High class...middle class races

[polambi]

HI all,
I understand that the APV/CR is a good representative of a horse class,
but what about a race class? That's where I get confused. I used to think that the RC was the level of difficulty of a race...but I just realized that this might not be true while I'm working on this upcoming race. Look at the last race of the #2 horse.
It was RC 90, which is higher than the upcoming race RC 76, although the upcoming race is a CL 5000, which is higher than the last race CL4000
Any clarification by more knowledgeable members would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Paul

[Bill V.]

The race class number is a product of the speed and class of the horses that
competed in that race on that day.

Bill

[Ted Craven]

The RC number - Race Class - is supplied by TrackMaster, and is integrally related to their Speed Rating, Pace Rating and by extension, their Daily Track Variant and Inter Track Variant. In other words - every final time related number they create.

Dave Siegel, president of TrackMaster explained Race Class (RC) to me once, but it has faded enough that I should let him explain it himself - which he does in the 37 minute video below.

Essentially - RC is the product of the composite of the most recent final time Speed Ratings of all the horses in the race. Sometimes the RC number for the race (e.g. in the Result Charts or in subsequent Past Performances) will change when horses are scratched - which makes sense for a number derived solely from the final times of the entrants - and not the man-made class levels such as Claiming, Allowance, etc (which might more properly be termed Race Conditions, not Race Class).

When you think about this, it's not surprising that RC numbers derived solely from final times do not strictly match Race Condition levels: final times are at the mercy of so many things including weather, the particular track involved - but probably most of all - the matchup of horses running in any given race (i.e. slow pace, fast close; multiple early runners and a torrid pace - slow close; paceless races etc, etc).

Like any given set of Speed Ratings (e.g. TrackMaster's, BRIS', RDSS' internal Adjusted SRs) - they may differ from each other but they will all be coherent within themselves because each of them uses a consistent (if different) concept and formula. So TrackMaster's Race Class number may not co-relate with Race Conditions, but it measures on a consistent basis at least the recent Final Times of the horses involved in each race.

After all - no one is surprised that any given Claiming $20,000 race at the same track, even on the same day, may run in remarkably different final times.

FWIW, I make almost no use of RC myself, and really have no advice about how best to employ it.

Anyway, here's Dave Siegel. It' fascinating if you can bear with it ...



Ted

[Bill V.]

Thanks Ted

Here is a sample of the same race class of a CL10,000 Non Winner of 2 life
These are 12 similar races but you can have a 10 point Race Class rating

Here are 12 Race from Parx all with the same CL 10 N2-L classification.
All 12 races were run on the same dirt surface but at different distances and all were for 3 and older males

The race class has a spread of a high of 89 to a low of 79.

[polambi]

Thanks to both of you Ted and Bill. I feel much better now, knowing what exactly RC measures. I enjoyed the video also. It is quite educational.
It evens shows the president of trackmaster competing and winning as a harness driver. He is definitely the real deal. Good stuff!

[Bill V.]

I thought I would add some thing else

Here are my last 35 races at the CL10 N2-L at Parx This time I showed both Female and Male horses all ages . This data is from the winning horse of the race. I show in the last 3 columns, the race class of the last race - then the race class of the race were the horse won. and if it was a rise or drop or the same RC

In 35 Races at the same CL10 N2-L class the winner moved up in CR 12 times
It dropped 18 times. It stayed the same 5 times. So in only 12 of 35 races the
race class was lower than the race class of the race the horse won in.

[polambi]

Good morning Bill V
Thanks for submitting your data. It is very comforting in a way that it actually confirms that I was right in assuming that a higher RC is an indicator of a superior race ( in "final times"). So, once again , I was on the right track. I think I just need to pay a little more attention to the conditions of the race, instead of relying only on the RC, like I used to do, in trying to determine whether a horse had previously faced tougher rivals or not.
Have a nice weekend!
Paul

[For The Lead]

Originally Posted by Bill V.

I thought I would add some thing else

Here are my last 35 races at the CL10 N2-L at Parx This time I showed both Female and Male horses all ages . This data is from the winning horse of the race. I show in the last 3 columns, the race class of the last race - then the race class of the race were the horse won. and if it was a rise or drop or the same RC

In 35 Races at the same CL10 N2-L class the winner moved up in CR 12 times
It dropped 18 times. It stayed the same 5 times. So in only 12 of 35 races the
race class was lower than the race class of the race the horse won in.

Attachment 35898
Attachment 35897

Bill,

Your 35 race sample is right on the money!

Over the last 16+ years, horses running at a lower "RC" than their last race win more races than horses running back at the same "RC" or higher "RC" in their last race combined.