3yo's Vs 4yo+

simmo

simmo

Senior Jockey
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Since watching the impressive Fleeting Spirit I have been wrestling with the concept that this season's 3yo's could be better as a bunch than the older horses around.

The stats in Group races in Britain & Ireland open to 3yo+ for the past 3 years are as follows:

2008 9 races, 3yos - 5 winners
2007 9 races, 3yos - 1 winner
2006 9 races, 3yos - 3 winners

As a percentage of winners to runners I've only looked at this year, where 3yo's have a 21% success rate, compared to 4yo+ at 7%.

The big problem I have with this as a concept is the generalisation about an entire crop of horses (well actually 4 or 5 crops of horses). However, there is something floating about in the beerpool of my mind that tells me this is relatively important information.

Anyone have any thoughts on this concept?
 
There is no way, in my view that a crop of hunreds of 3yo's can be noticeably better (or worser) than last year's crop.

A few things are possible

- The elite horses (top 10 or so) may prove to be better than the elite older horses.

- The handicapper may have had difficulty in rating last year's juvenile form, thereby leaving more horses than usual well handicapped.

- It is a statistical anomaly, which will revert to type by this time next year.
 
Its too early to make any firm comments...the real test is Ascot and Newmarket etc. But the signs are pretty positive.

What odds would you take about a 3 year old winning one of the Group 1s over sprints at Ascot or Newmarket this year?
 
Very short ones!

This season's crop of 3-y-o sprinters is the best for many years, perhaps York's Nunthorpe Stakes is the most likely G1 sprint to fall to a 3-y-o, rather than at Ascot or Newmarket.

The Kingsgate Native camp seem pretty upbeat this week, I can see him taking the Nunthorpe again, especially as the Aussies won't be there.
 
Dont the stats need to be viewed in the light of the number of participants from each age group coupled with something like BHB/RP ratings going into the contests?

On their own they could be quite misleading. Also there are a lot of Group 1s still to be run!
 
Food for thought from the replies so far.

Just as soon as the boss stops hassling me for reports I intend to some further historical analysis on this.

My thoughts on the points made thus far are as follows:

"no way an entire crop can be noticeably better than their counterparts" - I tend to agree, so I'll be interested to see if historical research indicates that it is simply a statistical anomaly.

"elite horses" - the wins we've seen thus far have been in Gp2 & 3 races. Which wouldn't lead me to point simply at the elite horses.

"handicapper" - irrelevant to the data at hand, only looked at group races.

"seasons crop of 3yo sprinters....." - agree, but that does then contradict my agreement with the first point!

"BHB ratings" - agree with the principle, but have reservations. Handicapping of 2yo group performers tends to start with a fairly fixed rating of around 100 for placed horses in the early 2yo group races, spreading out from there amongst other races. If an anomaly such as an entire crop of horses being noticeably better existed, using the BHB rating as a guide to their likely performance would be inherently flawed. RP ratings are likely to have the same problem of subjectivity.

Without wishing to prejudice any research, if I found, for example, a sample of 2 or 3 years in the last 20 where such an anomaly existed, and that was then backed up by subsequent performances by a variety of performers in all aged races, coupled with other evidence, that would probably be enough to make me believe in the existence of such a phenomenon.

Of course, what I'll probably find is that no such evidence exists and that I have wasted significant amounts of time in finding that out! :D
 
Life in general is a waste of time, simmo.

You might as well spend it doing statistical analysis of the relative merits of racehorses born in particular years.

Or you could get out into the sunshine and be nice to people.
 
Originally posted by Bar the Bull@Jun 3 2008, 10:21 AM
Or you could get out into the sunshine and be nice to people.
Click to expand...
The former is fine with me, the latter is not. c***s.

OK, I've done a small amount of work on this, looking at the UK only for the last 19 years. The angle I've taken is simply to calculate the total number of group wins achieved by a crop over their lifetime. The sample runs from crops born in 1986 through to 2004.

The average numbers of UK group wins for a crop is 180. Only 8 crops fall +/- 15 wins from that average. Those crops being:

1991 - 161 wins
1992 - 208 wins
1998 - 212 wins
1999 - 197 wins
2001 - 196 wins
2002 - 157 wins
2003 - 164 wins
2004 - 120 wins

I would accept the thought that the 2003 and 2004 crops have likely not done all of their winning yet, so I would adjust the figures by the average wins of that age onwards (ie adding 60 to 2004, 30 to 2003 and 12 to 2002).

Which leaves me with 3 stand out years. 1991, 1992 and 1998. '91 for it's poor quality and '92 and '98 for their exceptional quality (or should that be quantity).

Looking at the table as a whole, it is clear that peaks follow troughs, the 4 years prior to 1992 being generally poor, the 4 prior to 1998 also being fairly average, and the 3 prior to this years 3yo crop also being average.

The question in my mind then points towards a couple of thoughts; does the data translate to Ireland and France? What effect does it have on the results in their 3yo year? Is there an explanation for these peaks and troughs?
 
What happens if you split the totals into wins by 2yos, 3yos and 4yo+? The changing trends in how quickly (or not) Group horses are retired must have an effect.

Also, the number of Group races must have increased in the last 20 years, although I don't know if it's by enough to have much of an effect.
 
The number of group races has risen so you are both quite right. Had a quick swatch at how it will affect the figures - it will accentuate both of the best years highlighted, and probably also make the last few years look worse.

Gareth's point about retiring racehorses is one I had considered, as is the consideration of class. From a brief glance it does not appear that the number of 3yo winners of all aged Group 1's is significantly effected by the number of winners, meaning that the increases must be either in older horses or in Gp 2/3 class.

Further work will follow in a couple of days...... :laughing:
 
I seem to recall an uncle once telling me that 1954 was notable in the Castlebar area for some of the fastest cows ever seen. When so minded they could outrun any farmer on a bicycle.

Racehorses and cows, like wine, are a biological product and it seems quite natural to me that there will be variations in quality from one year to the next.
 
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