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

[pba1817]

Excuse my ignorance, but I have a few questions.

1- How can "par" ever truly be "par" when we are dealing with living breathing animals? My point is in golf, we have a par, par is a static number, not taking into consideration weather or particular course conditions for that day, nor the performance of other "golfers" on said day. Maybe they all sucked that day,or maybe they were all excellent? Why should that have any effect upon a performance figure?

2- With the invention of racinos with their boosted purses on lower/mid level horses, does this not pull decent stock horses away from the major circuit tracks, and thus boosting their stock and "pars"? Subsequently lowering the stock and "pars" of the major circuit track?

3- It seems to me that quantifying figures off of "par" to relate to the sports elite level is backwards.

[Sightseek]

A follow-up article, Jeradi: The Science Behind Beyer Figures:

http://www.drf.com/news/jerardi-scie...-beyer-figures

[pba1817]

That article makes my questions even more prevalent than before. Jerardi writes early in the article that the numbers are exact math equations, then later in the article admits that the numbers are "about" or "around". It either it is subject to opinion or it isn't....