The Myth of Dosage and Dual Qualifiers

This may come as a shock to you guys but Dosage and Dual Qualifiers are not given any consideration in my evaluation of the Derby. I simply don't believe that there is any value to the system and I think that it is flawed to the core. For those of you who aren't aware what Dosage and Dual Qualifiers are here is a brief explanation.

Dosage is a points system that essentially tries to predict a horses most effective racing distances by their breeding. The rule of thumb is that no horse with a Dosage over 4.00 has the breeding to be a Derby winner. A Dual Qualifier is simply a horse with Dosage less than 4.00 and a rating on the Experimental Free Handicap that is within 10lbs of the division leader. That is to say the two components are breeding and a solid 2yo season.

Dosage is useless as a handicapping tool. It was created to be useful with past data and has a poor record going forward. Its effectiveness is decreasing with each passing generation because new sires come onto the scene and don’t get added to the Chef-de-race list until their progeny have already proven themselves. Another reason why its useless is because it eliminates virtually nobody. In the past 10 years 89% of the Derby starters have had a dosage of 4 or less. The cumulative record of the non-Dosage qualifiers is 21-3-1-1. Ironically if you focus on the 21 horses who didn’t have a low dosage you might have done very well indeed.

In 10 years you've got just 20 horses who didn’t have a dosage of 4.00 or less from 194 starters. A straight win bet on each prospect would have cost $42 and returned $186. A tidy little 342% ROI. Also the non-Dosage qualifiers boast a sturdy 2.50 Impact Value, meaning that each horse with a dosage of over 4.00 has won the Derby 2.5 times more than they would be statistically expected to do.

The problem with the dosage system is that its based on stallion progeny statistics which of course are only relevant once the stallions progeny record is complete. That is why this system struggles on a going forward basis. It can only tell 10 years after the fact who the chef's-de-race for that period actually were. It is a lagging quantifier instead of a leading indicator.

The reason Dual Qualifiers doesn't really work is because not only is Dosage fundamentally flawed but the Experimental Free Handicap is also flawed. First of all its a ranking compiled based on the opinions of handicappers. Like Timeform or the International Classification ratings its a subjective rating. Secondly the way 2yo's and 3yo's are being campaigned differs greatly from how they were in the 70's and 80's. 2yo's are maxxed out in order to capitalize on their precocity and are washed up by the time the Derby preps roll around. Top Derby candidates are brought around slowly and often aren’t cranked up until they're 3yo's.

The creators of thew Dual Qualifier system claim that its due to have a good run again but the Dual Qualifier system isn’t due, a system is only due if it has a reasonable expectation of accuracy on a going forward basis. This system doesn’t and while the DQ's of this years crop look pretty strong it’s almost entirely a matter of coincidence. I for one wouldn’t be shocked if a "Dual Qualifier" never won the Derby again.

Only 40% of the Derbies since its creation have been won by DQ's and the percentage is declining at an accelerating rate.

1973-79
7 races
7 winners (100.0%)
19 DQs (19.8%)
36.8% DQ winners
96 starters
IV = 5.05

1980-89
10 races
8 winners (80.0%)
33 DQs (19.3%)
24.2% DQ winners
171 starters
IV = 4.15

1990-99
10 races
5 winners (55.6%)
39 DQs (25.7%)
12.8% DQ winners
152 starters
IV = 2.16

2000-06
0 winners (0.0%)
20 DQs (15.6%)
0.0% DQ winners
128 starters
IV = 0.00

The one thing you ought to note is that the DQ system has a declining winning pct for every successive decade of data provided. To get a better picture you should remove the years 1973 to 1983.

Those years are of course perfect, because the system was created on historical data and was not officially released until 1984. The real test of a system is not using back tested data but from a certain point going forward.

Since 1983 there have been 23 Derby's and just 9 Derby winners fit the system. What it means for the Dosage theory is that its most successful period was prior to its actual creation, which of course leads one to assume curve fitting was an integral part of the research. On a going forward basis the entire system has been under performing. Even look at the system on a 5 year basis

4 of 5
2 of 5
3 of 5
0 of 5
0 of 3

The system has been irrelevant since 5 years after it was created. Up to that time it only missed 1 of 16 Derby's. Since then its gone 5 for 18.

This very much flies in the face of conventional wisdom, pretty much everyone accepts that Dosage is a handy tool to help narrow down Derby contenders, but the real test of every system is how well it does going forward. Even my own Triple Crown 20-20 is a system in its infancy based primarily on historical data. If it fails to perform in the next 5 years it will be a useless fraud.

So perhaps the logical question is if I don't use Dosage for the Derby what do I use for assessing a horses breeding? I personally don't use any breeding at all. I think once a horse has made a few starts and has gone two turns you are able to see if he's is going to get the distance no matter what his Dosage figure is.