In Figures We Trust
 

Interesting situation in SAR-08-30-10_R4

Two horses coming out of off-the-turf efforts, ran, apparently, significantly FASTER in their respective race than they ever had before. Now, I don't have the Beyers for these horses but I do know that they were incongruent enough for Serling to point them out; and, dismiss them. I do, however, have the BRIS speed numbers, and, I imagine, these capture the incongruence.

D'big Cat:
98
86
55
76
86
83

So, D'big Cat jumped up 12 points in an off-the-turf 5.5F sprint, claiming 25K.:rolleyes:

Fastus Cactus:
109
94
87
88
84
82
85
81

Fastus Cactus jumped up 15 points in an off-the-turf 5.5F sprint, claiming 25K. :rolleyes:

Now, RUDY trains the former and Dick Dutrow the latter but, still, the point is WHY are these figures so high, when, clearly, they're not representative, as neither horse won yesterday. (I have no idea what the number for the race was.)

I'm known as a critic of numbers but, surely, one has to wonder why these off-the-turf 5.5F sprints are coming back with such high numbers; both for BEYER (who should 'know' better) and BRIS (automated figures which, I hear, are not as accurate).

D'bigcat sure as hell didn't disgrace that figure yesterday (running a furlong further than he wants to) and who knows what Fastus Cactus would've done if he didn't bolt at the top of the stretch. This is a bad example of phony figures.

What were their Beyers in the 5.5F races and what were the Beyers yesterday?

Surely, you can't believe that those races were for real? Fastus Cactus only won by 2.4 lengths and D'big Cat by 4.75 lengths. Who was behind them and why are their connections wasting time running them on turf?

Is it a methodological issue or a JUICE issue? Maybe Fastus Cactus is a STAKE horse on DIRT (and a relative plug on Poly and turf.)

They may have been a tad high, but it's hardly the huge inflation you're implying. The bolded makes no sense, you realize there can be more than one MTO in these races, right?

Devilish Due, who ran a 77 (not out of character) in running second to D'bigcat, was an MTO like D'bigcat was. Especially considering what Rudy's been capable of, the 90 for D'bigcat makes plenty of sense. Again, he ran well yesterday considering he clearly doesn't want to go a step beyond six furlongs. I don't know what the Beyer was, I'd guess in the low 80s.

Fastus Cactus' number is the more questionable one, but again, he beat an MTO in My Golden Opinion, who was 6+ clear of third and ran a 94. I didn't buy that number because I don't think MGO is capable of that at this point in his career and it made me take a stand against FC. However, like I said, considering FC completely blew the turn, we can't know whether or not he could've run close to the 101. My guess is no, but he was taken out of the race.

I haven't looked at the PPs of the horses behind them in those races. But, I suspect, many turfers ran significantly faster than they ever have on dirt.

It's not about someone with an opinion buying into these numbers, as, cleary, neither had a shot (to win) going 7F -- both the distance and the setup were against them. But, these stick out like sore thumbs and, I'd think, that there'd be some work put in towards making sense of them. If it's the case (likely) that they just got the best of it on the front end, given the distance, then the figure should be tweaked. Not like this would be unprecedented.

Fastus Cactus didn't just blow the turn. He was getting out the whole race. He must have been in the 8 path as the field went down the backside.

Of the horses that were entered in the main body of D'bigcat's race (race fig/top dirt fig):

Dixie Night Out (73/76)
Cayo Hueso (69/73)
Morning Run (68/75)
Regal Soul (62/83)
Little Alex (58/65)
Count Catamount (45/78)

So, nobody behind D'bigcat even ran back to their previous dirt top, much less improved on it.

Fastus Cactus' race:

Subtitles (76/98)
Patron Saint (71/88)
Estimator (73/89)
Sumfun (55/93)
A. P. Eddie (51/90)

Now obviously, these weren't all 'turf' horses. But other than My Golden Opinion running second behind FC, there's no also-ran fig that jumps out at you as phony high.

So, everything in these races ran significantly SLOWER than their best dirt effort? And the winners were the only ones to improve (noticeably).

It's a juice thing then.

Not reading closely through what was already written so shoot me if something has been covered or if this isn't relevant, but. . .

