Fast Enough?

As we continue the march towards the Derby Kennedy's Corridor continues to take a look at statistics trends involving the Derby. We have already covered things like dosage, number of preps, and career experience.

One question that seems to always come up is whether or not a certain Derby contender is actually fast enough to win the Derby. People use all sorts of measuring sticks. A few weekend statisticians will notice that most Derby winners have recorded high Beyer figures prior to the Derby. Many use a 105 Beyer figure as their "fast enough" line simply because most Derby winners (10 of the last 14) had run that number or more prior to the Derby.

This stat works decently, if you isolate all horses who ran a Beyer Speed figure of 105 or more around two turns from 1996 to the present you get 8 winners from 62 starters (62-8-5-6). That's 72% of the winners from just 31% of the starters (IV 2.32).

Still others take the average Derby winning figure, which is 109.43 and only use those horses who have run that fast already. Horses fitting that criteria have compiled a Derby record of 23-4-2-2. That 36.5% of the winners from just 11.85% of the starters (IV 3.07).

There is definitely a correlation between fast horses and Derby success. It only makes sense. However not all stats should be used just because they seem to work. Although there is validity to the idea that fast horses are more likely to win the Derby I don't either of the methods mentioned above represent the best way to identify the horses who are fast enough. Because both of those stats are based purely on past runnings. Now tell me why Giacomo needed to run a Beyer fig fast enough to win the 1998 Derby? He was running in the 2005 renewal which contained significantly slower horses. So the question is not "Is this horse fast enough to win the Derby from a historical perspective?" the question is "Is this horse fast enough to win this Derby?"

To try and quantify the answer for that question I set about trying to find a way to identify how fast a horse should be in order to compete with their peers. The method I came up with was taking the average of every winning Beyer figure achieved in a two turn graded stakes race. But I only included the races that were represented in the Derby itself. For instance what bearing would the Arkansas Derby have on the Kentucky Derby is no one from that race was running? What I found was that it eliminated far fewer horses but most importantly (and not surprisingly) every single Derby winner in the last 11 years was "fast enough" to win their Derby. The most important part of this factor is not the horses that it includes (which compiled a record of 112-11-8-10) but rather it's most useful for identifying horses to toss. Horses who did not achieve a Beyer figure that was equal or superior to the average two turn prep winning figure compiled a record of 82-0-3-1. That's right, 82 starters and no winners. That is the real value of this statistic.

So remember when looking at the Derby entrants make sure to ask yourself "Is he fast enough to win this Derby?