More of a joke than an analysis on YT- I honestly haven't been watching the NYB 3yo's like I usually do.

I blame it on living in Kentucky- like all the rest of my problems!

They're way above average.

This is enjoyable schit.....

Not the last 2.

Musket Man won last year with a 98 and was 3rd in both the Derby and Preakness with 96 and 106.

Recapturetheglory took advantage of a strong inside-speed bias and won the ILLI Derby two years ago with a 102. He only ran a 92 in the KY Derby, but broke from post 18, was wide while pressing a solid pace, only a head back after a mile and gave ground late.

Denis of Cork ran a 88 Beyer in the ILLI Derby against the bias RTG took advantage of .. he ran a 97 in the Derby and 93 in the Belmont when 3rd and 2nd.

Even if you want to go back to Cowtown Cat's bias aided win and Sweetnorthernsaint's big win .. both were repeated .. Cowtown Cat was beaten only 3.5 lengths to Street Sense at Saratoga and got a slightly better number and SNS was 2nd in the Preakness to Bernardini with an identical number two races later.

I think the HOL#(93) versus the OP#(104) has a ton of personal bias involved. That 93 he gave out should of made him totally useless as a figure maker for racing west of the Rockies. He just can't do it. They're both huge efforts, and not 11 points apart. He just has no credibility when synthetics are involved. I don't agree with Fathead about her Anita races (she just doesn't like Pro-ride much,) but the Hollywood race is not 11 points worse than that Fantasy effort. That's just some common Eastern Bullsht. He has zero reason to change, because his friends will bend over backwards to destroy any opposition.

....the better question is,where can one find peyote?

I really don't want to get too deep into this because it is a very old topic. Speed figures measure final time. However, on synthetics, final time is often irrelevant. The pace is so slow, especially in routes, that horses are never going to run figures like they do on dirt.

Now, if you want Beyer figures to measure something other than final time, maybe they could be made more accurate, but it is still very hard to do. In racing, the goal isn't to run as fast as possible, it is to win the race. On dirt, these often amount to the same thing. On turf and rubber, that simply is not the case.

So again, I'm not sure what you want Beyer to do. His figures have never purported to do anything but measure final time. On rubber, final time is a very small part of determining how good a horse happens to be.

I think BEYERS do a disservice to those that don't have a firm grasp of the game. That's why we're constantly subjected to the same comments about horses 'improving'. I clearly realize that BEYERS don't account for pace, nor for the surface difference, and the nuances that come with it; yet, they continue to play such a huge role in the game. Comments like 'not fast enough', when the reference is to FINAL TIME, really have no part in the game of anyone who understands even the basics of racing. Beyer is stuck between a rock and a hard place. His figures are 'fine' for dirt, as pace doesn't play that much of a role (at least not the primary role it does on synthetics) but they fail woefully in cases where the 'type' of races determines how 'fast' a race is run. In other words, he CAN'T RECONCILE his DIRT with his SYNTHETIC figures. And, thus, he (and his supporters) really should not be commenting on the ability of horses that run on different surfaces. This would result in:

1) less confusing/comical situations for those who have a gauge as to the ability of a given horse

2) the Beyer camp relaxing their (equally comical) campaign against synthetic horses

This is not to say that there's a way to reconcile these numbers, however. It's just an intractable situation if only speed is involved.

The agenda is yours Fat Man....not Beyer's.

It is every person's responsibility to learn and understand these things. I won't argue that " racing " hasn't done a good job over the years explaining these things to the masses, and too many people continue to lead others in the absolute wrong direction, but ultimately these concepts that CJ laid out aren't that complicated. There are two factors...one is a better job needs to be done to educate....but the bigger one is that people need to be willing to listen....really listen.

Simply falling on the misplaced Beyer hatred is specifically NOT listening.

[quote=blackthroatedwind;632714]The agenda is yours Fat Man....not Beyer's.
Simply falling on the misplaced Beyer hatred is specifically NOT listening.[quote]

Exactly. It's all on me. I mean, I was bashing Beyer(s) way before Beyerites were bashing synthetics.

I have an agenda:

1) crush the BEYERITE paradigm

2) crush the Pick(3)4(6) paradigm

Come on, Bro. The game is beatable without having to steer all the neophytes in the wrong direction.

Can you guess who wrote the following in 1993:

"Racing in England and France, in particular is utterly foreign to an American; horses gallop along in a tight pack in virtual slow motion during the early stages of a race and don't accelerate in earnest until they turn into the stretch. As a result, their final times are unimportant, and speed figures would be useless as a handicapping tool."

