We Make The Standards and Speed Figures Workshop

20th March, 2023 @ 8:53am

In 1977 Uncle Paul, Rick and Bruce set their standards and here we are today setting ours. Putting standard times together for horse racing is one of the least exciting parts of the sport. However, it is a very important one and needs a lot of patience, determination and dedication. In the following Workshop I will try to map out how one might go about putting together speed figures for a racetrack. Southwell’s All Weather track became the most recent to change it’s racing surface in the United Kingdom. The switch from Fibresand to Tapeta in December 2021 wasn’t a great one for horse racing timing enthusiasts as the new surface would lead to less truly run races. A new set of standard times needed to be compiled to account for this surface change. Race winning times can then be compared to our standard times and we can figure out how fast or slow the track is riding. Some helpful guidelines for the job would be to leave out races that are too slowly run and also ones that have front runners going off too fast. Avoid using races confined to two-year-olds as the winning times for these races are invariably slower. Also try to select races which are not confined to one part of the season.

In putting together a standard time for different distances at Southwell I would select the suitable races for each distance and note the mid-point time of the list. This is also known as the median time. If we were to just note down these times without making adjustments for distance, class, weight and even going, we could find that a logical relationship may not exist between the median times for each distance. It would be easier for a horse to get closer to a 5 furlong median time than a 12 furlong median time, for example. A track like Meydan would also stage more Class 2 races than say Southwell, so an allowance should be made for this.

A sample mid-section of times from Southwell’s 6 furlong 16 yard Tapeta track might look like this:

Date	Class	Horse	Weight	Time	Class Adj.	Weight Adj.	Adj. Time
10/03/22	6	Della Mare	9-7	1.16.05	(+0.15)	(-0.16)	1.16.04
10/03/22	6	Thatsthefinest	8-13	1.16.07	(+0.15)	(+0.02)	1.16.24

This would give a Median Time of (1.16.14) the mid-point of the adjusted times for both of the above races for 6 furlongs 16 yards at Southwell. The Class adjustment would be used by taking the (0.20) seconds that Class 6 races are faster than standard and adjusting it to be in line with race times over a mile (8 furlongs). So 6 furlongs 16 yards (6.074 furlongs) divided by 8 would be (0.76), multiplied by (0.20) would give a (0.15) class adjustment. In this part of the calculation I just used the closest two digit value so (0.759) became (0.76).

A weight adjustment is optional but in order to get the times to 9 stone I would use a minor adjustment using 40% (0.40) of the weight away from 9 stone using a pounds per length scale. I chose 40% in line with Andy Beyer’s theory that concluded that one pound equalled four tenths of a point on the Beyer scale. Thus if a horse was assigned to carry 20lbs more than he did in his previous start, 8 points would be deducted from his previous figure. A traditional BHA pounds per length scale used in the past was as follows:

Distance	LBs/length
5F	3.5lbs/length
6F	3lbs/length
7F	2.5lbs/length
8F	2.25lbs/length
9F	2.1lbs/length
10F	2lbs/length
11F	1.75lbs/length
12F	1.5lbs/length
13F	1.4lbs/length
14F	1.35lbs/length
15F/16F	1.2lbs/length
17F/18F	1.1lbs/length
19F/20F	1lb/length

The adjustment for 7lbs over 6 furlongs would be 7 divided by the 3lbs/length (7/3 x 0.17 seconds/length x 0.40) giving (0.16) as an approximate adjustment time for 7lbs. This process would be repeated for all distances using Class and Weight adjustments. As with all adjustments for weight there are different scales. A scale for Epsom would need to be different from one for Pontefract, for example due to the different topography of each course.

I would then have the following median times for Southwell Tapeta:

4F 214Y	59.50
6F 16Y	1.16.14
7F 14Y	1.29.59
8F 13Y	1.42.77
11F 23Y	2.26.74
12F 14Y	2.40.12
14F 21Y	3.07.68
16F 102Y	3.44.12

It should be noted that I have left the 18 furlong 98 yard distance out due to a lack of sufficient races at these distances. At this point I merely wanted to build the speed figures to give me an idea of how fast or slow the track was riding on the day and work that back into the median times. This would take account of selecting too many races on a fast or slow surface.