This is probably the worst possible case to use for attacking figures considering the players involved.

D'bigcat, who was a pretty obvious claim considering the amount of speed he showed at the sales and at two, followed up his 90 two back with an 89 at a distance that isn't his best yesterday. And wasn't he an MTO on the 16th? Broken Home, the only other horse to run back out of the race on the 16th, came back to run 5 points higher after being claimed FROM Dub and Chip Dutrow.

Nothing the Cactus did is worth anything considering his behavior throughout the race, but the big fig he earned doesn't seem that out of whack considering the surface and distance changes - especially since he showed an inability to rate on the turf.

I don't have the Beyer numbers for these horses (or the others in their races) so, I'm just going with what's posted here. But some of your reasoning doesn't make sense to me: a horse that's unable to rate routing on turf is able to run big numbers of dirt? What was FC's Beyer number for that race? It wasn't as high as the BRIS # was it?

101.

His turf performances gave the impression of a horse better suited to dirt sprinting, so for him to move up when turned back isn't really much of a surprise is it?

With the exception of his 3 turf routes, he's always been a sprinter. He has one other dirt race, the GP sprint. Per BRIS, he improved that effort by 27 points in the race in question. I realize, Canani didn't have him then and Dutrow got him after that. That's why, I wondered whether this was a JUICE or distance thing.

Can't really go off one figure, but it being a juice thing isn't out of the realm of possibility.

And I know figs aren't your thing, but it's pointless to ever quote a Bris fig. They're not real figures.

I'm only using the BRIS #'s as a point of comparison between prior figures and those for the races in question. Obviously, I have no idea what the Beyers were for these horses. Which puts me at a bit of a disadvantage here.
Of course, Serling spoke about these figures in some detail yesterday. He certainly didn't trust them, as he didn't pick either horse in his top 4. I'm assuming he knows more about this than I do, and it got me to wondering WHY these figures were as high as they were. And, whether they were justified.

One the one hand, BRIS, which are automated, are not real figures for you; on the other, you're outspoken about the ad hoc tweaking of numbers by the Beyer crew. Which one is it?

I'm for tweakings that are logical and justified. It's an application issue for me, not philosophical. The way they tweaked the Blind Luck fig originally just seemed off to me.

I NEVER said I didn't trust the speed figures and in fact pointed out that I knew the raw number for the Fastus Cactus race was even higher than the 101. What I said was they were unlikely to be predictive....especially for yesterday's 7F race. It's handicapping not a problem with the figs.

I stand corrected. So the numbers were legit but the distance/setup wasn't?

I think it's a function of the quirky distance. Really all you have to compare times against at 5.5F are 2yo races- obviously not a great sample size or scope of talents. Therefore your "par chart" would have a problem trying to match up 5.5F vs. 6F, etc. Since each track has a different 5.5F to 6F distance average time due to runup changes (like for example Pimlico has a very high differential- like 7 seconds- and Churchill has a much smaller number- just under 6) putting a "plug" number in doesn't work too well. Likewise, at Belmont Park when they run the 7.5F dirt races they often come back with too LOW of numbers it seems, probably again due to lack of sample size. I would understand it in this situation if Beyer smoothed the figure and left it out of the rest of the day's calculation. Then again, one could make the argument that a horse might be capable of running a 101 Beyer at 5.5F and be completely hopeless at 7F (there's plenty of those types at Charles Town.)

I think the best way to treat figures at quirky distances like 5.5F or 7.5F are to cross them out in the form and ignore them.


They're real figures... just not real good. :D

This is more of what I was looking for.

I think that distances differences of even .5F do make a difference. They certainly make a difference for horses at GG, TAM, TP, PID, etc. (of the tracks that I play). Before we dismiss this as a case of cheap horses, this also holds pretty well at WO, where there are horses that excel going 5F, that can't sniff 6F; and 6F runners that are hopeless going 7F and struggle to get 6F. (Hopeless in terms of have zero chance to win, as I don't know what their numbers are.)

I think if Campo were to regularly card 5F, 5.5F, and more 6.5F races, along with the 6F and 7F dirt staples, we'd see this was also the case for many of the better quality horses.

I don't know how this fits in with Fastus Cactus, however, as he's won going 7F on poly.