Showing posts with label Sheets. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sheets. Show all posts

  • The Baltimore Bounce

    POSTED May 17, 2013 By Derek Simon
    Horses don’t bounce.

    At least that’s the position I’ve always taken when arguing with speed-figure handicappers and others who believe that a single race can “gut” a horse — à la Rachel Alexandra in the 2010 Woodward.

    Frankly, I feel the same way about “bouncing” that I do about global warming. I don’t doubt the phenomenon — thoroughbred racehorses clearly have good and bad days (just ask Itsmyluckyday) and statistics show that the Earth’s temperature is, in fact, rising slightly — but I am very dubious of the conclusions that many draw from this data.

    No, I do not think that man (in the general sense) controls the fate of the planet. To paraphrase a line from my favorite holiday movie “It’s a Wonderful Life”: In the whole vast configuration of things, I'd say man is nothing but a scurvy little spider.

    We can’t prevent earthquakes, tornadoes, monsoons or even the occasional afternoon sprinkle, but somehow we have the power to destroy the planet? Please. (The power to destroy ourselves is another matter, of course.)

    Likewise, I think it is generally foolhardy to say, as followers of The Sheets and other speed rating services often do, that a certain pattern of numbers indicates a horse that is “over the top,” or due to run a poor race. And I think it is particularly foolish to assert that there is an optimum number of days between races that allows these “gutted” animals to recover — or not.

    The fact is, when one is dealing with a finite data series, which, for the most part, speed figures are — horses can only go so fast or so slow — what we see from animals that regress after a particularly impressive performance is more often a return to the mean than it is a reaction to a hard race.

    Did pitcher Philip Humber of the Chicago White Sox “bounce” when he gave up nine earned runs in five innings on April 26, 2012 — a mere five days after he became just the 21st player in the 135-year history of Major League Baseball to throw a perfect game?

    Few of sound mind and body would argue that he did.

    Through May 11, Humber has a 5.34 career earned run average and is 0-8 this year. What happened on April 26, 2012 was simply a return to the norm; in Humber’s case, a return to mediocrity.

    Now, having said this, I think it is equally obvious that greatness, at least as it relates to sports, can be defined as an athlete (or team) that consistently produces outstanding results. Most people know that Wilt Chamberlain is the only player in NBA history to score 100 points in a game, but how many people know that Chamberlain scored 60 or more 32 times (yes, that’s a three followed by a two)?

    I can already hear the grumbling: Fine, fine… thanks for the sports history lesson, Poindexter. But what do Humber and Chamberlain have to do with horseracing and bouncing?

    Everything, as it turns out.

    I doubt many racing fans would disagree with me when I say that winning the Triple Crown is among the toughest achievements in all of sports. After all, only 11 horses have pulled off the coveted Kentucky Derby-Preakness-Belmont Stakes trifecta and it’s been 35 years since the last one (Affirmed in 1978).

    What all 11 of those horses had in common was consistent brilliance — at least during their Triple Crown run. At no point was this more evident than in 1973, when Secretariat set a track record in each of the Triple Crown contests (I don’t care what Pimlico officials say).

    Similarly, Sir Barton (1919), the first Triple Crown champion, set a track record in the Belmont Stakes; Citation (1948) destroyed the track record at Garden State in the Jersey Derby, a prep for the Belmont (Citation also raced six times in 61 days prior to his 8-length score in the “Test of Champions”); and Whirlaway (1941) set a track record in the Run for the Roses.

    The other greats that won the Triple Crown also showed remarkable consistency. 

    This got me to thinking: Could one use this factor to determine whether or not a horse is a viable Triple Crown contender?

    My gut feeling is that Derby winners possessing recent speed figures within a fairly restricted range probably outperform those that show a greater variance of performance. Hence, I came up with the following chart:

    (Click on image to enlarge)

    It appears that my hypothesis may be correct (the sample is far too small to be definitive). Horses that improved their Brisnet speed figure by more than five points in the Kentucky Derby (compared to their previous start) are just 1-for-7 in Maryland since 1992. All other Derby winners are 7-of-13. (Using the Beyer numbers produces a 1-for-9 and 7-for-11 ledger, respectively.)

