so many WANT another great horse so bad. that's a big part of it. another part of it is huge egos. everyone wants to claim to be the one who got the scoop on said superhorse. so any above average effort is trumpeted as the warning shot fired by the next super horse.
and then some of us who call for patience are heckled and jeered for being sticks in the mud.


and i'm a confirmed eye roller. absolutely. if they certified stuff like that, i'd have that certificate framed and proudly displayed.:rolleyes:

I don't think that the quality overall has slipped. It's just that the way horses are raced nowadays prohibits a good horse from being tested many times against other good horses.

Maybe we should make a certificate up. It definately would be up on my wall. Heck, I may be awarded many times.

Thanks! :)

By the way, trust me...you're only saying that now because I've been posting absent my own personal opinions on some of these issues! :D

You caught me! :)

i'd have to display it with my 'teeth gritting' trophy.

Agreed...I always wondered what horses like Turkoman, Precisionist, Snow Chief, Alysheba etc ran on a career-wide basis. I know Beyer's were made in the 80s on the same or similar scale...I wish they'd put them into some kind of publication. The DRF's "champions" book lists all figures from like 1992 on, but anything before that is tough to find. I just have a few random ones such as the ones I've posted.

I don't think I have anything beyond what I posted unfortunately. Would love to see them myself. I recall reading that he ran a 113 in the Preakness and I know his BC Classic was a 122. Somewhere in my old room at home I have a DRF with a list of the BC winning figs from the first several years but I haven't been able to find it - that would obviously produce his # against Ferdinand. Have to look again next time I'm at my parent's house.

Speaking of Groovy, he ran a 133 and a 131 in a couple of his 1987 wins (fastest figs of the past 20 years).

what baffles me....horses supposedly aren't as durable. but geldings are?! look at perfect drift, lava man, funny cide (god bless him). they aren't fragile, they keep running. and i'm not talking running sore, these guys lay it on the line, and do it well. yeah, lava can't ship, but my god when he's at home (ala silver train) he's unbeatable. the skimming of this generation.
galls me, it really does, how they pawn off these 'fragile' creatures, while their 'lesser' brethren are the real men after all...

do you have mineshafts?? or have i just missed them somewhere above...

Mineshaft
JC Gold Cup - 114
Woodward - 117
Suburban - 115
S. Foster - 117
Pim Special - 118
Ben Ali - 116
N. Orleans - 116
Whirlaway - 107
Before that: 103-104-96

If there's any other's in particular that people want, let me know...

do they have to be famous horses? :)

Since he was mentioned earlier,
Skip Away
BC Classic - 110
JC Gold Cup - 100
Woodward - 119
Iselin - 114
Hol Gold Cup - 117
Mass Cap - 121
Pim Special - 118
Gulf Park - 114
Donn - 109

BC Classic - 120
JC Gold Cup - 116
Woodward - 116
Iselin - 115
Whitney - 115
Suburban - 118
Mass Cap - 122
Pim Special - 125
Texas - 92
GPH - 115
Donn - 112

JC Gold Cup - 115
Woodbine - 108
Travers - 111
Haskell - 113
Ohio Dby - 110
Belmont - 105
Preakness - 107
Derby - 87
Bluegrass - 113
Fla Derby - 104
Alw - 100

Only if you want actual figs! I have every champion from 92-present (possibly every stakes winning fig from the same time period if it was in the American Racing Manual), BC winning figs from 88-present, the 1990 BC card, whatever can be extrapolated from horses who ran in races won by any of the above, plus a few other assorted random figs from earlier stars like EG & SS as posted previously.

ok, that's it. sealed the deal.
you're going on my christmas card list!

lol thank you sir. you are much appreciated.

oh, and i haven't actually MAILED christmas cards in years....

do you have hers??? you know, the one. the only. personal ensign???

this reminds me of pais mentioning opening pandoras box earlier...it's like christmas, and the kids open a huge gift and play with the box it came in. you are that box! lol

Some other notes:

* Easy Goer's unadjusted fig in the Wood was a 124. They ultimately awarded it a 110 b/c it seemed unlikely that Triple Buck and whoever else finished in the money suddenly ran absurdly high figs of 118-119.

* From Beyer on Speed: "From 86-92, 7 horses ran 123 or better: Sunday Silence, Easy Goer, Precisionist, Turkoman, Best Pal, Phone Trick, & Groovy." (That means the 122 Alysheba ran in the BC Classic was his lifetime top. Alysheba ran a 95 in the BC Juv and a 113 in the Preakness)

* Personal Ensign ran a 115 in the BC Distaff - that's all I have on her although I seem to recall her Whitney being a 115-116 but could be wrong.

* Groovy 131-134 in '87 Roseben & True North.

* Affirmed 128 (lifetime top) is JC Gold Cup vs Spectacular Bid

* Winning Colors = 111 Derby, 106 Preakness, 115 Distaff

* General Assembly 130+ in Travers

Sounds like I might be able to convince Beyer to do an article about the kind of numbers good horses used to run and compare them to these recent flashes in the pan in order to provide some perspective. If nothing else I will find out some numbers from him.

If you know him personally, I think some kind of publication listing the figs of some of the best pre-1992 horses would be wonderful (especially 70s and 80s when the info was far less available). I was always surprised he never did that before b/c he seems like the type who's into that type of stuff too. That'd be great if you could find out some additional figs to add to what I posted.

Bravado this has been fascinating, reviewing the data you have brought forward. But at the same time sorta depressing when you stop and realize that we don't have these types of horses/performances anymore.

