BSF 'Doldrums': Figure Dives
 

Via Steve Haskin with me on ATRAB...

Beyer Associates has trimmed the Whirlaway figures, where Summer Doldrums earned a 106, down to a 94 a month after the race and in the wake of the Rick Violette trainees' 3rd place showing in the Gotham.

The rub here is that Violette had been specifically quoted after the Whirlaway as saying he was training up to the Gotham lightly with Summer Doldrums BECAUSE of the big Beyer figure he had earned in the prep...

Needless to say, Violette was rather animated upon learning of the revisions this afternoon...

How do they screw something like the BSF that bad up for a horse.
It's bad they messed up by 12 pts., but it's worse to fix after the
horse runs another race after it and had weeks to fix it. You have to
wonder how man other horses have screwed Beyers.

Good show today Steve on ATRAB

I 've said this before. A whole lot of BSFs are adjusted after the fact. It is just the way it is. The sad thing is there is a trainer out there basing his training of a horse on them. LOL! Way to go RV!

Must suck being a trainer and having your horses' training schedule dictated by someone's NUMBERS.

That's funny.

Its only one example of why you have to use those numbers with a little caution.

It is a little ridiculous to adjust it this late. In fairness, it was a tough number to make, but changing it based on what horses do next out is more than silly. The horse won on an ultra souped up rail unchallenged on the lead, so chances are he was going to run his best ever lifetime race. It also wasn't any surprise to those with any knowledge when he didn't come close to matching the number in the Gotham.

Now, he has the horse dropping from a 94 to an 83 or so. Seeing that he sat on the rail in the prior race, and was three wide on both turns in the Gotham, Beyer is saying the races were pretty much the same. Throw in that in the second that the pace was pretty slow, and one could argue (based on the current Beyers) that the horse ran just as well in the Gotham. No way in hell is that the case.

I'd like to hear what Beyer has to say about this. How can they have been wrong by 12 pts, which is something like 7 lengths!? I'm a bigger fan of the BSF's than most people here, but this is ridiculous. Revising a fig AFTER a subsequent race (and perhaps BECAUSE of the poor performance in the subsequent race) reminds me of the way dosage is back-fitted.

Did they actually say that they had re-evaluated the fig because of the Gotham? Either way, it's ludicrous.

--Dunbar

Yet another reason why Thoros kick the snot out of BSF. Do thoros get adjusted---very rarely and when they are its a small amount....Someone was asleep at the wheel on this number or the powers that be would like a higher price on SD going forward.

Thoros get adjusted at least as often, if not more, than Beyers. The adjustments are smaller mostly because the scale is a lot tighter. However, this adjustment is gigantic.

I remember the 2yo filly race that the Beyer was adjusted even more from Belmont this summer, but that one made a lot more sense.

If you are going to put that much weight into those figures you should learn how to make them yourself.

Its a joke that any trainer would use those numbers to dictate how they train, or where they point a horse. If these guys dont know what they have in the barn without a black and white number they dont need to be training.

Figures mean little...unless your talking about the "opposite" sex :D
But then again...with true love, looks shouldn't matter
With horses, they still have to run a winning race...no matter what their "figure" was last time.

If a trainer uses Beyer numbers (or any other numbers) other than timing in works, he is not doing his job because he is not around the horse enough WATCHING the animal. Im sorry, but any trainer worth his fee has got to know what he is dealing with. And if he cant figure a horse out, the humane thing to do is give the animal up to another trainer who can spend time with the horse and can read the animal's needs... Enough so that the trainer has enough guts to say to an owner, "In my opinion, this animal has no business running, I dont care how much money you spent on the horse..." and then explain the reasoning followed by suggestions on second opinions. But of course if the trainer asked the owner to purchase the animal then, well then, you have a bit of a quandry stating the above, which is a huge part of the problem.

The trainers who quote the Rags and all (and almost all of them do...) I would rather hear what the horse has done AS SEEN BY THE TRAINER IN PERSON in the past 1 or 2 months to warrant dropping out or entering a race. What the hell is wrong with "I have not a clue why the horse did not run well. We will watch a while, and give it another shot... or the animal does not have the inclination to run, and I dont know how to get the animal to run..."

WTH happened to horsemanship? This is supposed to be done by people that know the animals. Do you have to take a training course on reading thoros and Rags and such to get a trainers license...? I hope not.

Heck. A race might look like a walk in the park on video, but may have been hell on the horse, or vice versa. Trainers should not need numbers to tell them this.

Then again, I might be reading this all wrong because the press may just quote the numbers, not what the trainer has actually said about the condition of the horse as seen by the trainer. All the two preps v. 3 preps, the trainer should know the horse and adjust accordingly.

This whole, going back and changing numbers is stupid. If its your system, stick by it. And if we can all have "Do Overs", I want a "do over" in the Powerball tonight. I got the right numbers now. I promise I will act surprised.:rolleyes:

And you wonder why some people like me toss that Beyer crap in the circular files. They mean nothing at all.

