Speed Figures - The Basics

I always review the speed figures when handicapping a race. Stating the obvious, the higher the speed figure the better. I'll provide some insight into speed figure basics in this post and then author a couple of follow-up posts highlighting speed figure options within horsegrader . Let's start with a horsegrader Speed Figures Screen Image (just click on the image for an expanded view):

I can take a look at the screen image and quickly see which horse has the Top Speed Figure. I can also quickly see the last speed figure, the best speed figure at the distance of the race, best speed figure on the race surface, and lifetime best speed figure for each horse. Notice that for three horses this will be their first race at this distance so they don't have any speed figures in the distance column. If I want, I can sort on any of the columns just by clicking on the column header.

I look at Speed Figures since my calculations have shown that the Top speed horse (Highest Speed Figure) wins 28.5% and is In-The-Money (ITM) 63.4% of the time. That is pretty impressive. I have noticed that there is some variance with surface and distance, which led to me doing the following calculations:

• Dirt/Sprint: Wins - 29.6% and ITM - 64.8%
• Dirt/Route: Wins - 28.6% and ITM - 63.7%
• Turf/Sprint: Wins - 28.5% and ITM - 58.0%
• Turf/Route: Wins - 23.8% and ITM - 55.9%

Hopefully these insights on speed figures will help you with your handicapping. As I stated earlier, I'll provide more on speed figures in upcoming posts. In the meantime, let me know if you have any questions.