The answer is.....Andrew Beyer (Beyer on Speed, p 149).
You make it sound as if by making speed figures for horses that run on synthetic or turf Beyer and other figure makers are engaged in some kind of deceitful fraud. I don't think that's the case. As the quotation above illustrates, Beyer has always been very open about what figures are, and - just as importantly - what they are not. If other people use speed figures as some sort of gospel truth when it comes to synthetic and turf horses, then that is on them, not him. As CJ pointed out, since the figures merely involve the final time, it strikes me that it is up to the individual horseplayer to determine if the final time (and therefore a speed figure) is important or not in a given race.

The variant was not split. I'm also not sure how you think the track was "incredibly slow".

The winner of the 1st was given a lifetime top in career start 24. It was 6 points higher than any in his last 10.

The winner of the 3rd was given a 61 after recording 54, 65, 67 his last three, 54 most recent.

The winner of the 4th was given a 57 after running seven straight races between 53 and 64.

The winner of the 5th was given a 75 after running his career high, a 74, in his previous race. This was start number 17.

The winner of the 9th was given a 92 after his last 3 of 51, 82, 89. He did come off a layoff and had some nice 100+ back numbers. The runner up will get an 88, a lifetime top in career start number 19.

Again, all used the same variant, including the Illinois Derby.

I posted this in another thread, but the figures for the 9F races at Aqueduct on Saturday seem too high, for the reason quoted above. Given the slow pace of each, the final time of both races seemed a little slow for how the track was overall playing Saturday.

Eskendereya was very impressive, especially in comparison to the slow come home time for the Excelsior, but both of these races were contested in the manner that we often see in turf/synthetic races and typically result in final figures slower than the actual performance may warrant.

I would disagree because for the Excelsior, the pace was exactly what I would have predicted for the final time. I don't think it was slow at all for that track, just average.

They were both paceless races on paper, and played that way out on the track. The Excelsior was particularly ugly through the stretch, as evidenced by what visually appeared to be Nite Light "coming again" when he was empty on the turn. To justify the Wood figure, it appears that projections were partly made off of what the Excelsior participants normally run - a tough to justify projection based on the way that race played out on the track.

There were two 7F races that were run in 1:21 and change, and NY-bred MSW horses cut a 44 and change half, so the track was not slow. The final time of the Wood was the third slowest in the past 14 years; that's largely a function of the early pace. Still, it gets a higher figure than either the Carter or Bay Shore, which were run in pretty representative time. Maybe, we'll have to agree to disagree but I don't think the figures for the two-turn races make sense.

The Excelsior was one FUNKY race. This was the, at least, 3rd time on Saturday that a horse made a late run on the inside to get 2nd, when it appeared hopelessly beaten earlier, and the outside horse appeared to be running on quick sand.

Fair enough, but one thing I know is that both 9f routes, in relation to final time, were not paceless. The Wood was mildly slow on raw figures, and the older horses were exactly dead on.

On raw times, the Excelsior had a raw pace figure (Beyer Scale) of 92 and a raw speed figure of 92. The Wood had a raw pace figure of 95 and a speed figure of 105. I'm using the 6f time for the pace calls.

I think part of it is people don't realize that the Aqueduct 6F timer at 9F is a little late and when 1:13 comes up on the screen it "feels" slow, especially compared to the 1-turn 9F at Belmont.

Yeah - and a 74, 70, and 74 in his 3 starts before that.

So, in victory, he was lengths slower than in five of his last 6 races. The 54 was when well beaten on a sloppy sealed track.

Everyone else in that field also went backwards. Some severly.



Four of his last five races were between 61 and 64 - and his last was a 63. He won by 2+ lengths at 5/2 but still ran a couple lengths worse than normal.



Yes - a 3/1 shot winner improved over his last race by one point when he was beaten a couple lengths at the same class level.

Yeah the winner had obviously returned to ok form ... but he also had a four race stretch of 100, 101, 106, and 99 last year. The 9/1 shot who ran 2nd ran 2 points faster than last time .. and a lot of beaten horses made big backward moves.

It seems like 1 point was shaved off of the ILL Derby... and since it was longer than those other races and involved more running into head-wind .. shouldn't it be the other way if any?

Huh??? I've never heard of timer problems at Aqueduct on the main track. The turf course - where races are hand-timed, yes, but never the main track.

