SALVATORE: Facts, not conjecture, make figures
Doug Salvatore’s Pedigree Handicapping appears at Brisnet.com & the Twin Spires.com Blog Roll.
In the figure making process in North America, the basic goal is to determine how fast a horse ran while accounting for the speed of the racing surface.
“Facts” are things like: fractional clockings, final time, beaten length margins, relationships between distances, weight carried, ground loss on turn, wind velocity and direction.
Of course, these aren’t even actually real facts. North American races are timed with varying run-up. The fractional and final time clockings are occasionally timed wrong or reported wrong. The chart callers don’t always get the margins correct. The weight carried isn’t even always dead-on precise. And wind velocity and direction is a variable I’m not sure anyone knows how to accurately account for all of the time. It can hinder the day-to-day relationships between distances.
Nevertheless, flawed as each one is, these are the facts. The facts make the figures. Thus, the figures make themselves…(with the aid of algorithms, parallel time charts, beaten length adjustments, etc.)
The “theories” start to arise when:
A.) The figures show a clear pattern suggesting the surface changed speed.
B.) A figure makes no sense at all to any sane person.
C.) A figure makes no sense at all to the person who is making the figures.
D.) A figure comes to a conclusion with which we strongly disagree.
There are countless reasons why A-through-D happen. Everything from the race being timed inaccurately, to changes in weather conditions, and so on.
The remedy comes in the form of “split variants” as well as the more extreme measure of “cutting a race loose”
After this, you’ve arrived at your final figure. Obviously, there are varying types of figures. For instance, sheet style figs will account for weight, wind, and ground loss — but not pace.
In the case of the speed figure for this years Kentucky Derby. I think of a quote attributed to Arthur Conan Doyle that warns “one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.”
The “facts” clearly point to one single conclusion — the race was alarmingly slow!
The test now is “can I twist theories to suit these facts?” The answer for me is yes…
* The race in question is run at a longer distance than any horse had ever run. They all carried more weight (126lbs) than ever before. The congested field, led to either rough trips or wide trips. Off the pace types were subjected to taking a lot of kickback on day when closers didn’t perform well.
* The problem I have with the argument that the track slowed WAY down for the Derby, look at Race 13, a 2-turn route that was run only five points slower than the Derby. I guess it sped back up again.
* We Miss Artie, a poor dirt horse with excellent turf and synthetic form, ate a ton of dirt and finished 10th, but was still only beaten 8.25 lengths. This is the same We Miss Artie who was blown off the track in an in-company workout the weekend prior. Even with California Chrome getting only a 97 Beyer, We Miss Artie still “pairs up” his figure for his perfect trip Sprial win.
* Commanding Curve, a plodder I selected to finish 4th in print, never got the pace setup he seemed sure to get. Still, he finished 2nd beaten less than two lengths. This is the same horse who finished 6th in the Risen Star and was 3rd beaten 5 lengths to Vicar’s In Trouble in a Louisiana Derby that went much slower than the girls did in a tough Fair Ground Oaks edition on the same card. He still has his N1X allowance condition. While he enjoyed a remarkably clean trip, he still ate a ton of dirt as well.
My conclusion: Give the horses a few bonus points for racing an extra 1.5 furlongs into a head-wind versus the races on the card at 8.5 furlongs. Also, assume improvement from some horses for logical reasons. They’ll cutback, they’ll have easier trips, they’ll mature physically, they’ll carry less weight…stuff like that will obviously lead to improvement.
The Kentucky Derby is an outlier type race, and horses figure to go backwards in it because of the more demanding circumstances to it.
I’ve noticed two great figure makers are also using track maintenance happenings to soup the figure up to a more comfortable number for them. Maybe correctly so on their part, who really knows.
However tough this figure was, it’s cringe worthy to see a lot of racing fans, industry people, and media members dismiss the speed figure as it’s somehow 100% irrelevant.
Most amusingly, the people who are doing it the loudest, are the same exact people who either shunned or glossed over the insanely fast 2013 Derby pace. Instead of substantive discussions — these people try to appeal to morons by spouting off nonsense.