Thorograph #'s- Past Derby Winners

[The Indomitable DrugS]

Originally Posted by smuthg

DrugS, I think you have hit on the point of my question/comment. To think that Easy Goer (while an incredible horse) received the same number as probably the single greatest performance in the history of the sport, makes me question the "soundness", for lack of a better word, of the speed figures over several generations of horses...

Some who saw Twice A Prince run (and I surely didn't!) might counter that by saying that beating Sunday Silence by 8 lengths, is probably a bigger achievement than beating Twice a Prince by 31 lengths, in a 12 furlong race.

I think someone once told me that Twice A Prince made all 23 of his lifetime starts during his 3yo season. He never won a stake, and made just 94K. Not to take anything away from Big Red's amazing Belmont Stakes performance.

I can see how Easy Goer's Belmont figure, could be incredibly fast on the sheets. He was wide on both turns, and ran the 2nd fastest time in history, beating a very solid horse by a lopsided margin.

To me, what's downright impossible to defend, is Easy Goer's Wood Memroial figure---which was also a 0...and the same number as both his and Big Red's Belmont. He only beat Rock Point by 3 or 4 lengths that day!

On the Beyer figures, horses are not progressively getting a lot faster. However, they are on the Ragozin Sheets, and most certainly are getting MUCH faster on the Thoro-graph sheets.

Spectacular Bid held the fastest Ragozin sheet figure ever recorded for over 20 years until Congaree broke it in his first NYRA Mile win. I think a few other horses have bested it since.

I guess it boils down to who's figures you trust most---because if you are comparing figures for horses over several generations---you'll notice horses are getting much faster on the sheet style figures....and that isn't the case on the Beyer Style figures.