The pace is what it is, no matter when it comes up on the screen. A half in 49.1 and 6F in 1:13+ is slow for a grade I dirt race, whether contested around one or two turns. If you don't believe me, listen to Mike Hushion who described the Excelsior in tomorrow's DRF as a "paceless race." The same article described the pace of the Wood as "excruciatingly slow."

I think I'd rather listen to people that bet. They are off base on this one. Ask them what the average winning pace time is for 9f at Aqueduct. I guarantee Mike Hushion doesn't have a clue. When you normalize the final time, the average final time for the winner of 9f races in New York are as follows:

Aqu-ID, 73.85
Bel, 74.09
Aqu, 74.69
Sar, 73.89

You think he, or the writer of the article, know that the 6f pace times for 9f races at Aqueduct are routinely the slowest in New York by an average of nearly 4/5ths of a second? I don't track half mile times in routes, but I know the difference would be even greater, more than a full second.

I totally agree with everything above.

However ... I have a question.

cmorioles - War Pass finished 2nd and was a half length loser of the Wood Memorial a few years ago.

He dueled with a Bill Mott rabbit through fractions of 22.46 46.07 1:11.50 1:38.42 1:52.35 and just missed. Pretty hot fractions for 9f at AQU on a not-so fast main track.

My question is simply this ... did the hapless rabbit have an impact on the outcome of that race? Keep in mind those two put over 6 lengths on the rest of the field through that wicked 22.46 opening quarter.

Drugs, we can do this all day.

First, you ignored the 1st race.

The third, the horse was dropping from two poor races at 10k to 4k. He is in the hands of a very poor trainer after being claimed 3 back. If you want to believe he ran back to his good races, good luck.

The 4th was a brutal pace for those cheap fillies. Of course they are going to run slower. It was 20 points faster than the speed figure.

In the fifth, it could be possible the horse improved a little more, but did you look at the horses behind him? Also, the pace was about 8 points faster than the final time, and since the winner actually led from the 1/2 call home, the 75 is probably a little better than it looks. Giving him even higher would be unrealistic.

I agree the 9th is the toughest to judge. I think the runner up is the best horse to judge for the figure. He was given a lifetime top, basically a pair up, in his 19th career start while being beaten pretty easily.

As for the general "a lot of beaten horses made big backwards moves"...all I can say is no sh!t, that is why they were beaten. I realize the horses had a headwind coming home, but even after adjusting for this the paces of the routes were honest to fast. By far the slowest was the Illinios Derby in relation to final time. This causes lots of horses to move backwards when they are beaten.

R1: Fast 11
R3: Fast 3
R4: Fast 20
R5: Fast 8
R7: Slow 6
R9: Fast 8

I know.

I would assume he did, but War Pass was also the kind of horse that tended to go too fast anyway and tire late. We never learned if he was the type that could rate and go 9f or not, so there is no way to be sure. If I had to guess, I would say without the rabbit he slows down, but it is just a guess.

You're way better than this.

Even I wouldn't still argue that on my most stubborn day.

I honestly don't remember that much about it because I don't worry about races that happened two years ago. What was the point of the question? Since I didn't know I just gave a generic answer.

Putting aside the question of whether Mike Hushion knows what he's doing (the numbers seem to suggest that he does), what are you basing these "averages" on, because the only 9F races at Aqueduct these days seem to be for NY-bred NW1X optional claimers or off-the-turf races, hardly a reasonable comparison. These are graded races that we are talking about. With that in mind, and recognizing that the track was faster than par for Bellamy Road's Wood, here are the fractional splits for the Wood and Excelsior from 2005-09:

2009 Wood: 24.2, 48.0, 1:12:1, 1:49.2
2009 Excelsior: 25.2, 50.3, 1:14.3, 1:50.4

2008 Wood: 22.2, 46.0, 1:11.2, 1:52.1
2009 Excelsior: 23.4, 48.2, 1:13.3, 1:51

2007 Wood: 23.1, 47.1, 1:10.4, 1:49.2
2008 Excelsior: 23.3, 46.3, 1:10.1, 1:48

2006 Wood: 23.0, 46.1, 1:11.0, 1:51.2
2006 Excelsior: 23.2, 46.1, 1:10.3, 1:48.1

2005 Wood: 23.0, 46.0, 1:09.4, 1:47
2005 Excelsior: 24.2, 48.1, 1:12.3, 1:50.2

Based on these splits, I don't know how one can argue that the pace for the races this past weekend were "average" relative to the class of the horses involved.

Huge dust-up.