Here's two more - AP Indy and Xtra Heat

For the most part Xtra Heat was slow.

AP INDY
BC Classic - 114
JC Gold Cup - 107
Molson - 93
Belmont - 111
Peter Pan - 108
SA Derby 95
San Rafael - 100

Hol Futurity (not published but seem to recall it being in the 95-98 range)

XTRA HEAT
Fritchie - 99
What a Summer - 105
Garland - 102

BC Sprint - 101
Phoenix - 107
Endine - 99
Str8 Deal - 100
Princess Rooney - 111
Vagrancy - 106
Genuine Risk - 108
Fritchie - 101

Interb - 102
DeFrancis - 106
BC Sprint - 118
SweetnSassy - 120
Endine - 117
Str8 Deal - 113
Test - 100
Prioress - 113
Arctic Cloud - 87
Nassau - 95
Beaumont - 89
Cicada - 90
nothing else above 89

While u are checking out his numbers as a 2yo, go pull up King Glorious' numbers. He was the fastest 2yo of 1988 and should have been the Eclipse winner, not Easy Goer. I don't have the Beyer's but I believe his final race times were:

4.5f-51 1/5
5.5f-1:01 and change
6f-1:08 4/5
7f-1:21 1/5
8f-1:35 3/5 sloppy track

I don't have Bernie's BSFs in front of me, but he ran 5 straight races between 113 and 117. With slight improvement from 3 to 4, it could be expected that he would run 116 to 120 consistently, but we will never know.

how about risen star/pine bluff./ caveat/creme fresch

If you read Beyer's books, he hand wrote a lot of figures in the PP's he includes for study- for example i know General Assembly was a 134 in the Travers.

I have a sense that some of the figures are MUCH higher than what he would award now- which means he either (a) revised down his formula somewhat or ( b ) interjects more human decisionmaking into the final variant selections than before.

For example, Rockhill Native earned a 119 for his Young America win at 2. No 2YO has come even close to that in the last 15 years. My first love as a fan of the game, Devil's Bag, had several in this range as well.

I respectfully disagree, from a filly perspective she was one of the fastest I've ever seen, especially in her late 3YO year. Granted it wasn't a classic revival but her (first) BC Sprint was pretty heady.

I completely agree with what you are saying and have said repeatedly that when they went public and Beyer allowed these guys to change numbers based on "what made sense" to them, that much of their validity went out the window.
Beyer's initial two books are the greatest racing books ever written, PERIOD!!
Everything you need to know about the basics is in those books, everything.
Biases, trips, how to watch races, trainer intent, etc. Its all there. Noone entering this game should read anything but those two books to start out with.
The problem I have is that they should have just kept publishing the raw numbers. Let us decide "what makes sense". The other problem is that if you read the guys who make many of these numbers, they are always talking about a figure "being in line" with what makes sense. Just post the raw number ok? You take away the ability to spot potential bounces when you keep "evening out" the numbers to "make sense".
Too much of the published figs are now a couple of guys opinions. I respect Mark Hopkins and Dick Jerardi both. Jerardi writes a column for the DRF quite often and its one of the best reads in the DRF, always entertaining. But I don't particularly want or care about what their opinions are on how fast a horse ran, just give me the raw number as determined by Beyer's formula. You know, the formula that made him successful and a pioneer in the first place?
I always have said that Summit of Speed Day at Calder in 2003 was the final straw for me, although it worked out great for me!!!!
On that day Valid Video and Shake You Down ran 6f, about one hour apart, on the same track and both ran identical times.
Shockingly, they gave them far different figs. Shake got a much higher fig.
I'm sorry, but that made no sense to me whatsoever.

He could have. Often the numbers take another jump as a four year old.
No one is happy that we will not be able to find out.

Actually it's interesting you bring up that example, that was the sequence of events that drove me to create my own figures. It was almost like they had to "justify" the figures they have been given to Shake You Down; when in their next race Shake failed as the 1/2 favorite and Valid Video won the Kings Bishop at like 8-1 (who could forget Ghostzapper's incredible rally in that race...) I began to question the validity of the Summit of Speed figures.
Sadly, SYD is a shadow of his once great self- finished last of 7 for a 20K tag last Friday at Laurel.

Beyer and Crist are definitely my two favorite writers as well.

That's depressing.

--Dunbar

That's an excellent idea. I'm sure it would be a popular read.

I'm also interested in whether Beyer thinks the numbers have suffered deflation over the years, or whether today's numbers really can be compared to those of 20-30 years ago.

--Dunbar

I'm sure every racing fan of our age can say where he/she was on that day. I listened to that Belmont on the radio while driving back from LA to San Diego. I got so excited by the call that I had to pull over to the side of I-5 or risk losing control of my car.

Could not WAIT for the Travers. Watched that one on a TV at Harrah's in Reno. I could have personally maimed Pincay for robbing fans of an honest showdown.

--Dunbar

That was my first day ever at Saratoga. The infield was open for the record crowd of 50,000. It was prior to the expansion of the grounds behind the main building. They still saddled the horses under trees with no fences where there are now picnic tables and more betting windows. 6 oz burgers were $1.50 and were very good, unlike the garbage they sell now for $6. And Molson drafts were a dollar at the Rafters. Now that was a disco even this old rock and rolling hippie enjoyed

Pincay did nothing wrong on Affirmed. He was set up. Angel, on Shake Shake Shake, was the devil helping out his buddy Georgie V. on Alydar. Very sleazy race.

Trivia question: Who finished third in that four horse race?

Nasty and Bold.