A typical day at Southwell for the 24^th January 2022 would look like this:

Distance	Horse	Time	Class	Diff.	Raw	Par	F/S	Av.	GA	SF
4F 214Y	Red Walls	1.00.52	H6	(S1.02)	91	101	+10	+7.5	+0.18	98
4F 214Y	Tantastic	1.00.60	Nv5	(S1.10)	91	103	+12	+7.5	+0.18	98
4F 214Y	Caroline Dale	58.91	H2	(F0.59)	104	109	+5	+7.5	+0.18	111
11F 23Y	Allowed	2.28.94	H6	(S2.20)	92	101	+9	+8.5	+0.21	100
8F 13Y	Visibility	1.46.92	H5	(S4.15)	79	103	+24	+8.5	+0.21	97
7F 14Y	Atrafan	1.30.70	Stk6	(S1.11)	93	101	+8	+8.5	+0.21	101
6F 16Y	North Lincoln	1.16.97	Nv5 (3yo)	(S0.83)	94	97	+3	+8.5	+0.21	102

Each winning time would be adjusted to a lengths per mile basis. As the 4 furlong 214 yard track is run on a Straight Course as opposed to other distances at Southwell, I would create a separate going allowance for these races. So Caroline Dale’s Raw Speed Figure would be 0.59 x 1.61 (8 furlongs divided by 4.973 furlongs) x 5 (to convert seconds to lengths i.e 5 lengths per second) giving 4.7495 lengths per mile rounded down to 4 to make the numbers more manageable . So we are saying this time was 4 lengths per mile faster than standard time. We give Caroline Dale a Raw Speed Figure of (104). Red Wall’s winning time would be 1.02 x 1.61 x 5 giving 8.211 rounded down to 9. We are saying Red Wall’s time is 9 lengths per mile slower than standard. We give Red Wall’s a Raw Speed Figure of (91).

From here we compare these Raw Figures with our Class Pars and we see Caroline Dale is 5 points slower than a Class 2 Par of (109) and Red Wall’s is 10 points slower than a Class 6 Par of (101). When deciding which times to use to calculate the going allowance I try to use the most reliable races. Handicap Races confined to older horses would be an example. In our table above, I would avoid Tantastic’s Novice Race and calculate the average of Caroline Dale’s race and Red Wall’s race as +7.5 (+10 and +5 = 15 divided by 2). So we would calculate that the 4 furlong 214 yard track that day was riding 7.5 lengths per mile slower than standard. Converting this back into seconds from lengths means a Going Allowance rounded down of plus 0.17 seconds per furlong (7 divided by 40). We use 40 in accordance with 5 lengths per second and 8 furlongs per mile (5 x 8). We are saying the 4 furlong 214 yard track is riding 0.17 seconds per furlong slower than standard. The same process is used for the other races on the Round Course giving a Going Allowance of plus 0.21 seconds per furlong on that track.

The traditional method of eliminating the slowest and fastest time on the day and calculating our Going Allowance from the remaining races would be in use for the Round Course in our table. Here we would eliminate the Visibilty and North Lincoln races, and use the average of the Allowed race and the Atrafan race as our guides. This would tell us that the Round Course was riding 8.5 lengths per mile slower than standard.

If we were putting together standard times for a Turf track, we would try to use race winning times taken from meetings that were run on ground described as close to Good as possible. Race winning times on Firm going and Heavy going would be avoided. In selecting the races that we use for our standard times we may have chosen too many that were on a fast or slow surface. To compensate for that, I would then plug in the going allowance that we established above to get a Final Standard Time. When I calculated the Going Allowance for the 10th March 2022 example for Della Mare and Thatsthefinest’s races I found that the Round Course was riding 0.02 seconds per furlong slow. I then put those Going Allowances into each race used to calculate the original Median Time to establish a Final Standard Time. The Final Standard Time for the 6 furlong 16 yard track is set at (1.15.95) from the chart below.

Date

Class

Wt.

Horse

Time

Class Adj.

Wt. Adj.

Standard1

In Order Standard1

Secs/Fur

Total Secs/Fur

Final Standard

In Order Final Standard

16/12/21

9-6

Kind Review

1.15.97

(+0.76)

(-0.12)

1.16.61

1.14.72

[+0.13]

[-0.79]

1.15.82

1.15.61

22/12/21

8-13

Patsy Fagan

1.15.93

(+0.46)

(+0.02)

1.16.41

1.14.97

[+0.12]

[-0.73]

1.15.68

1.15.66

29/12/21

8-12

Tipperary Tiger

1.15.52

(+0.76)

(+0.05)

1.16.33

1.15.17

[+0.11]

[-0.67]

1.15.66

1.15.68

09/01/22

9-2

Mohareb

1.14.66

(+1.06)

(-0.05)

1.15.67

1.15.52

[+0.01]

[-0.06]

1.15.61

1.15.82

16/01/22

9-6

Airshow

1.16.39

(+0.76)

