Re: Changing Track Speeds: A Derby Contender Case Study Perhaps (781 Views)
Posted by:
TGJB (IP Logged)
Date: February 11, 2006 06:12PM
Miff-- Okey Dokey.
Jim-- Even if I did that race in a vacuum, not using surrounding info, you can't add three points. Very few horses in the race ran tops as it is-- if you did it that way, you would have all but one not running back to a previous top, and most running way off their tops. If you take the last 5 figures for each horse, see what percentage are at least a return to previous tops-- it will probably run 30-50 per cent. The mathematical chance of all those picking the same day to run that bad would be very small-- I discussed this around BC time.
CTC-- You are using raw times, comparing rough classes of horses. We are using figure histories of the exact horses in question, with previous efforts adjusted for track speed, weight, ground etc. Who do you think has a better handle on what happened?
For what it's worth, they watered the track before each of the first 4 races, again before the 6th, and no more afterward. The first 3 races held together. The track got much slower for the fourth, and gradually speeded up slightly thereafter as the day went on, possibly because it was drying out. See "Changing Track Speeds" in the Archive Section for more on moisture content and track speed.