Life is Good in the Woodward

[cj]

The game has changed too much at this point, comparing horses from different eras is impossible. No horse these days will ever match the accomplishments of the old days, however you want to define the old days.

I also don't think speed figures work for comparison. For one, they don't go back that far. Two, their purpose isn't to compare horses across generations, it is to compare horses racing against each other. Speed Figures drift. It could be up, could be down, but it happens. It could swing both ways at times.

The only fair way to compare horses from different generations, in my opinion, is to compare how dominant they are against their own generation. Even that isn't perfect. What if you generation stinks?

[classhandicapper]

Originally Posted by cj

Even that isn't perfect. What if your generation stinks?

That gets tricky for the current player looking back in time, but it's less tricky if you are following along closely now.

If a crop is really good, when the average ALW horse tries to move into the upper stakes category they will tend to get trounced. If you see horses moving up and being competitive, that's a knock. Same thing in reverse. If one of the top horses is moving in and out of Grade 2 or Grade 3 level races and losing at the lower levels sometimes, it doesn't say much for what's at the top.

No knock on Defunded, but what does it say about those CA older horses if a horse like him could win the Awesome Again? He's a NW2 ALW winner that's been getting his butt kicked in Grade 2 races. Similar with Slow Down Andy.

And extending that, what does it say about the horses in the Pacific Classic that didn't exactly flatter that race this time?

The bigger problem (at least for me) is what to do with the huge winner in a weak group or when the top 2 crush the remainder. I've studied that and have some good formulas based on the data, but I think you don't really know what you are dealing with until a horse is tested hard in a very competitively run race by a horse or preferably a group that you know is really good.

[GMB@BP]

Originally Posted by cj

The game has changed too much at this point, comparing horses from different eras is impossible. No horse these days will ever match the accomplishments of the old days, however you want to define the old days.

I also don't think speed figures work for comparison. For one, they don't go back that far. Two, their purpose isn't to compare horses across generations, it is to compare horses racing against each other. Speed Figures drift. It could be up, could be down, but it happens. It could swing both ways at times.

The only fair way to compare horses from different generations, in my opinion, is to compare how dominant they are against their own generation. Even that isn't perfect. What if you generation stinks?

Tough to compare.

I dont buy the idea that horses of today were not as fast or talented as horses of the 50's 60's etc etc.

I would imagine the number of historically great horses is likely directly proportional in comparison to the foal crops.

If you have 20 historically great horses in the 70's with 20k foals per year then I would expect 10 in the 2010's if there are 10k foals per year. These are made up numbers to illustrate my point. Now it could vary but its not like there were 20 in the 70's and zero right now, that makes zero sense and defies logic.

[VeryOldMan]

Originally Posted by Spalding No!

One question that ought to be answered is how come when horses like Dr. Fager, Swaps, Spectacular Bid, and Secretariat won their races, they didn't just run "very fast times", they actually broke stakes/track/course/world records?

Amen!

I'm not knocking Flightline here - just think his resume of 5 races is painfully thin and he needs to show more to belong in that type of pantheon.

Let's take Dr. Fager as an example - he set a world record of 1:32 1/5 at 1 mile . . . while carrying 134 pounds.

The examples I offered were absolute world-class horses. Flightline just hasn't shown enough to be in that conversation. I hope he goes out in a blaze of glory in the Classic and proves me wrong. But I'll wait.

[GMB@BP]

easier to break records that are 60-70 year old rather than 120-130 years old, just saying.

Do majority of those records still stand?

[Tom]

Flightline has a long way to go before you can him great. At the rate he riuns, he never will.

He is a very good horse who has a lot of potential, but in the grand scheme of racing, he is not close to cracking the "great" barrier.

Ditto Arogate, Justify, American Pharoah......good horses who had potential but never achieved greatness.

[MJC922]

With the process that I use today which is 100% computer-based I'm confident that we could compare horses that are decades apart, however that would require charts in the proper format going back that long, soo, let's forget about it. lol It becomes a nice thought is all it is, but it's cool to think we're likely one of the few that could actually do it without any human judgement, without any bias. Thinking out loud I could pull the peak class rating from every horse and rank them over the past 50 years or longer and then feel we actually have a pretty good overview of things but these are brief moments of peak class in a horse's career.

IMO with speed figures forget it though. For one thing Beyer (legend in the game I mean no disrespect) and many others have their underpinnings grounded in 10k open claiming anywhere = 85 or Quirin 100 whatever, pick your scale. That was the start of things and it works well up to a point but what would we do, adjust for inflation? I'm sure they've tried to de-couple and tweak the whole thing over the years but it's nowhere near as sound as what I'm doing now which amounts to a comparison of each horse's performance relative to all of the other 30+ thousand horses currently racing. Now if you think the quality of that 30k horses as a group varies in ability from decade to decade due to the impact of breeding and medication then I wouldn't necessarily disagree with you but it's still interesting to entertain the thought that we could at least compare top efforts relative to the group which IMO does have validity.