(-0.12)

1.17.03

1.15.60

[+0.05]

[-0.30]

1.16.73

1.15.88

03/02/22

8-10

Twentysharesofgrey

1.16.92

(+0.15)

(+0.09)

1.17.16

1.15.62

[+0.21]

[-1.28]

1.15.88

1.15.92

03/02/22

9-0

Western Music

1.17.68

(+0.15)

1.17.83

1.15.67

[+0.21]

[-1.28]

1.16.55

1.15.94

11/02/22

Stk6

9-2

Knockabout Queen

1.15.42

(+0.15)

(-0.05)

1.15.52

1.16.04

[-0.07]

[+0.43]

1.15.95

1.15.94

24/02/22

8-10

Recall The Show

1.14.77

(+0.76)

(+0.09)

1.15.62

1.16.24

[-0.16]

[+0.97]

1.16.59

1.15.95

05/03/22

9-8

Whittle Le Woods

1.15.02

(+0.76)

(-0.18)

1.15.60

1.16.33

[-0.10]

[+0.61]

1.16.21

1.16.12

10/03/22

Stk6

8-13

Thatsthefinest

1.16.07

(+0.15)

(+0.02)

1.16.24

1.16.41

[+0.02]

[-0.12]

1.16.12

1.16.14

10/03/22

Stk6

9-7

Della Mare

1.16.05

(+0.15)

(-0.16)

1.16.04

1.16.61

[+0.02]

[-0.12]

1.15.92

1.16.21

17/04/22

8-11

Patsy Fagan

1.14.34

(+0.76)

(+0.07)

1.15.17

1.16.88

[-0.16]

[+0.97]

1.16.14

1.16.27

17/04/22

9-3

Della Mare

1.14.89

(+0.15)

(-0.07)

1.14.97

1.17.03

[-0.16]

[+0.97]

1.15.94

1.16.55

20/07/22

8-12

Marwari

1.16.68

(+0.15)

(+0.05)

1.16.88

1.17.16

[+0.10]

[-0.61]

1.16.27

1.16.59

29/07/22

8-10

So Grateful

1.14.17

(+0.46)

(+0.09)

1.14.72

1.17.83

[-0.20]

[+1.22]

1.15.94

1.16.73

Repeating the process for all distances at Southwell yielded the following Final Standard Time table:

Distance	Standard Time	Seconds/Furlong
4F 214Y	[59.40]	[11.95]
6F 16Y	[1.15.95]	[12.51]
7F 14Y	[1.29.60]	[12.68]
8F 13Y	[1.42.60]	[12.73]
11F 23Y	[2.26.80]	[13.22]
12F 14Y	[2.40.10]	[13.27]
14F 21Y	[3.07.50]	[13.30]
16F 102Y	[3.44.40]	[13.63]

At the time of writing there have only been three races run over the 18 furlong 98 yard distance. If that distance was similar to the 16 furlong 102 yard distance at (13.63) seconds per furlong, we would be looking at a standard time of around (4.12.15). Using the Final Standard Times for our example on the 24th January 2022 we now have the following table:

Distance	Horse	Time	Class	Diff.	Raw	Par	F/S	Av	GA	SF
4F 214Y	Red Walls	1.00.52	H6	(S1.12)	90	101	+11	+8.5	+0.21	98
4F 214Y	Tantastic	1.00.60	Nv5	(S1.20)	90	103	+13	+8.5	+0.21	98
4F 214Y	Caroline Dale	58.91	H2	(F0.49)	103	109	+6	+8.5	+0.21	111
11F 23Y	Allowed	2.28.94	H6	(S2.14)	92	101	+9	+8.5	+0.21	100
8F 13Y	Visibility	1.46.92	H5	(S4.32)	78	103	+25	+8.5	+0.21	97
7F 14Y	Atrafan	1.30.70	Stk6	(S1.10)	93	101	+8	+8.5	+0.21	101
6F 16Y	North Lincoln	1.16.97	Nv5 (3yo)	(S1.02)	93	97	+4	+8.5	+0.21	102

Both the Straight Track and the Round Track are now riding 8.5 lengths per mile slow. The going allowances don’t always come out so neat like this, but it was a nice coincidence on this occasion. As with all speed figure calculations there are many ways to put them together. They are subjective and the methods used to arrive at the final figures involve a wide spectrum of selectivity. The most important thing is to be consistent in your methods and get to know your own numbers and allowances. This will enable you to spot performances that are outside par much more quickly. In the next instalment I will look at sectional timing and how one might use these numbers to their advantage when analysing the data. Till then enjoy your sport.