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Originally Posted by SentToStud
I think it's nearly impossible to make or use speed figures from a Breeders Cup day.
There's absoulutely no inter-race commonality (age/sex/dist/surf/class) so how can anyone come up with a worthwhile number? For example, how many 10F Grade 1 races does Churchill run in a year much less in a day?
I firmly believe the same logic holds for higher class races at all tracks. There are just not enough Graded Stakes races run to generate enough of a basis from which to develop meaningful final figures, much less pace figures.
I think if you look at a single track, it's FAR more likely that anybody's figs for that track are much more accurate for a $25k claiming class where there may be dozens of races in a sample size than for any Graded Stake where the class/age/etc... components of a race are very rare.
I believe in speed and pace figures. I do my own and it's a lot of work. But I play only one track so that helps. I have far greater faith in pace/final pars at the $16k N2L level than I do in those for the Graded or non-Graded stakes races at my track.
Just one Stooge's thoughts.
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Stud . . . well said. You can't judge a variant for a track that normally runs dime claimers to 54k allowance classes for a day of GI races. It doesn't work. The GI races are so totally different from a normal race day. And so are the early races that lead up to the part of the GI card.
Look at BC day. The card started with a few allowance races which might have been slow because trainers felt they couldn't win due to increased competition, or vice versa, might have been fast because trainers wanted to run their best allowance horses on a big race day. To assess a track variant on those races is foolhardy.
It's a tough call and a huge leap to calculate a track variant based on raw times vs. par for certain classes.
I don't make my own speed figs anymore. Hat's off to people like you who continue the endeavor. It's a huge amount of work -- take it from one who has been there.