Santa Anita Park in Southern California has placed three races on its overnight sheet for its Oct. 24 card that use a newly developed ratings system as the sole condition of eligibility.
The addition of the races marks the first use of ratings in the U.S. as a condition of eligibility. The ratings, which are generated by an algorithm, have been in development for nearly a year, led by Equibase, the data company that is co-owned by The Jockey Club and a racetrack trade group. (Daily Racing Form Inc. is a customer of Equibase.)
The three races are being offered as “extras,” meaning they will not be added to the card unless other races do not fill and one or more of the ratings races fill. The races for the Oct. 24 card will be drawn on Sunday.
One is a race for fillies and mares three years old and older going about 6 1/2 furlongs on Santa Anita’s hillside turf course with a purse of $65,000; another is for 3-year-olds and older going 6 1/2 furlongs on the dirt with a purse of $35,000; and the last is for 3-year-olds and up, a $25,000 race going six furlongs on the dirt.
Supporters of the ratings system contend that the system will offer a more efficient method of determining eligibility and filling races, simplify the often complex internal calculations handicappers perform to determine class, and increase field sizes. The system has been met with some initial pushback from horsemen, many of which have expressed concerns that ratings races will replace claiming races, which form the backbone of the U.S. racing product and comprise the vast majority of races run at U.S. tracks.
Kyle McDoniel, the president of Equibase, said on Wednesday that the three races represent a “soft launch” for the ratings system, introduced as a way to start a real-world educational process. While other tracks have “raised their hands” to start using the ratings to write conditions, Santa Anita is so far the only track to put the races on its overnight or in its condition book.
“The great news over the last few months is that we have been able to get all the underlying infrastructure work done to develop the ratings, develop the algorithm, and back-test the data,” McDoniel said. “We feel like we’re in a good spot. It’s a good way to get this out there and start educating horsemen and racing offices.”
Ratings systems are in use in many major foreign racing jurisdictions, most of which rarely if ever offer the equivalent of claiming races. However, those jurisdictions generally rely on human handicappers to determine individual horse’s ratings, rather than an algorithm.
Chance Moquett, the head of strategic projects and business development at Equibase, said that all North American horses with at least two starts were fed into the algorithm late this spring. The algorithm was then refined over the past several months using starts that horses made after the initial ratings were determined, and the system was further refined by using racing data produced over the past five years.
A number of racing secretaries were also provided with the ratings for “cohorts” of horses on their backstretches, Moquett said, and those racing secretaries were able to provide feedback to Equibase as they watched the figures change based on a real-time re-analysis of the figures.
“We told them, flag us what’s wrong, tell us what you think,” said Moquett, who is the son of trainer Ron Moquett. “We got a lot of feedback. Most people were impressed.”
The $65,000 turf course extra is for horses with ratings from 80-95. The $35,000 race is for horses rated 70-79, while the $25,000 race is for horses rated 50-59. The $25,000 purse is roughly equivalent to a $16,000 claiming race offered in the first condition book at the upcoming Del Mar meeting.
Although it is not listed on the overnight sheet, all entrants in the races are being offered a $500 starter’s bonus. In addition, the races provide weight allowances for horses in the lower ranges of the ratings bands.
McDoniel and Moquett said that Jason Egan, the racing secretary at Santa Anita, determined the ratings bands for the three races after analyzing the track’s available horse population.
“Those ratings bands are ratings bands that have a need for races,” said Moquett. “So we’re hopeful” they will fill. “But we also know there’s a learning curve for horsemen. Jason has said that the horsemen so far are being very open to it.”
While the ratings of individual horses are not yet available to the public, they will be published once the races are drawn, the Equibase officials said. Horsemen at Santa Anita have been provided with the ratings for all of the horses in their stables, McDoniel said.
McDoniel said he was realistic about the chances of the races filling and being run. Even if none of the three are run on Friday, Equibase and the racing industry will at least be able to gauge the initial response from horsemen.
“We’re all going to work together as an industry to see if this is a tool that horsemen and racing secretaries want,” McDoniel said. “It will probably find its equilibrium over time.”
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