It’s a snowy Tuesday here at TFUS HQ, the perfect sort of day to announce some refinements of our product—based on a considerable amount of research, of course. All of the work discussed here has now been implemented in TimeformUS PPs, and all of it was derived from the broad goal of making Pace Projector more accurate.

Additionally, as you may know, Pace Projector is partially informed by the Early Pace Ratings that you can see above all of our PPs. So the refinements triggered by the studies also resulted in sharper Early Ratings than before—and also sharper Late Ratings than before.

All of the following may seem obvious and intuitive to you, and if so, pat yourself on the back. You’re the best. OK, on to the good stuff.

The headlines, based on a database study of over 250,000 starts, are as follows:

• Second-time starters improve their early speed in blatantly quantifiable ways. Accordingly, we made adjustments to second-time starters on Pace Projector (and, of course, to their early ratings) to reflect these results, and Pace Projector and our Early Pace Ratings became more accurate because of our adjustments. Please note: The adjustments, in this case, impact ONLY our projections for a horse’s second start. In subsequent races, we draw exclusively on the past performances rather than any additional “Early Pace Maturity” projections. Indeed, our studies show that after the horses’ second-start, their improvement in early pace numbers levels off considerably.

• Second-time starters and third-time starters improve their LATE speed in more subtle but clearly identifiable ways. And so we also made subtle adjustments to the late ratings displayed for second-time starters and third-time starters to better reflect what actually happens. We remove these “Late Pace Maturity” projections after the third start, and then rely strictly on each horse’s on-track past performances to inform his late ratings.

• In what will come as a great relief to so many of our customers, we have safely concluded that horses adding blinkers improve their speed in blatantly quantifiable ways, and we could improve Pace Projector by accounting for these improvements. No, not all horses who add blinkers show better early speed. But enough do that it sharply affects their average early running positions, enough so that Pace Projector (and the attendant early ratings) becomes more accurate if we make an adjustment each time a horse puts on blinkers after not wearing them in his previous start. Once again, subsequent starts AFTER the first-time-blinkers race rely on the individual horse’s on-track results, rather than any continuing “bonus points” for continuing to wear blinkers. Our research indicated as much—the addition of blinkers was one thing, but keeping them on didn’t lead to further changes in running style, on average.

• To be clear, we’re making adjustments only is when there is a CHANGE in equipment, because our research indicated this would improve the quality of our Early and Late Ratings and our Pace Projector.

• And yes, you guessed it, there is a smaller, but measurable impact when horses take blinkers off. We were once again able to improve the accuracy to Pace Projector (and early ratings) by making an adjustment strictly for the projections for the race in which a horse is going to remove blinkers. And, as in the cases above, subsequent starts AFTER the blinkers-off race rely on the individual on-track results, rather than any continuing “Early Pace Chill Out” for the continuance of blinkers off.

• Please Note: Because we’ve made adjustments to Pace Projector and Early/Late ratings to reflect these studies, YOU don’t need to bump a horse up or down in your own projections, unless you have every interest in “double-counting.”

Some notes on the data behind the study and subsequent conclusions/adjustments, for those of you who can’t live without it:

• Please note our early and late pace ratings are all harmonized to the Timeform Global scale.
• As mentioned, we conducted a database study of over 250,000 starts to draw the conclusions we drew.
• We then ran the study against the same 10,000 race subsets (of 121,793 races total) we used in our August study of Pace Projector’s efficacy.
• As you can see in the chart below, in a game of milliseconds, efficacy because of these new studies was improved slightly, and across the board. A random sample of 10,000 dirt races showed the least improvement of all, but when we drilled down to dirt routes and wet dirt tracks, we were able to pick up a couple % points of efficacy.
• Our biggest win came in turf races, where we picked up more than 3 percentage points in both turf sprints and routes.
• Please note we are judging efficacy here via Pace Projector’s strike rate for properly positioning a horse at the front, as described in the chart below.
• All adjustments to the Ratings and Projector reflect the average changes we saw from the study. For example, if the removal of blinkers led to an average of X less early speed, we now, on a one-time basis, project that horse to have X less early speed in the race in which he is going to remove blinkers.
• Yes, we think we can do better than just these enhancements, but we’re pleased to have picked up the efficacy for our customers, and look forward to further improvements to Pace Projector efficacy from time to time.
• Please note we’re in competition here. So as to benefit our paying customers, we’re not going to broadly release precisely how much we adjusted anything. Please contact us privately at support@timeformus.com with any questions.

Learn More About…

Early and Late Ratings.

Pace Projector.

The New “No Speed” Label.