I really liked the sneak preview of new "figure-based" trainer stats for the BC races. I think such stats are far more useful to sheet players than traditional ROI and win% stats.

A good example of this is the "2nd race off layoff" stats for Richard Mandella. The stats showed that "King Richard" is off the charts in this category and that 40% of such horses run a new top for him (twice his overall average). Pleasantly Perfect was a couple points slower than the top contenders in the Classic but this trainer stat indicated that if he was ever going to run another top (which would put him right in the mix to win), now was probably the time and his overall sheet (solid, late developing with some apparent room left for further development) seemed to indicate that he could indeed have another forward move in him.

That is the sort of "novel" information that can improve decision making and provide a real edge to sheet players.

A couple of other interesting stats from the day:

David Hoffmans (Trainer of Adoration) had 61% of his horses run new tops in the last 90 days (note: based on small sample of 13).

Bobby Frankel only had 5% of his horses "X" (i.e., more than 4 pts worse than top) in the last 90 days (compared to the overall average for Stakes horses of 30%). I think that % just went up, which just goes to show that there will always be a few factors that we may never be able to accurately quantify or predict.

Cheers.

Chris