Much to my surprised, the result from investigating what I expected to be an increase in unrated winners as summer leaves us behind and Autumn descends was not the case. In fact the complete reverse is true with our most successful summer month August showing 30% of All Weather winners had not previously run on the surface, September 19% and October currently reaching the dizzy heights of 9%. This has completely thrown me of guard but as always during the investigation I unearthed another consideration.
It is commonly accepted that 2yo and 3yo horse improve over the course of the season. So lets take a scenario where a 3yo (A) has its first runs in March and records a rating of 98%. 3YO (B) ran 7 days ago (October) and records a rating of 98.5%. The ratings would suggest that 3yo (B) will beat 3yo (A).
The practice of compiling a speed figure based upon a particular performance makes no allowance for the likely improvement we are likely to see from 3yo (A) between March and today. The chart, above compiled from 4 years of my records would suggest that 3yo (A) is likely to have improved significantly enough to beat 3yo (B). Although it would set a dangerous precedence to adjust ratings to compensate for time lapsed between today and LTO dates I think that having a rating sit alongside the LTO rating for reference would not go amiss.
Equally significant from the chart above is the parallel of improvement in older horses until August when they appear to plateau and are overtaken by 3yo. This was bared out in yesterdays ramblings which highlighted 3yo's ruling the roost at this time of year and go on to take 66% of 3yo+ races. It would also suggest that we are likely to see the same trend continue on in to November.
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