People shouldn't totally assume that Violette was training only based off the Beyer. But the funny part of the figure revision story was that he had mentioned the 'big fig'. Violette is a very accomplished horseman.

One thing that seems to come through here is that people seem to think that the figure-making is simply a formula that is put through its' paces based only final times and variant, and it's not. There is a human element to it and certain performances, atmospheric and track conditions can make it a very difficult proposition.

As Haskin said Thursday to me on the show, Gotham Day last Saturday was warm and sunny until late in the day when the temperature dove 15 degrees and a stiff wind came in off the sound. Haskin was in the jock's room before the Gotham and said the jocks were commenting that the track had gone absolutely dead, and certainly the bizarre splits in the race, which featured several fast sprinters stretching out, confirmed that.

On a day like this, there can be split variants. That makes the fig calculations much, much tougher. Add in golden or dead rails and blowout, open length victories, and you have a recipe for goofy numbers.

More importantly, Beyer Associates, as well as Thoro-Graph and Ragozin, are ALWAYS doing the right thing when they adjust figures ATF (after the fact).. It's better to acknowledge human error and get it right than to dogmatically stand by discrepencies when they arise later. It's an inexact science.

This is close as I tend to agree, but I don't think science plays any part in future results.

Steve dont get caught up in justifing both of them. ATF is one thing but why wait untill the next race? RV might be a great horseman but he sure said something dumb. Both sure lost some creditability. The more they try to explain it the dumber they look.

I agree with you Steve. Speed figures are opinions that are based upon facts. The numbers that they assign are not exact and adjusting them is a good thing in the long run. I do find it a little troublesome when trainers are using speed figures to explain weak performances BEFORE the race actually occurs. Also it is not a great trend when trainers/owners are so insistent that a non-winning race in a derby prep is "exactly what we were looking for".

I never understood why they think that, you would
think you would want to win every Derby prep you
enter in. In this sport isn't the idea is that you want
to be the first past finish line.

This is what I wanted to say, but of course you said it better. I agree they must make the corrections. It helps people to understand those particular performances better and it also helps people to understand how the figures are arrived at and therefore should improve their use of the figures.

I think the ammendments/corrections should be prominently published when they occur. No sense trying to sweep this under the carpet.

The adjustment in question was to the Magical Ride race. I think it was originally a 102 and is now int he 80's.

This was WAY too long to wait to revisit a BSF. And, if it was truly based on Summer Doldrum's subsequent race in the Gotham, then the revision is completely indefensible. If Beyer is going to rely on future races to adjust his earlier figs, then the whole process becomes circular and meaningless. (If Summer Doldrums wins by open lengths against CQ, Ravel or some other major contender next time out, will Beyer be revising his figs up again?!)

Human error occurs, no doubt about it. I'm not demanding perfection. But future performance should not be an excuse to revisit earlier speed figs.

I don't understand why Beyer Assoc feels the need to get the figs out so quickly after a race. It's not like those horses are going to come back on 2 days rest. It would be better to take a little more time with it in the first place and cut down on the error rate.

--Dunbar

Obviously people in racing want to win each time they "send them over" but in terms of bringing along a horse for a big race, in many cases winning isn't everything. If the goal for the spring is the Derby, it's silly to say you don't care if you win the preps yet it's the DERBY that you want. You may need to put some education into a horse, teaching him to rate, or run inside rivals. The preps are just that, preparation. It's when trainers are tweaking equipment, finding the right rider, learning the horse's fine points.
To bring this back around to the "figs" end of the discussion, ask Ragozin or Jerry Brown or any of Beyer's guys who will win the Derby. They will all say "A colt ready to step up to the best race of his life." The plan in the preps is to have a horse ready to improve one more time to win the big dance.

People that wage on these races take note.

Determining "trainer intent" is one of the things we do as we handicap. When a top router returns off a layoff at 6f in good company, he might win but to me it looks like the trainer might be blowing the last of the cobwebs out with a race.
Somewhere on the Derby Trail each year, trainers ask speedy 3yo's to rate off the pace. It's a test. Usually they don't announce it up front, but sometimes you can read between the lines of comments or notice that the works lately are longer and slower etc. In many racing countries trainer must declare intent to change running style.

I do not mean to imply that trainers are sending horses out to lose races. No one wants to lose a race, especially with a top colt. The smart handicapper has to assume that all these races are preps for something bigger.

This is another reason why I like Bris figures. People pan on them because they are computer generated based on actual times and variants (projection method), but the positive thing is it allows an observant handicapper to make his own subjective adjustments off a figure that you can understand. If I see trouble, weight adjustments, or wide trips, I can quantify it as I choose. With Sheets, and more and more with Beyer, you don't know how or why they are adjusting a figure and you have to just go blind with the figure maker.

