Okay, so today I decided to mess around with Beyer Speed Ratings. I’d heard about them, you know, being a way to figure out how fast a horse really is, but I’d never actually tried to calculate one myself.
Getting Started
First, I dug up some past performance charts. I just grabbed whatever I could find online. Needed to know the final times, track variant, and all that jazz. It’s kinda like baking – gotta have all the ingredients before you start.
Figuring Out the Track Variant
This was the tricky part. The track variant is supposed to tell you how fast or slow the track was on a particular day. I spent a good chunk of time trying to understand how to calculate this. There are these tables and charts you’re supposed to use, and honestly, it felt a little like learning a new language. Basically, you compare the times of races on a given day to some kind of “standard” time for that track and distance.
I followed step:
- I started gathering final race time.
- Then, I calculated the track variant with the data I got.
- Next, I did my best to estimate lengths ahead with the charts.
Calculating the Actual Rating
Once I had a handle on the variant, I could actually start calculating the Beyer Speed Rating for each horse. It involved some more math – taking the final time, adjusting it based on the track variant, and then doing some more calculations to get a single number. There’s a formula, but it’s not super complicated, more like plugging numbers into the right spots.
My Takeaway
Honestly, it was a bit of a process. It’s not something you can just whip up in five minutes. But after doing it a few times, it started to make more sense. I can see why people who are serious about horse racing would use these ratings. It gives you a way to compare horses across different tracks and distances, which is pretty cool. I’m not sure if I’ll become a Beyer Speed Rating expert, but it was definitely an interesting experiment to add and try to improve.
I will share new update after my experiment getting better.
