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There are many handicappers who have been convinced over the years that they need to adjust the running times and speed ratings of a horse based on "daily track variants." They believe the surface of the track somehow changes enough from one day to the next to warrant the effort required to calculate these alleged variants.
Let's examine reality. We'll use the distance of six furlongs in our examples.
The folks who use track variants suggest that all horses that contest six-furlong races for a claiming price of $10,000 at a particular race track will run close to a par (average) time for that distance and "class" level at that track. When a horse entered in a $10,000 claiming race somehow beats this par time these folks want us to believe it was the result of the track being faster than normal. What we are not supposed to believe is that when a horse is fit it is fully capable of running faster than the par time for $10,000 claiming races.
If a horse runs slower than par we are expected to believe the horse was running on a track that was somehow slower than normal. The possibility that the horse in question is not now and never will be capable of winning at the par time for this distance never seems to cross the minds of those who rely on adjusting the time of a horse based on these fictitious par times.
It shouldn't take more than one example to show you why this belief in track variants is utterly worthless, but I'll give you several. We'll start with three races from the past performance chart of Guadalupe's Tailor.
On June 16, 2002, Guadalupe's Tailor finished second in a six-furlong race at Bay Meadows, just one and one-quarter lengths behind the winning horse. The time of the race listed in his past performance record is 1:10. That means Guadalupe's Tailor crossed the finish line in roughly 1:10.18 or 1:10 1/5 for speed rating purposes. The horse received a Beyer Speed
Rating (BSR) of 85 for this $16,000 claiming race. BSRs are derived using so-called track variants and and par times for individual class levels.
In the second race back, another six-furlong event at Bay Meadows, Guadalupe's Tailor finished six and one-half lengths behind a winning time of 1:09 for a final time of roughly 109.92 or 1:10 for speed ratings. His BSR for this $20,000 claiming race is 72.
Notice that Guadalupe's Tailor "stepped up in class" from a $16,000 claiming race to a $20,000 claiming race. He ran a faster race. Yet by adjusting the final times for alleged daily track variants against par times for each "class" level, the faster of the two times ended up with a rating that is thirteen points below the rating for the slower time. This absurdity boggles my mind.
In the third race back, yet another six-furlong race at Bay Meadows, the final time of the race is listed as 1:09 3/5. Guadalupe's Tailor finished three lengths behind the winner, in a time of roughly 1:10.02 or 1:10. Sound familiar! The BSR Guadalupe's Tailor received for this $25,000 claiming race: 79.
Guadalupe's Tailor was a very consistent horse at this time of his racing career. He contested three six-furlong races in a row at times within one-fifth of a second of each other – all
at the same race track. Yet the Beyer Speed Ratings for these races range from 72 to 85.
It's observations such as these that make me distrust track variants in general and Beyer Speed Ratings in particular.
Gerald Cohail
RaceCapper.com
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