Speed Figures
The Numbers
The Racing Post’s Rating of the Breeders’ Cup Classic:
All the best dirt horses in America featured and it produced an above average winner, and, for that matter, an above average runner-up. Blame had proved himself a progressive horse in the top division this season and on Saturday he climbed the final pass to the top of the handicapping ranks with an RPR of 131. Zenyatta, in receipt of a 3lb mares’ allowance, matched her previous best ease-adjusted RPR of 128+ from last year’s Classic. On the raw figures, this was the best performance of her life.
Both Blame and Zenyatta received a Beyer Speed Figure of 111 for the Classic. That matches Blame’s previous top in the Whitney, in which he defeated Quality Road, and is one less than the career-high 112 that Zenyatta was given for the 2009 Classic. The consistency suggests we saw the best of both.
How about Uncle Mo? Mike Watchmaker on the Juvenile winner’s BSF:
The 108 Beyer he earned in the Juvenile was the second highest since Beyers were first published for this race in 1991. The highest Beyer ever in the Juvenile was War Pass’s 113 in 2007. But that Juvenile was run over a sloppy, sealed track, and we all know that conditions like that can often produce aberant [sic], untrustworthy figures.
Mo’s figure ties that of Street Sense in the 2006 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, also at Churchill Downs. Street Sense went on to win the 2007 Kentucky Derby off two preps, which is what trainer Todd Pletcher plans for his young star.
Breeders’ Cup handle, attendance, ratings, and website traffic were all up this year. From Tuesday’s press release announcing the gains:
Traffic to the Breeders’ Cup web site and micro sites, also experienced strong growth. Traffic to the Breeders’ Cup main web site, www.breederscup.com, was up 25% over 2009 and traffic to its specialty handicapping site, www.breederscup360.com, was up 600%.
I’m so pleased. And now that we’re a couple days away from the stress of keeping the BC360 site up, I can delight in the fact that we broke the server on Saturday afternoon — that’s how good traffic was across the BC network. On BC360, every significant metric — pageviews, unique visitors, time on site — showed tremendous growth. We had visitors from 127 countries, up from 90 in 2009, with increased numbers from the UK, Canada, and Australia. All credit to the editors and contributors, and thanks to everyone who visited!
While compiling the final BC360 stats report on Monday, I noticed that the iPad, introduced in January, came in #6 among visitors’ browser/OS combinations, and that not only did it register so high for a new device, but that it seemed to supplant smartphone usage, which was down across devices. Part of that may be due — at least for iPhone users — to the successful introduction of the Breeders’ Cup iPhone app this year, but it also occurred to me that people may prefer the tablet for mobile web browsing over the smartphone experience. Turns out, I may have stumbled onto a trend: “Are tablets the smartphone killer?,” asks Wired. It’s certainly plausible.
Speed, Disrupted
Commenting on yesterday’s post, Sid Fernando provides some interesting historical context on how modern American and European racing came to diverge. Sid also asked of the post, “Was that a shot at DRF, or did I misread?” Well, I suppose it could be taken that way. Let me explain my thinking …
In the decades since speed figures emerged as a powerful handicapping tool, and in particular, in the 20 years that Beyer Speed Figures have been widely available, the numbers have affected not only how players bet, but how horses are purchased, raced, and marketed for breeding. They’ve revolutionized the game, at every level; the numbers work, they’ve illuminated. “Speed figures are the way, the truth, and the light,” wrote Andrew Beyer on page 119 of “Winning Horseplayers,” and for a generation, with some tweaks and refinements, that’s been so. A reinforcing circle has been created based on that truth, flowing from handicapper to horseman to breeder and around again.
Synthetic surfaces threatened to disrupt that circle — at least, temporarily.
Speed figures have been most valid on dirt surfaces, and synthetics, with their profiles commonly referred to as turf-like, upended what’s become conventional thinking: Speed always rules. Even when it’s cheap. Especially when it’s lone. Is it any wonder that when notoriously speed-biased Keeneland became the first prestige track to install a synthetic, what had been muted grumbling about the surfaces turned into howls of outrage? And that after the CHRB mandated synthetics, transforming an entire circuit virtually overnight, outrage turned to panic? Irrational rants against synthetics intensified from handicappers’ forums to the pages of major racing publications. The proven truth of speed — and the millions of dollars in handle and data and information services spending it guided — was in danger. A whole (racing) worldview was under siege by synthetics and their misguided supporters.
(Thank goodness Santa Anita is returning to old fashioned, always reliable dirt. The Pro-Poly-Tapeta-Track barbarians may be turned back yet.)
It may not have been fair for me to single out DRF, not when complaints have come from every corner — except that DRF’s columnists and handicappers have been, for the most part, stubbornly opposed to synthetics, and that as racing paper’s of record, the standard for past performances, DRF is uniquely influential. Beyer Speed Figures, exclusive to DRF, are a major differentiator for the paper, and speed handicapping informs its perspective and products from EasyForm to deluxe Formulator PPs. There’s really no getting around that, or what I’m about to suggest now by what I’ve argued above — that the synthetics antipathy found in its columns, blogs, and handicapping analysis is driven to some extent by a sense of threat to a long-standing way of playing the horses — and to selling papers.
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Many thanks for the comments and Twitter discussion re: another post this week, “No Allowances,” which spurred more questions for research about how and what juvenile races are carded. More on the subject next week, after checking out a few condition books, in time for Breeders’ Cup handicapping.
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10:00 AM Addendum: Related to the above, here’s an example of the speed circle from Pete Denk at the Thoroughbred Times today, regarding Quality Road’s future career as a stud and the multiple track records he’s set:
Although Gulfstream’s reconfigured dirt surface is only six years old — it was redone before the 2005 meeting — the authenticity of Quality Road’s performance was confirmed by speed figures. Thoro-Graph, the New York-based company that computes performance figures, gave Quality Road a –7 1/2 for his Donn win, the fastest figure Thoro-Graph ever has given out, according to Thoro-Graph’s Jerry Brown.
Will Mo Have Mo?
Brad Free on the likely Champagne favorite (DRF+):
Uncle Mo might become a star. He might be a future footnote. Either way, handicappers should be aware that recent history suggests Uncle Mo is likely to regress Saturday in his second start. When a 2-year-old firster runs a triple-digit Beyer, it takes time to revitalize.
In the past 10 years, writes Free, 15 2YOs have run a triple-digit BSF in their debut. Only two improved on their figure in their next start.
Bob Ehalt’s Ragozin anaylsis runs to a similar conclusion: “Weighing all of those possibilities, Uncle Mo seems more likely to regress than advance …”
10/9/10 Update: Question answered. Uncle Mo dominated the G1 Champagne Stakes at Belmont today, winning the one-mile race by open lengths in 1:34.51 after being pressed through a half in :45.92 by I’m Steppin’ It up:
Said trainer Todd Pletcher after, “He’s obviously a very fast and talented horse and it looked as if he was doing it easily.” Uncle Mo will ship to Churchill Downs on October 26 for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile.
Beyer speed figures, via @andyserling: 94 for Uncle Mo in the Champagne Stakes, 81 for AZ Warrior in the Frizette Stakes.
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Jessica Chapel writes and edits in Massachusetts. Railbird is a Thoroughbred horse racing blog published from June 2004 to July 2019. More / Contact
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