[GMB@BP]

Originally Posted by Tom

Flightline has a long way to go before you can him great. At the rate he riuns, he never will.

He is a very good horse who has a lot of potential, but in the grand scheme of racing, he is not close to cracking the "great" barrier.

Ditto Arogate, Justify, American Pharoah......good horses who had potential but never achieved greatness.

curious, the past 10-15 years, which make horses qualify in your book?

[Tom]

Good question.
I really have to look and see who ran in the last 15 years.
Last ones I can think of maybe Beholder, Frankel, Goldekova......have look at some old PPs.
My standards are Dr. Fager, Forego, Slew of Gold. Silver Charm....horses that ran ofterm carried weight, not one or ywo good races.

[GMB@BP]

Originally Posted by Tom

Good question.
I really have to look and see who ran in the last 15 years.
Last ones I can think of maybe Beholder, Frankel, Goldekova......have look at some old PPs.
My standards are Dr. Fager, Forego, Slew of Gold. Silver Charm....horses that ran ofterm carried weight, not one or ywo good races.

I meant male horses in my post, for clarity, and was thinking dirt horses.

[classhandicapper]

Originally Posted by MJC922

Now if you think the quality of that 30k horses as a group varies in ability from decade to decade due to the impact of breeding and medication then I wouldn't necessarily disagree with you but it's still interesting to entertain the thought that we could at least compare top efforts relative to the group which IMO does have validity.

I think the quality at the top can vary for a variety of reasons year to year and over time, but I think the quality in MSW and limited ALW winners doesn't vary as much.

So using the logic in my prior post, if the older ALW winners are getting killed when they try to take on the best horses that's telling you something about the group at the top (and vice versa). Same when the horses struggling a little at the top drop down looking for an easier spot. If the are crushing fields that tells you something about the top (and vice versa).

I've been using that classing technique to evaluate crops since before there were any published speed figures. It's solid and tends to match what the figures are saying at the time anyway. But if you don't trust the figures over time (and I don't at all), you can still at a minimum trust that method to tell you the gap between the very top and the tiers below.

I think your method would work very well if you had the data and just focused on the upper levels of racing and didn't worry about claimers, inflation, statebreds etc..

[MJC922]

Originally Posted by classhandicapper

I think the quality at the top can vary for a variety of reasons year to year and over time, but I think the quality in MSW and limited ALW winners doesn't vary as much.

So using the logic in my prior post, if the older ALW winners are getting killed when they try to take on the best horses that's telling you something about the group at the top (and vice versa). Same when the horses struggling a little at the top drop down looking for an easier spot. If the are crushing fields that tells you something about the top (and vice versa).

I've been using that classing technique to evaluate crops since before there were any published speed figures. It's solid and tends to match what the figures are saying at the time anyway. But if you don't trust the figures over time (and I don't at all), you can still at a minimum trust that method to tell you the gap between the very top and the tiers below.

I think your method would work very well if you had the data and just focused on the upper levels of racing and didn't worry about claimers, inflation, statebreds etc..

I understand what you're saying although I don't think excluding those would make any significant difference in these class ratings because most of the 'contribution' in non-claiming races comes from non-claiming competitors anyway. A weak 'crop' or weakness at the extremes should be exposed through competition with the lower levels. At the end of the day if all of the horses racing are collectively equal to those of decades ago then we have some peg to hang our hats on. If not then even this process can't cut through it. Even if we could see every horse's performance clearly there will still be differences of opinion between who rates better because some people will define it as the body of work in an entire career, others might say this horse at its peak was as good or better than anyone. Some horses were rather ordinary early in their careers but developed into superstar performers and others are very good right from the beginning. Some compete more frequently, some don't have very adaptable running styles etc. What I'm saying is even if god handed us the actual 'number' for every performance we'd have no way for everyone to collectively agree which horse was really better, we all define it somewhat differently.

[v j stauffer]

FLIGHTLINE is most certainly a GREAT horse.

In all walks of sports ability and accomplishments are an extremely tough juggle.

But when an athlete doesn't have a say in how they are campaigned it shouldn't be held against them.

Use whatever metric you choose. Speed Figures, raw times, margins of victory. In just five starts he's done the kind of things usually reserved for immortals.

He's obviously unsound. For me that only enhances his greatness.

If he crushes in this years BC it will solidify what I've already seen but it won't change anything in my mind which is very much already made up.

I saw something in the PP's of COUNTRY GRAMMAR last weekend that blew me away.

Has anyone ever seen a horse defeated 19 1/2 lengths that earned a 100 Beyer Speed Figure?

Crazy!!

[Tom]

Yes, and canned hash is GREAT FOOD.

I would call Flightline an exciting horse, with great potential,

[jocko699]

How many years did the great Jim Brown play in the NFL?