*This may have been true of the earnings system, too, but I think too much weight is being put on one or two races. An off race at the wrong time and one of the potential race favorites might not get in.
*Shifting from 2-year-old races to 3-year-old races, and from sprints to routes, is certainly the right idea. At the same time, nothing magical happens in late February that suddenly means we are getting the true read on the horses then.
*To a certain extent, by weighting the points so much towards the later races, those races will become more difficult to win and much better barometers of which horses are deserving to be in the Derby than the earlier races. The question is if a horse has the right look about him, and runs a 104 Beyer winning an early Derby prep that isn't rich with points, should that horse be given at least almost as much credit as the horse who wins the Wood Memorial, Arkansas Derby, etc.? I guess how you answer that question has a lot to do with how you weigh speed and class in general.
*Churchill wants to be fair and is loathe to introduce any subjective element into the process. The truth is that a subjective element would improve the quality of the selections. To devise a system so refined that it can do the work better than holistic, non self-conscious evaluation is extremely difficult.
No one would ever target a potential Derby winner based on how many points he had under this system. Why, then, should it determine who gets to run in the race? Why should we have any faith in it? I think the argument has to be that the system is effective at telling whether horses are in the top 20 in the country, but not at telling who is going to win, and that somehow a "blink" reading of Derby starters may be more effective than the mechanical way at pinpointing the winner, but not at identifying the right starters. It seems to me the rating effectiveness of an approach would be the same at both tasks.
*My subjective component would just be that three starters should be left up to a committee, with 17 determined by the points. A failsafe is needed.
*Now that they are no longer the basis for Derby inclusion, and hence for the quality of the fields, inevitably we will see the purses of Derby preps drop over time, or at least relative to other graded stakes. I don't know if this is a good or a bad change, but I think it is significant and should be considered. Big Derby prep purses were an incentive to buy horses, both at yearling and 2-year-old sales, and privately in the winter before the Derby. There was more than enough money to go around for the good 3-year-old routers, and owners could take advantage.
I don't know if the purses for the Derby preps were negatively affecting the finances for tracks; some Derby preps were probably sponsored. If tracks can save money and stay in business, or raise purses a bit all around instead of splurging all of the money on the Derby preps, these lower purses could be good, a halt to the Derby prep purse madness.
But I think what might happen is Derby prep purses could become notably low. These races that have the high point totals built in them almost have automatic prestige working for them, the way the Derby itself used to! A normal, everyday graded stake has its purse as a main calling card to draw the best horses possible. Normal, everyday graded stakes do not come with points counting towards another race.
The points take precedence over the purse for the Derby preps. So a Wood Memorial or some other race could have its purse reduced to $150,000 and still get big horses. The main thing stopping NYRA from dropping the purse like that is the purse has to be $250,000 for the race to be grade I. But do grades even mean much, in the context of the new points?
*Marketing wise, I think this system will be a tremendous success, and I anticipate extreme interest in Derby Prep season and Derby Championship season. The uniformity is here that wasn't with graded stakes earnings to get people to follow.
*You might not know if from this post, but overall there is more positive than negative to the change, I think.
No comments:
Post a Comment