    This begs the question: Are Triple Crown winners the exception to the rule? Based on the following chart, not so much:


    (Click on image to enlarge)
    Of course, I had to use the old Daily Racing Form speed ratings for this one, but even utilizing that simple formula (100 minus the fifths of a second the winner’s time was off the track record minus beaten lengths) — and without using track variants — it is clear that even Triple Crown champs tend to record consistent speed figs. In fact, Secretariat, one of the chart “exceptions” actually set a track record in his race prior to the Wood, which was arguably the worst race of his career (explaining his 20-point ascension in Louisville).

    So where does this leave Orb? Well, honestly, it makes him a bit vulnerable — especially if any of the other Preakness contenders improve.

    Will Orb, like Secretariat, be the exception to the "greatness rule"? Believers will get even odds or less to find out.

    Weekend Wagers

    Coming soon.

  • What’s Speed Got to Do with It?

    POSTED May 11, 2012 By Derek Simon
    As the field turned for home in the 138th Kentucky Derby, many watching the big race undoubtedly felt as I did — that they were witnessing the birth of a superstar. Bodemeister, a three-year-old son of Empire Maker, had cut out wicked fractions — 45.39 seconds for the opening half mile (fifth-fastest in history), six furlongs in 1:09-4/5 (fourth-fastest) and a mile in 1:35.19 (fourth-fastest) — yet, with two furlongs to go, he was leading by three lengths and seemingly on cruise control.

    In mid-stretch, the colt trying to break the dreaded curse of Apollo (the last horse to win the Run for the Roses without starting at age two — in 1882), still had a three-length cushion. But, alas, he was starting to tire.

    With powerful strides, the California-based I’ll Have Another pulled up alongside Bodemeister with a sixteenth of a mile to go and gradually drew clear by 1 ½ lengths. Meanwhile, the Derby favorite was all-out to hold on to second from a late-charging Dullahan, who wound up finishing third, and Went the Day Well, who came in fourth.

    Not surprisingly, after the race, all the talk was about the runner-up.

    “That’s the only time I’ve run second where I’ve been happy,” said trainer Bob Baffert of the horse named after his youngest son Bode, “because he ran his race.”

    Barry Irwin, owner of last year’s Derby champ, Animal Kingdom, was equally impressed, noting that Bodemeister was the horse to beat in the second jewel of the Triple Crown (the Preakness Stakes, scheduled for May 19).

    “Whether he'll be able to fend off other horses on the lead and come back in a relatively short period of time, I don't know, but from a pure talent point of view, he looks like he's the one,” Irwin told Newsday.

    Even veteran turf writer Andrew Beyer was singing the praises of Baffert’s bridesmaid after the Run for the Roses.

    “His front-running effort was like few in the history of the race,” Beyer said of Bodemeister in the Washington Post. “In the Derby’s 137 previous runnings, a total of 10 horses had sped the first half mile in 45.4 seconds or less. There were some legitimate contenders among them, but all 10 of them virtually collapsed after this exertion. All finished in 10th place or worse. Yet Bodemeister kept on going.”

    Despite his admiration of the colt’s tenacity, however, Beyer and his associates assigned Bodemeister a lowly 99 Beyer Speed Figure for his performance in Louisville. The Derby champ I’ll Have Another didn’t fare much better.

    “Even though he had a perfect trip while the fast pace was enervating all the early leaders, I’ll Have Another finished the 1 1/4 miles in 2:01.83, a slow time over such a fast track,” Beyer explained. “The time translated into a Beyer Speed Figure of 101, the second-worst in the last 20 years (next to Giacomo’s 100 in 2005). If I’ll Have Another can’t do any better than this on a day when everything was in his favor, it surely would be rash to speculate that he might be able to sweep the Triple Crown series.”

