That Pesky Class Bias

Yesterday I read the following sentences in an otherwise interesting post on the West Points blog: "Last year, not one horse who had been campaigning on dirt won any of the traditional Breeders’ Cup dirt races. NOT ONE HORSE."

It was the second time I read this argument, and got me intrigued enough to spend the next two hours reviewing last year’s BC Pro-Ride races in search of the bigger picture as to how those horses with a dirt-centric career fared. A fun task that perfectly accommodated my advanced horseracing geekiness, so here it is:

F&M Sprint:
Indian Blessing and Ventura were the only reasonable candidates. Indian Blessing came from a NY dirt campaign but went on to win the La Brea at SA after the BC. Her forms looked impressive then, but less so in hindsight. You don’t need the Pro-Ride to explain why she ultimately fell to classy turf miler Ventura. Third-placed Zaftig delivers further arguments that I.B. didn’t run a bad race (she had been beaten a few lengths by her before). Intangaroo (6th) had most of her best forms on the dirt, but synthetics should have suited her running style, and she had won the Santa Monica over SA’s old Cushion Track.

Juvenile Fillies:
Cal-based Stardom Bound dominated this division all summer. Runner-up Dream Empress seems to have been more of an art-surf horse, although she did break her maiden at Saratoga. The third and fifth-place finisher (Sky Diva and Persistently) came out of classic Dirt campaigns and their result matches perfectly with what could have been expected had this race been run on the dirt. That leaves 7th-placed C.S. Silk, who did indeed disappoint, but her subsequent dirt forms weren’t any better (in fact she hasn’t won any of her 5 starts since the BC, four of them on dirt)

Distaff:
Cocoa Beach had made all but one of her previous 10 career starts on the dirt, but coming within 1½ lengths of Zenyatta, she was hardly a victim of the Pro-Ride. Music Note (3rd) is a similar case. 4th-placed Carriage Trail had an affinity for Keeneland’s Polytrack which didn’t seem to help at OSA. Which leaves 6th-placed Ginger Punch, a pure dirt horse until then, but the defending f&m champ was on a downward spiral since July (and her 10/1 line suggests she wasn’t really a disappointment).

Marathon:
One of the weakest fields ever to be seen in a 500K was eventually topped by Muhannak, whose underwhelming best forms came from the Polytracks of the Old World, although he had also won on turf. Muhannak went on to prove that he was equally undeserving of BC-winner status on the turfs of Sha Tin and Goodwood, with his only acceptable post-BC form coming from Dubai’s dirt. Delightful Kiss was the only contender with a dirt-centric past, but his 4th place wasn’t really below expectations. The most disappointing favorite of the entire BC was Sixties Icon, who struggled home 5th in this race. He’s a turf horse.

Dirt Mile:
Winner Albertus Maximus came with an artsy past, but his two post-BC starts were on the dirt, where he Wonn The Donn and placed sixth in the Dubai World Cup. Third-placed SoCal longshot Two Step Salsa also had some dirty fun at NAS after the BC, winning both starts. Lewis Michael (8th) was one of two disappointments, but he too had his best performances to the sound of the synth. The other disappointment was Well Armed, who went on to dominate the Dubai World Cup, but was the favorite for winning the Goodwood over Santa Anita’s Pro-Ride (I guess he would do better on very speed-favoring dirt, but his trainer doesn’t seem to). My Pal Charlie (4th) and Pyro (6th) were the two dirt-campaign runners, and neither disappointed.

Juvenile:
10th-place Munnings might superficially look like he was hampered by the Pro-Ride, but then again his far-beaten runner-up performance in the Champagne was hardly astonishing if reviewed in hindsight and nothing suggests that he particularly disliked the surface. Apart from him, no dirt horses took part.

Sprint:
Actually, Mr West and Co. may have to reconsider their premise! While winner Midnight Lute had run a dismal performance in his only other race of last year over Del Mar's Polytrack, the majority of his top performances (including his wins in the previous BC Sprint at Monmouth and the 2007 Forego) were on the dirt.
It’s easy to miss that fact when you concentrate on dirty guy Fabulous Strike (7/1), whose 5th place finish is as close as last year’s BC got to a disappointing performance by a dirt-campaigned horse (he was beaten by only one horse, 8/1 In Summation, with minimally longer odds).

