Derby and Performance Figures

[somerfrost]

Originally Posted by Port Conway Lane

Sorry but I'm not missing the point. Your first post stated you believe PF's were superior to BSF's in narrowing down the field in the derby.

My reply asked for the record of the top 5 BSF horses over the same time frame and you have not addressed that question. I completed my reply by pointing out, maybe not in the same way you just now acknowledged, that they are "simply a tool,one of many."

Ok, I understand you want a multi-year comparison, somewhere in my files I have several years of same which led me to use PF's instead of BSF's. I started using PF's exclusively in 2005 so I didn't compare the two thereafter. If I can locate same, I will post....in the meantime, Dr Roman did a one year study with results posted at his site. The two methods were compared in a variety of ways but in reference to top 5 vs top 5:
2001 Derby
BSF:
Millennium Wind...114 (finished 11th)
Balto Star...112 (finished 14th)
Keats...110 (finished 16th)
Point Given...110 (finished 5th)
Congaree...108 (finished 3rd)
PF's:
Congaree...-76 (finished 3rd)
Thunder Blitz...-76 (finished 4th)
Monarchos...-70 (winner)
Balto Star...-69 (finished 14th)
Millennium Wind (finished 11th)
Again, this was a one year study and Dr Roman summarized results thusly, "No general conclusions about the value of BSFs or PFs should be drawn from these singular results. BSFs have stood the test of time. They are certainly a profound improvement over raw time as a measure of performance. Nevertheless, the results do suggest that other approaches may be at least as accurate and equally useful."

[The Indomitable DrugS]

Thunder Blitz's prep was open lengths faster than Point Given's Santa Anita Derby romp - or Millenium Wind's tour de force on that crazy old KEE dirt track?

That pretty much only shows a glaring flaw with his variant as I understand it. Thunder Blitz was coming from Hialeah - had he ran his final prep at Thistle Downs his figure would have been huge because of the straight class par model.

[somerfrost]

Originally Posted by The Indomitable DrugS

Thunder Blitz's prep was open lengths faster than Point Given's Santa Anita Derby romp - or Millenium Wind's tour de force on that crazy old KEE dirt track?

That pretty much only shows a glaring flaw with his variant as I understand it. Thunder Blitz was coming from Hialeah - had he ran his final prep at Thistle Downs his figure would have been huge because of the straight class par model.

Again, quoting Dr Roman:
"The two approaches differ mainly in that BSFs are based only on the final time of a race while PFs are based on an integration of final time and fractional time. In other words, PFs incorporate a significant pace factor while BSFs do not. The general methodologies are similar to the extent that both use variants from an expected level of performance to fine tune the raw numbers. These variants from the norm may be derived by comparison with par values for the class of race or, in the case of BSFs, projecting an expected figure based on the past history of an individual horse."

[Port Conway Lane]

Originally Posted by somerfrost

Ok, I understand you want a multi-year comparison, somewhere in my files I have several years of same which led me to use PF's instead of BSF's. I started using PF's exclusively in 2005 so I didn't compare the two thereafter. If I can locate same, I will post....in the meantime, Dr Roman did a one year study with results posted at his site. The two methods were compared in a variety of ways but in reference to top 5 vs top 5:
2001 Derby
BSF:
Millennium Wind...114 (finished 11th)
Balto Star...112 (finished 14th)
Keats...110 (finished 16th)
Point Given...110 (finished 5th)
Congaree...108 (finished 3rd)
PF's:
Congaree...-76 (finished 3rd)
Thunder Blitz...-76 (finished 4th)
Monarchos...-70 (winner)
Balto Star...-69 (finished 14th)
Millennium Wind (finished 11th)
Again, this was a one year study and Dr Roman summarized results thusly, "No general conclusions about the value of BSFs or PFs should be drawn from these singular results. BSFs have stood the test of time. They are certainly a profound improvement over raw time as a measure of performance. Nevertheless, the results do suggest that other approaches may be at least as accurate and equally useful."

Yes this is what I was looking for. I was looking at it just a few minutes ago.
The link to the page is here.
http://www.chef-de-race.com/pfs/bsf_vs_pf.htm

He picked a good year for the comparison.

[Gate Dancer]

Dr. Roman's 'Pace Parameters for 2011 Ky Derby Preps' link on the main page is definitely worth looking at. It exposes horses or races that just won't stack up on Derby Day also.

[Mike]

I looked at the site, but I sure would like a summary before the Derby, as there is way too much info for me (tonight, anyway)