They run an opening quarter in 24, and the half mile went in 47 and 3, the lead horse is an experienced grade two racehorse who is getting everything her way- it’s her race to lose. Even with the tepid fractions her usually cool, calm and collected journeyman jockey knows that he’s in for a dogfight. You see, there’s a freight train 15 lengths behind him and her name is Zenyatta. This isn’t another Zenyatta blog. This is a blog about why confirmation is so important when evaluating juveniles and what measurements to look for and which ones you should ignore.
Several years ago, the Jockey Club published a landmark study in which they studied 260 foals and recorded seven measurements for each one. The measurements were as follows: wither height, hip height, body length, distal limb length, cannon circumference, heart girth and chest width. These seven measures were then weighed against each horse’s win percentage to see if there was a relationship- or correlation between that particular measurement and a horse’s win percentage. The results were close to what you would think they would be.
| Body Part | Colts | Fillies |
| Wither Height | .21 | .28 |
| Hip Height | .24 | .31 |
| Body Length | .24 | .29 |
| Distal Limb Length | .11 | -.04 |
| Cannon Circumference | .20 | .14 |
| Heart Girth | .27 | .27 |
| Chest Width | .18 | .12 |
So here’s some statistics 101. A correlation coefficient is a measurement on a scale of -1.0 to 1.0 of how much the value of one variable impacts the value of another variable. A correlation of 1 means that the two variables are in a perfect and positive linear relationship with one another. A negative value means that the first variable negatively impacts the value of the second variable. A positive correlation of .30 or greater is considered relatively strong but not an overpowering factor.
Looking at the chart, there is only one value that meets our .3 threshold; Hip Height for fillies, but there another one that comes relatively close and that is body length for fillies. Of course, statistics isn’t perfect and is open to interpretation. Now, considering that juveniles exclusively run sprints- with the exception of the Breeder’s Cup Juvenile races and the Nashua – basically three races out of over a thousand- it is remarkable that heart girth managed to score a .27 correlation coefficient. Imagine if half of the races contested were routes. It is safe to assume that heart girth would’ve climbed to .35 and been the biggest correlation component for both genders. Now, why is hip height so important for females but not males, who knows? My theory is that there are fewer females with massive hip height than there are males so the females like Zenyatta who have this type of hip height really stand out.
So, looking at the chart, body type, in particular hip height is a great predictor of success in fillies but less so in males, but keep in mind that only one measurement even met the .30 threshold so I wouldn’t go and play an unraced juvenile purely based on measurements even if she looks like Zenyatta.
Horseplayers a New Series on Esquire Channel
Somewhere along the way, corrupt trainers took the mantle away from lovable wiseguy handicappers as the face of the industry. This changing of the guard certainly hasn’t done the sport any favors. I was at a dinner party when I overheard a young blonde tell one of her girlfriends that Big Brown almost ran in the Belmont but didn’t because he had laminitis. Of course, you know that he had tendinitis, but you get my point. Somewhere out there is a young blonde woman who actually thought that Big Brown almost contested the Belmont Stakes despite a deadly illness. It goes without saying that if you did a word association game with someone off the street and said horse racing, the first image that would pop into their heads is someone who looked like Ron Jeremy sending out horses with laminitis.
So, needless to say I was skeptical when I heard that the Esquire network was doing a show on the modern handicapper, but apparently there are times when you can expect the unexpected.
Horseplayers takes a look at the world of thoroughbred racing from the world of professional handicappers, but references to complex handicapping algorithms are few and far between. The goal of horseplayers is to be contrarian and take the position that despite what mainstream media tells you, watching horses go around an oval is a hell of a lot of fun. The show does this by introducing us to wise guys like John Conte from Aqueduct. He’s the type of guy who chats up the hottest waitress at the bar, but ends it early so he can get up the next morning to watch workouts. Another character that I liked was two Breeders’ Cup Handicapping Championship runner-up, Christian Hellmers. He kept picking Goldenscents all year because he hung out with the horse and supposedly got a good vibe from him. Christian is the prototypical oddball West Coast handicapper that I can’t get enough of. He’s the guy that won’t bet a filly if she’s running against males and looks passive in the post parade. In other words, Christian is not a pure statistical handicapper- he’s too much of a badass for something like that.
John and Christian are why Horseplayers gets it right, and HBO’S Luck got it wrong. This sport may be down on its luck and experience unbelievable corruption at times, but it still attracts the coolest people in the country. I don’t have to tell you how many parts of the brain a legitimate handicapping process uses. If you are reading this, you are probably the type of person who knows that properly handicapping a horse race is like doing bench presses with your mind- it’s not for the faint of heart. The interesting thing is that the only people who want to do bench presses via telepathy are people who are quirky fun and have a story to tell. Horseplayers chooses to focus on these people and lets the corrupt trainer with the 35% win percentage fade to the background, even if it is just for one hour each week.