Classic:
I don’t think I need to explain for the hundredth time how Curlin’s performance was not a huge surprise to anyone with some basic handicapping skills. Everyone who still doesn’t want to recognize this because “Tiago could never beat Curlin” has other issues, obviously. And is a complete hypocrite if they don’t also claim that “Smooth Air could never beat Duke Of Marmalade”. DoM was clearly a better horse, but just as clearly out-of-form. Eventually, last year’s BC was decided in a battle of giants between two of the world’s best horses.
Smooth Air (7th) and Fairbanks (10th) were the other two dirtsters in the field, neither was a victim of the “plastic”.

Conclusion:
All in all, there is very little basis to argue that Pro-Ride was a major factor behind last year’s BC results. In any case it was a much smaller factor than the West Coast setting of Santa Anita, which kept many of the top East Coast horses away. One might argue that the "not one horse who had been campaigning on dirt won any of the traditional Breeders’ Cup dirt races"- sentence is technically correct, it is. But it's used as an argument on this occasion, and therefor the more important thing is: the implication of this sentence is wrong.
There's no reason to believe that it's impossible or even considerably harder to win a Pro-Ride BC with a horse that has been exclusively campaigned on dirt. It's just that hardly anyone has tried it, and those who did fell short for other reasons. There's also no reason to believe that Pro-Ride is any more of a factor in handicapping than speed bias, rail bias or sloppy track. It's a factor, but not an unfair one.

The fact is: if one doesn't like Pro-Ride for another reason, that’s fine. If you think Pro-Ride ruined last year’s BC: start looking for a better argument.

Oh, and if you happen to constantly find the need to attack this surface as a fundamentally unfair and (for whatever unexplained reason) dangerous type of “plastic” just because you’re willing to say anything rather than come to grips with a disillusion: go open a bottle of wine, lean back, start thinking, and shut the fuck up!

BC Thoughts – The Juvie Turf Is A Bad Idea Now, But It Doesn’t Have To Stay That Way

As I was typing up a rather lenghty response to a post by Glenn Craven, trying to find some middle ground between our opinions, a quite radical idea popped into my mind.

Craven (of Fugue For Tinhorns, for those who don’t know) argues that the Breeders Cup shouldn’t cut down on its current 14-race program (or 15, including the Grand National). I disagree for the most part, but one good argument he brought up was that the BC, initially intended primarily as a North American Championship, should indeed include races for every division, even obscure ones.

On the other hand, the BC is also intended to attract more interest to the sport, and has a somewhat unhealthy focus on presenting itself as a “World Championship” (a pointless focus, as I’ve argued elsewhere). To that end, races like the Juvenile Turf divisions rightfully attract ridicule, and races like the Dirt Mile or F&M Sprint are just diminishing the quality of the BC’s real Championship races. They thin out the quality, provide the Discreet Cats of this world a chance to add a BC win to their resume without actually facing Championship opponents; and ultimately water down the prestige of the BC as a whole.

The same was true for the 12f Marathon, although at its new 14f distance, I find that race a most welcome addition. See, I’m not generally against using such races to encourage a shift in the breeding industry, I just don’t see much reason to encourage a shift towards the breeding of more turf horses with premature and/or sprint-oriented pedigrees in America. Plus, a 14f dirt BC Marathon still is an international "championship quality" race, if only because Argentina, Chile and Uruguay are the only other racing jurisdictions with a heart for the dirt stayer.

Still, Mr Craven has a point that there should be Championship races for the Turf Sprint and Turf Juvenile divisions.

But should those races be run in their current form, as part of the BC?

The Juvenile Turf races as contested last year are a joke. They will more often than not be won by second- or third-string overseas raiders, or occasionally by a top American (dirt) juvenile with a strong turf pedigree, whose connections decide to skip the more testing “real” BC Juvenile divisions. Same goes for the BC Turf Sprint.

