is used and this adjustment is generally a large positive for horses which lose massively in the stretch.

I have had good luck with this approach.

[Robert Fischer]

Unless it happens in a big class hike, the fig is going to be well below this runner's top and last 3.

I personally don't know all of the methodology a fig player uses to determine if a horse is fast enough. Guessing here that this would be a 'draw a line through it' race, and *most of the time the runner would have representative figs.

*Maybe there's some money in the cases where runners lack those representative figs and a fig player is forced to consider the off-the-board race? 2nd-Time-Starters (where the off-the-board easing) occurred in the debut race immediately jumps to mind. Excluding runners you feel have no underlying quality/potential... Seems like a useful spot play vertical exotics, but one that may only present itself maybe once a month. I'm sure there are other scenarios, but my brain storm is more of a calm breeze at this point...


Cj makes a good point about pace. If a hot pace burned a horse out leading to an eased-off-the-board, that itself is an angle.

I remember a thread about the 'vanned off' comment, which while not my favorite angle, and one of the worst angles to be an ambassador of the game, is kind of an extreme version of the hot-pace, eased, off-the-board angle...

[thaskalos]

Originally Posted by sjk

I do not adjust the speed figure but I have adjustment that gets added into the speed figure when it is used and this adjustment is generally a large positive for horses which lose massively in the stretch.

I have had good luck with this approach.

I was thinking of implementing the same sort of logic...but I had a thought that changed my mind:

Since only the winner's time is recorded at the finish line, and all the other horses in the race are timed in accordance with lengths-behind estimations...isn't this in essence giving undue credit to the horses who are tiring badly down the stretch? If the trailing horses are timed in accordance with predetermined lengths-behind calculations...then the horses who are tiring badly down the stretch will not be running as fast to the wire as the estimates will indicate that they should...and this will result in inflated speed figures for those exhausted horses. NO?

[Tom]

Looking at the pace fig for horses beaten by huge margins is a good way to get winners shipping from NYRA to FL.

[cj]

Originally Posted by thaskalos

I was thinking of implementing the same sort of logic...but I had a thought that changed my mind:

Since only the winner's time is recorded at the finish line, and all the other horses in the race are timed in accordance with lengths-behind estimations...isn't this in essence giving undue credit to the horses who are tiring badly down the stretch? If the trailing horses are timed in accordance with predetermined lengths-behind calculations...then the horses who are tiring badly down the stretch will not be running as fast to the wire as the estimates will indicate that they should...and this will result in inflated speed figures for those exhausted horses. NO?

Beaten lengths at the finish aren't estimations, they are simply conversions of the exact time for the horse converted to a fictional distance. If someone takes the time to figure out the exact conversions used by the photo finish companies, the guesswork is removed. The conversions vary a little from track to track and change by distance.

[thaskalos]

Originally Posted by cj

Beaten lengths at the finish aren't estimations, they are simply conversions of the exact time for the horse converted to a fictional distance. If someone takes the time to figure out the exact conversions used by the photo finish companies, the guesswork is removed. The conversions vary a little from track to track and change by distance.

I phrased my post wrongly. What I meant by "estimations" was that the finishing times of the trailing horses are ESTIMATED in accordance to the lengths behind the winner that the horses find themselves when the leading horse reaches the wire...instead of each horse getting timed individually at the finish wire, as they do with the quarterhorses.

[cj]

Originally Posted by thaskalos

I phrased my post wrongly. What I meant by "estimations" was that the finishing times of the trailing horses are ESTIMATED in accordance to the lengths behind the winner that the horses find themselves when the leading horse reaches the wire...instead of each horse getting timed individually at the finish wire, as they do with the quarterhorses.

But they are actually timed like quarter horses. They just give us the conversion instead of the actual time. But it is available. It gets posted at some tracks after the race. What you see in PPs has nothing to do with where the horses are when the winner hits the wire.

[thaskalos]

Originally Posted by cj

But they are actually timed like quarter horses. They just give us the conversion instead of the actual time. But it is available. It gets posted at some tracks after the race. What you see in PPs has nothing to do with where the horses are when the winner hits the wire.

When the 4th-place horse hits the wire 10 lengths behind the winner...does the track teletimer record that particular horse's running time at the finish wire?

[dnlgfnk]

Whatever the methodology of computing beaten lengths, horses routinely, on an everyday basis, are credited with a best or near best career figure when losing by significant beaten lengths in a higher class or high figure winner race.

Beyer alluded to this ("outrun figures") but didn't elaborate in My 50k Year. I use this factor when it is apparent as the reason a horse is being strongly backed.

[cj]

Originally Posted by thaskalos

When the 4th-place horse hits the wire 10 lengths behind the winner...does the track teletimer record that particular horse's running time at the finish wire?

No, the photo finish system does.