JC / Railbird

Synthetic Surfaces

Statistically Significant

With two years of data in the Equine Injury Database, the Jockey Club is out today with updated fatality rates. The overall rate declined to 2.0 per 1000 starts from the 2.04 reported earlier this year. By surface, the rates are 2.14 on dirt (unchanged), 1.74 on turf, and 1.55 on synthetics (down from 1.78):

Parkin noted that the change in the overall fatality rate stemmed from cumulative two-year data that revealed a statistically significant difference in the prevalence of fatality on both turf and synthetic surfaces versus dirt. The difference in the prevalence of fatality between synthetic and turf surfaces was not statistically significant.

Confirms the impression that synthetic surfaces are safer (although the usual caveats apply re: uncertainty of factors such as new track bases, improved vet checks, anecdotal reports of increased non-fatal hind injuries, etc.).

12:55 PM Update: More from Thoroughbred Times: “… horses racing on a synthetic surface were 27.6% less likely to break down …“

Posted in Racing on December 15, 2010 / Tagged Equine Injury Database, Fatalities, Jockey Club, Statistics, Synthetic Surfaces, Track Surfaces

Wednesday Notes

NYC OTB closed at midnight last night after the New York state senate failed to pass a bill that would have allowed the company to continue operations. That means no more Channel 71 for racing fans watching at home. Much more seriously, it means more than 800 people out of work, an as-yet-unknown amount of lost wagering dollars, and more than $600 million in added state debt. The situation really couldn’t have been handled any worse. “As bad as OTB was, this was not the time to kill it,” observes Bill Finley. It certainly wasn’t the right way to kill it. But, is this the end? “I’m not ready to write the epitaph quite yet,” writes Alan Mann in his analysis of what happened yesterday. I suspect he’s right. The impact of the shutdown will be felt immediately, giving the state and industry plenty of incentives to revive New York City off-track betting, and maybe even in a form that benefits the game.

Churchill Downs CEO Robert Evans isn’t feeling the gloom. In his keynote address at the UA-RTIP Symposium on Tuesday, Evans found reasons for optimism among horse racing’s challenges, including this stat:

Evans said that racing’s customers still respond to quality, and that if the downsized industry keeps more of the quality product and reduces the poor end that the industry should thrive. To illustrate that point, Evans noted that handle on the top 25 races actually increased 18% in 2009 versus 2003, even as total handle during that period declined 19%.

Interesting. If you think you know the 25 big-event races Evans was referring to, Ed DeRosa has a contest for you. The TDN has Evans’ presentation, which includes his outline for a potential viable business model (PDF).

Dirt racing fans aren’t alone in loathing synthetic surfaces. Turf racing fans also hate synths, and for reasons that are familiar. Alan Aitken writes of the Hong Kong all-weather surface, “a purulent sore on the otherwise peach-like complexion of racing,” on Saturday: “Despite the course running fast, leaders staggered home in very slow sectionals but still held on as if by magic.” Everyone hates it when pace doesn’t play as expected.

Posted in Racing on December 8, 2010 / Tagged Future of Racing, Handle, Hong Kong, Industry, New York, NYC OTB, RTIP, Synthetic Surfaces

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.

Posted in Racing on October 21, 2010 / Tagged Media, Speed Figures, Synthetic Surfaces, The Speed Circle, Track Surfaces