However, such Championship races could make sense outside the current BC structure. In the process they could offer the first-ever productive application of the “Win & You’re In”-concept in racing, and finally offer a good idea to fill the BC Friday.

How about running those races as Finals, open only to horses that have qualified via the currently existing, regionally-focused, juvenile turf races?

Those races would be closed off to overseas competition, except if they go through the qualification process, effectively eliminating the “quick hit” option. They could be included in the main BC program or run independently of it as part of a separate Championship day, one more geared towards existing racing fans. If run on Grand National day (on another track, obviously) there might even be potential for some cross-promotion.

Unlike the current, haphazard BC W&YI, this concept could be effective in both increasing the status of the qualifiers and in creating buzz for the final. The main difference being that there is an actual connection between the elims and the final, other than in the “random races to determine 6 of 12 starters, effectively meaning top horses can just as well skip”-system the BC currently offers. This way, divisions and races that otherwise go largely unnoticed might gain some buzz within the racing world. I'm usually not a fan of playoff systems in the thoroughbred world, but in this instance it might be just the right thing.
Also, this concept provides an American Championship in a division in which American horses, generally speaking, aren’t very competitive in International company. Thus, it would be much more effective as a stimulus. Another perk would be that horsemen with top (dirt) horses couldn’t as easily use the Turf BC as a fallback option, so the extra race wouldn’t take away from the established one.

BC Thoughts - Early Edition

Whatever you think of Jess Jackson’s decision not to run Rachel Alexandra in this year’s Breeders Cup, or of his tirade against synthetic surfaces (my take: there is a distinct smell of "sore loserism" lingering in the air), the one thing we should agree upon is that his argumentation was disingenuous.

Those types of "plastic" are too different from each other? “Man interfering with nature”? You might wanna take a closer look on that Churchill surface, it’s not your average mid-Kentucky soil either, nor is it identical to the surfaces at Gulfstream or Belmont. Mr Jackson, after all, has become a billionaire “interfering with nature”, as in artificially creating vineyards, where he grows genetically modified grapes that have little more to do with their ancient ancestors than a Tapeta track has with the sand at Del Mar beach.

I’d like to see the BC as an event as close to an American Open Championship as possible, but I'll just skip that argument for now. Interesting takes in support of Jackson’s decision can be found on The Aspiring Horseplayer and Foolish Pleasure blogs. I still disagree, for reasons stated there, but even before reading those I felt far less passionate about the topic than, say, the prospect of Rachel following up her Oaks romp with another one in the Acorn. This is largely because, for all we know, a RA v Zenyatta duel would have only been likely if both had chosen the Distaff, which would have opened up a whole new can of worms.

The self-proclaimed “World Championships” (never mind the title) have recently revamped their Win & You’re In list for the third time in three years, and in the process created a hodge-podge of American and Overseas races that are unlikely to have promotional value and are hard to follow even for the most dedicated fans. If I understand their website correctly, most of the added International races won’t even be broadcast in America. It’s also not quite clear why we need BC W&YI’s at all. Unless you simultaneously limit the BC to a maximum of 10 runners per race, its just an unneccessarily complicated way to determine about half the field (less in some cases).

The most interesting aspect is hidden in the details: not a single one of the races on Dubai World Cup Day will carry W&YI status. Is there any reason other than animosity towards the world’s other “Thoroughbred World Championship”? I don’t think so.

A second line of criticism has focused on the BC’s ignorance of the labels assigned by the American Graded Stakes Committee. True, some of the new W&YI races are entirely ungraded and the grades obviously didn’t play any major role in determining the races, but really, the AGSC’s work deserves to be ignored. Its pattern system is entirely useless to identify the most important races, unless you think that the Prioress, Kings Bishop and Santa Maria really are more prestigious than the Suburban or Oaklawn Hcps, that the Ark Derby and Lexington Stakes are on the same level, or that there really are no less than 115 races in the US which consistently attract several runners of the highest caliber.

Plus, increased incentive even for non-graded niche stakes, especially in the Turf Sprint and Marathon categories, is a good opportunity for all those upstart racinos to establish meaningful races without simultaneously watering down the quality of already established stakes elsewhere.