Minnesota's Best Ever?
In 2013 a funny debate took place on social media and at the racetrack. Recent running horses were talked about as best evers, which several of us who don't get immersed in recent data points found silly. Now it's 2016, and no one is talking about the horses anymore. Nevertheless, it was a classic example of people being deluded by recent data points rather than understanding a system.
Was a legendary horse who won many stakes over many years better than a horse that never took down big stakes races but ran quick speed ratings? Were incredible one season wonders better than multiple season Graded Stakes winners? Should a horse that dominates state breds today when state breeding has been minimal and quality poor, really compare to a horse that pounded open company horses 25 years ago? Can you compare a filly to a colt, 2 year olds to 8 year olds, 1980’s horses to 21st century horses, or a horse with a handful of races to a horse that ran over 50 times?
As a statistical nut that always focuses on earnings, I went to the data to try to figure out how to normalize disparate information and answer the “best ever” question for myself. Equineline normalizes earnings data by sex, age and the year in which purses were actually earned. They establish a career Starts Percentile Ranking (SPR) for every horse that has ever run. The higher the SPR the better. If a horse over their career earned a 90 SPR, that horse’s average earnings per start were better than 90% of like horses during the period it raced. Secretariat had a 99 SPR.
Though I think any discussion of best ever should only involve horses that had long and consistently distinguished careers, some of the friendly arguements involved recent runners who only had a handful of races so I studied horses with 4 races. This 2014 listing was not all inclusive but included horses mentioned in the discussions. I think many of you will find the following SPR rankings as interesting as I did. Funny stuff huh?
Was a legendary horse who won many stakes over many years better than a horse that never took down big stakes races but ran quick speed ratings? Were incredible one season wonders better than multiple season Graded Stakes winners? Should a horse that dominates state breds today when state breeding has been minimal and quality poor, really compare to a horse that pounded open company horses 25 years ago? Can you compare a filly to a colt, 2 year olds to 8 year olds, 1980’s horses to 21st century horses, or a horse with a handful of races to a horse that ran over 50 times?
As a statistical nut that always focuses on earnings, I went to the data to try to figure out how to normalize disparate information and answer the “best ever” question for myself. Equineline normalizes earnings data by sex, age and the year in which purses were actually earned. They establish a career Starts Percentile Ranking (SPR) for every horse that has ever run. The higher the SPR the better. If a horse over their career earned a 90 SPR, that horse’s average earnings per start were better than 90% of like horses during the period it raced. Secretariat had a 99 SPR.
Though I think any discussion of best ever should only involve horses that had long and consistently distinguished careers, some of the friendly arguements involved recent runners who only had a handful of races so I studied horses with 4 races. This 2014 listing was not all inclusive but included horses mentioned in the discussions. I think many of you will find the following SPR rankings as interesting as I did. Funny stuff huh?