Excellent article on declining Beyer's of 3yo's

[Port Conway Lane]

Originally Posted by Calzone Lord

Raw final time has nothing to do with how fast a horse runs.

If it did -- $10,000 dirt claimers at Turf Paradise would be better horses than top Grade 1 males at Saratoga.

Raw final time is a laughably worthless indicator of anything because any race track can be made extremely fast or extremely slow, by any track super, on any given day.

A variant will find how fast or slow the track was VS par.

The brilliant Tizway won the 2011 Whitney over Flat Out in 1:52.43. Quality Road won the Woodward at Saratoga in 1:50.00 -- Curlin won it in 1:49.34 and Premium Tap won it 1:50.65 before running a close 3rd to Invasor and Bernardini in the BC Classic.

Tri Jet went 1:47 flat in the '74 Whitney going 9fs at Saratoga -- and he stumbled at the start and won with a last gasp lunge in a close finish.

If Groupie Doll didn't run Saturday would the beyer number for the derby have been higher?