The problem with the plan is that only one guy is going to win and most of the rest of the horses are going to turn out to be finished by the first Sunday in May. If they worried more about winning the races at hand instead of worrying about "peaking" on Derby day, they would be much better off. It is impossible to keep a horse from peaking unless you undertrain them, which leads to injuries which is why the attrition rate is so high among three year olds after the Derby. The trend toward fewer preps is a bad one.

wasnt that air lord or something like that, like 90 to 72.

I don't disagree Cannon Shell. As a horseman you know more than most that it's a fine line between undertraining and overtraining. I think that far too many horses are considered Derby material and are ruined trying for an unreachable grail. I agree that the two race method isn't the best but look at how many of the top Derby colts are doing it this year. These are not "off the beaten path" colts and in the case of Ravel, not horses with much 2yo foundation either.
From time to time I see horses in "Derby preps" who really don't look like strong Derby horses. As a handicapper, I assume that a race like the Florida Derby or the Lane's End (or whatever) IS their Derby. It's the big money race they want with this horse. While others are pointing for Churchill, they are pointin got that one race.

Very true

Good to read that!


Just because several top colts are being handled that way this year doesn't mean it's a successful route to the Derby. To some degree, Barbaro legitimized the 2-prep route, even though if I remember correctly, he had a technical "3rd prep" just after the New Year. It's suddenly fashionable to go lightly into the Derby. It remains to be seen whether other horses can duplicate Barbaro's Derby result with that kind of light 3-yr-old racing. IMO, it will take another vastly superior horse to win going that route.

--Dunbar

I remember when they gave Smarty Jones a Preakness number that a lot of people thought was too low. But it "fit" with his previous numbers. Perhaps his previous numbers had been too low and it through everything out of wack. If u start wrong, u are going to end wrong. Right?

This whole revision based on next outs is extremely ridiculous. I've always been told that it's impossible to compare races from different days and run on different tracks and under different conditions and that's where speed figures come into play. But then when they look at a totally different race with tons of different variables involved to tell me how fast a PREVIOUS race was, that's too much for me. A system should be able to be used by anyone if they know the system and they should all be able to come up with the same number. I mean, all of us, if we add 2+2, should come up with 4. Now that's a system. This other stuff is not a system. I don't know what it is. The thing I've always tried to do is not look for a horse with high numbers because I don't know how they come about the numbers. What I look for is a consistency in the numbers, with the hope that whatever quacky way they come up with them, that they are consistent in their approach.

I'm just curious as to how that makes any sense...

If you're questioning how they came up with the figures, how can you be concerned with the former but trust that they're consistent?

There are going to be errors and I'd rather they correct their errors then let them stay incorrect. Maybe that's just me...

I thought it was perfectly clear.

He wants his numbers to be consistently quacky.

You can't be quacky and consistent. LOL :p

First of all, the Smarty Jones Preakness number was a 118. Even delusional Smarty Jones fans didn't think that was too low ( not that most of them can read ).

But, more importantly, MAKE YOUR OWN FIGURES. Until you do so, and get at least some real life perspective on the difficulties involved in that, your continued bashing of Beyer figures carries absolutely zero weight. You only do yourself a disservice by criticizing ANYTHING from such an enormous position of weakness.

Simple. Let's say for example that a system says that when a horse runs "x" time, he gets a figure of 100. If he runs "y" time, it's a figure of 105. If he runs "z" time, it's a figure of 110. In that example, I don't need to know what the time is that's needed to get each figure. All I need to know is that the figure maker is consistent. On second thought, maybe it doesn't make that much sense. I think that seeing consistent numbers is a sign that the horse is running the same kind of race everytime, not wildly different ones that leave too much in the hands of the figuremakers. I think it's clear that when things are left in the hands of the figuremakers, too much subjective thoughts and opinions come into play.

I think that overall, the system itself is a good one. I just wish that what they would do is leave the raw numbers alone and give us those and leave it to the individual to decide how it should be adjusted. Horses are imperfect animals and the same horse will not run the same in two different races even if the conditions are exact. Too many variables come into play in each race. So I think they should let each race stand on it's on and no past or future races should be a factor in determining that day's race. It is what it is and no other race should be able to make it faster or slower. I once scored 52 points in a basketball game in high school. In no other game did I ever go over 40. Does that mean that the 52 that I scored wasn't legit? Of course not. It may have been a fluke performance, one that I won't ever equal again...but it doesn't take away from the fact that I scored them that day. Same with the horses.

It's funny that you mention those two things in the same post, because I was trying to learn to make my own figures around that time that should have coincided roughly with the Beyer scale, and I gave up after assigning Smarty Jones a 152 in the Preakness.

NO competent figure maker uses raw numbers.

I still can't believe Smarty Jones lost the Belmont. Thought he was the goods for sure of all the ones lately trying for the Triple.