You were one of a few different screen names who typed a lot mocking me when I said that the rabbit would hurt War Pass and probably cost him the race and it hurt my feelings considerably.

The rabbit was supposed to be way too slow and a poor choice of rabbit.

Why not show the final times for each race as well?

I'm basing them on all the races at Aqueduct over the last several years. If what you say was a factor, the actual average pace time for Aqueduct would be even slower than what I reported because cheap, bad, and young horses always run faster pace times in relation to final time than classier fit horses do. If you took 100 races won by NW1 NY Breds at 9f that were won in a time of 1:51, and 100 races won be G1 horses with the same conditions and final time, the G1 horses would run slower to the 4f and 6f calls on average and finish faster.

How Mike Hushion trains horses has absolutely nothing to do with how he evaluates the pace of races that have already happened. Just because I know a lot about making figures (at least I think I do) doesn't mean I know how to prepare a horse for his first start or get him to break out of the gate.

As for all the past Wood's, I use figures, not raw times. These are what I have:

2005: 114 pace, 111 speed
2006: 116 pace, 93 speed
2007: 108 pace, 98 speed
2008: 122 pace, 94 speed
2009: 104 pace, 104 speed
2010: 103 pace, 109 speed

It looks to me like you have had a bunch of horses going too fast early and finishing like plow horses in the Wood. Perhaps that is why people are fooled into thinking the pace was so slow this year. It was a little slow, but hardly paceless. Maybe this year the winner of the Wood will actually accomplish something in the future in a dirt route. It would be a nice change.

Men shouldn't hold grudges. Especially ones who criticize a feminine throwing president.

Well I just said he probably did affect him. I was probably wrong, and I think I admitted as much after. I'm wrong a lot in this game. Since he never ran again though, I won't say it is 100% certain because he was a headstrong horse that was hard to handle early anyway.

Read a history book. It is perfectly acceptable for men to hold personal grudges. Wars are fought over such things.

I jerked off into a girls shampoo bottle because she hurt my feelings.

I would whip myself up into an inner fenzy and try to injure even my friends in gym class and make it look like acidents if they ever did or said anything I didn't like.

There is nothing even remotely feminine about having pride.

Getting back to the thread, I agree the 109 is too high and that AL 98 is too low.

Why? Just guessing? Any insight?

I posted in the other thread on this and parisix sums up pretty much how I feel. AQ was not slow on Sat and that time for the Wood was avg, I think sometimes draw off performances simply get overrated....The HAW fig is tougher. That track was pretty slow so the raw final doesn't bother me.

Figs aren't always perfect. Remember that Arnold(I think) maiden a few years ago getting 20 subtracted from it? It does happen.

You think that Eskendereya got a 109 because he drew off late?

He ran a very strong final time based on the pace of the race. Was it aided by the pace of the race? More than likely but when you take his time at face value stacked up against the Excelsior it was a strong effort.

If there was one horse in any of the stakes portion whose figure can be taken with a grain of salt (and not because it's wrong, I think it's right on) its Warrior's Reward who ran a fifth of a second faster for the 7/8ths in the Carter than Eightyfiveinafifty did in the Bay Shore despite the pace of the Carter being nearly a second slower. I think Warrior's Reward's effort was outstanding.

NT

Humans make these. They are not infallable. And yes I think there are times that fig makers fall in love with certain performances....and also downgrade horses based on previous races.

I had not done so, because we were discussing the pace of the race, but since you asked, I have edited the above post to include final times.

If you put the pace of the Wood in the context of other Derby preps, the pace in the Florida Derby (46.3, 1:10.3) was generally perceived as "hot," while Discreetly Mine was viewed as getting away with murder in a Risen Star that had fractions somewhat comparable (48.3, 1:13.2) to the Wood.

I have questioned the figure for the Wood because, to my way of thinking (and I think history bears this out), when the Wood winner has been perceived as a legitimate Derby threat, they have usually completed the race in the 1:47-48 range: Fusaichi Pegasus, 1:47.4; Congaree, 1:47.4; Buddha, 1:48.3; Empire Maker, 1:48.3; Bellamy Road, 1:47.0; I Want Revenge, 1:49.2. While I am not doubting the quality of Eskendereya's performance, the final time does not measure up, and I did not perceive the track as being 6 or 7 lengths slower than par on Saturday. That's why I questioned the figure, especially when the performances of Eightyfiveinafifty and Warrior's Reward, which I think were on par with their respective races, were given lower figures.