    As word of the light Derby Beyer spread across cyberspace, many race fans were incredulous: How can the number be so low, they wanted to know? Surely a final time of 2:01.83 is better than Super Saver’s 2:04.45 in 2010, track condition notwithstanding?


    (Click on image to enlarge)
    Brows became even more furrowed when the other figure-makers started weighing in.

    Contrary to Beyer, Brisnet gave I’ll Have Another a very respectable 108 speed figure — the best since Mine That Bird in 2009 and equal to the figures awarded to Funny Cide in 2003 and Street Sense in ’07.

    Thoro-Graph, which uses a descending speed figure scale — the faster the race, the lower the number — more or less agreed with Beyer.

    I’ll Have Another earned a 1 ¼ Thoro-Graph rating for his Derby score, which equaled Super Saver’s number in 2010, but was greater (slower) than the -¼ Animal Kingdom recorded last year.

    So, who’s right? How fast did I’ll Have Another and Bodemeister actually run this past weekend?

    To answer that question, I decided to compare this year’s Derby to Derby 127, which took place in 2001 and was won by Monarchos.

    Why 2001?

    Well, as many people know, Derby Day 2012 produced some very quick times, including a track record for seven furlongs in the Humana Distaff. But what many people may not know is that the Churchill Downs main track was even faster on the first Saturday in May of 2001.


    (Click on image to enlarge)

    In addition to a track record at seven furlongs (the one broken by Groupie Doll in the Humana Distaff), May 5, 2001 also produced a new track standard for 6 ½ furlongs — one that remains intact today. What’s more, Monarchos became only the second horse in Derby history (Secretariat was the first) to break the 2:00 mark when he finished the 1 ¼-mile journey in 1:59.97.

    Among all the dirt routes contested that day (including the Derby), the average time was just 0.84 seconds off the track record in each race.

    Compare that to the 2012 Derby Day program:


    (Click on image to enlarge)

    Notice that the average dirt route time was 2.32 seconds off the track mark in each race — a full 1.48 seconds slower than ‘01. Of course, to determine what this actually means, we would need a method of assessing the overall quality of those races; obviously, one would not expect a $10,000 claiming affair to be run as quickly as a graded stakes race — all else being equal.

    That’s where the speed figure guys come in.

    By comparing winning race times to a par, or average time, for the class and distance, they are able to figure out how fast or slow a track was on a particular day. As you might guess, these determinations are generally distinct for sprints and routes, as well as for turf and main track contests.

    For the sake of argument, though, let’s assume that the undercard quality was about the same this year as it was in 2001, meaning the 1.48-second difference between the two years is as legit as MC Hammer once was.

    Using the chart below, we find that on the Beyer scale a length/fifth of a second is equal to about 1.5 points, whereas a length/fifth of a second is equal to about 1.1 points on the Brisnet scale (I ignored the Thoro-Graph figures in this example, because they also factor in lengths lost on the turns, wind speed and other things that the Brisnet and Beyer figures do not). This means that May 5, 2001 was about 11 Beyer speed figure points and eight Brisnet speed figure points faster than May 5, 2012.


    (Click on image to enlarge)

    Hence, according to the Beyer numbers, Monarchos ran about 2 ¾ lengths faster than I’ll Have Another, whereas the Brisnet figures show I’ll Have Another approximately 5 ¼ lengths quicker than Monarchos.

    Personally, I think the truth is somewhere in the middle.

    One will notice that my pace figures — which are relative, thereby negating track speed — show nearly identical dirt route averages… yet the Derby figures are vastly different. Thus, by comparing the early and late speed rations (each point counting as a length) of Derby 127 and Derby 138, it appears that Monarchos ran about 4-5 lengths faster than I’ll Have Another.

    Using the former animal as the standard, this suggests that I’ll Have Another should have earned a Beyer in the 108-110 range and a Brisnet speed figure in the 104-106 range.

    In any event, I hope this clarifies some of the mystery surrounding speed figures in general and the 2012 Kentucky Derby in particular. In the end, only time will tell which speed figures are accurate and which are not… quite literally.



    (Click on image to enlarge)