WORLD THOROUGHBRED RANKINGS 2009 (written by Iant)

WORLD THOROUGHBRED RANKINGS 2009
 
They were issued last week. Are they relevant to the sim and what can they teach us going forward.
 
Last year when Mike introduced a real life stakes schedule he mentioned the rankings. It therefore seems to be fair that they do have some relevance to the sim moving forward. The second factor which backs this up is regional racing. The idea behind this appears to be to encourage diversification of sim breeding which need undertaking to obtain a shape to results somewhat like real life. I would guess that Mike would introduce changes over a period of several years.
 
There are limitations on the data and how it has been analysed.
 
Firstly the data is based on northern hemisphere time so for 3yo rankings are biased against southern hemisphere horses.
I have not when accessing rankings broke them down into sub data sets for class if a horse is on the list at 136 or 110 it has been counted the same.
I have used where horses have been bred not where the stallion stands or for that matter the country the horse is trained in. Where horses are rated in several categories I have taken the best one in terms of distance and surface requirements.
When accessing crop sizes I have used an average of the last three years reported to the nearest 500 below the average. This is more important for those countries with smaller crop sizes.
 
I would just like to thank Yochem for providing the search facility for the sim data used. Anyone who has stables not supporting a residency might like to support his tools site by following the misc tab on the main sim navigation page, then going to residencies and then clicking support and then selecting his residency.   
 
The first table we will look at is a simple it just lists the distance and surface the horses on the list achieved their best rating at. It does not count horses that were listed in multiple distances and surface.
 
The list is split into turf and man made which list all other surfaces.

	4yo+ Turf	4yo+ MM	3yo Turf	3yo MM	Total
No. Horses	295	48	136	22	501
DISTANCE
Sprint 5f-6.5f	43	14	8	3	68
Mile 7f-9.5f	89	21	44	10	164
Intermediate 9.5f-10.5f	66	10	37	6	119
Long 11f-13f	74	2	39	2	117
Extended 13.5f+	23	1	8	1	33
	295	48	136	22	501

It is obvious from the list the majority of the best horses in the world race on turf in percentage terms 86%. When Mike introduced this he mentioned this fact. It would therefore seem to be prudent going forward for most sim players to breed more turf horses than dirt horses if they are aiming for overall quality rather than an absolute goal like winning the Bluegrass Derby.
 
The list shows a few other interesting factors certain divisions are stronger than others. It would appear that long distance horses have a better chance of staying top class for longer as the competition is not so great. The same can be said of sprint racing compared to the classic distances of one mile to one and a half miles. This does make sense as what are most people trying to breed at the top level classic winners.
 
The second list is a bit more complicated and breaks down the horses into the countries they were bred in. It also contains the number of foals to the nearest 500 lower bred in those countries and reported to the international horse racing board. The last column shows the number of horses on the list as a percentage of the foal population bred in the given country where the figures are available.
 

COUNTRY BRED	4yo+ Turf	4yo+ MM	3yo Turf	3yo MM	Total	no foals approx	% on IRC
USA	56	38	20	21	135	34000	0.40%
IRE	66	1	46	0	113	12500	0.90%
GB	54	2	30	1	87	5500	1.58%
FR	18	1	13	0	32	5000	0.64%
GER	19	0	12	0	31	1000	3.10%
JPN	15	4	6	0	25	7500	0.33%
AUS	34	0	5	0	39	18000	0.22%
UAE	1	0	2	0	3	less than 25	0.00%
ARG	1	1	0	0	2	7500	0.03%
BRZ	1	1	0	0	2	3000	0.07%
SAF	7	0	0	0	7	3000	0.23%
ITY	2	0	0	0	2	1500	0.13%
ZIM	1	0	0	0	1	no record	0.00%
CAN	2	0	0	0	2	2500	0.08%
NZ	18	0	2	0	20	4000	0.50%
	295	48	136	22	501

Are they any factors that are of interest from the table above? When wecompare to the sim later yes there will be plenty. It will be of interest aswell when we break the results down into distances as well. The three year oldlist as stated at the start is on northern hemisphere time so is biased against southern hemisphere horses. You have to look at the 4yo+ list to obtain their true worth.
 
The list tells us the following. Horses bred in the USA are far superior than all other horses on a man made surface. In fact about 85% of all the horse to make the list was bred there. The other factor is that horses bred in England Ireland and Germany is superior to other horse when it comes to turf racing. Logical reasons for some of these factors are listed below.
 
The USA breeds the majority of its horses for racing in the United States this is mainly done on dirt. It is therefore successfully breeding to its markets needs.
   
Great Britain and Ireland need to be lumped in together. This is mainly due to the fluid nature of the broodmare population between the two countries. This in simple terms means using the suffix of where a horse is foaled does not give an indication of where the stallion stands. Combing the two gives a percentage of 1.11%. This means a horse bred in these two regions is 2.5 times more likely to be a top class horse than one bred in the USA. This is supported by looking at the Keeneland and Tattersall’s websites on stakes winner they have sold when compared to numbers sold through each sales company.
 
The factors that are behind this are threefold. Firstly thoroughbred horse come from England and the rich and wealthy tend to keep the best broodmares for themselves. It means that the best mares from the best families have tended to be kept by private English breeders since the start. Secondly during the 1970’s and 1980’s Coolmore and partners, Juddmonte and the Maktoum family invested heavily buying up most of the top horses sold in the USA . This has meant these bloodlines are now in there broodmare bands and for the most part these are based in England or Ireland . The last factor is that over the last 20 years the majority of the best male racehorses per the rating have been retired to stud in England and Ireland . If you have the best to breed to it does help.
 
The interesting result is Germany a very high percentage of the horses bred in Germany make the list. This will surprise many people. I was surprised that the percentage was so high I have to admit. The reasons behind this seem to stem from the rules that are imposed by stallions that stand in Germany . In simple terms they have had to obtained a rating of 115 or above on the World Rankings, the stallions must be free for any major physical problems confirmation and wind lastly they must never have run on medication. It seems this very strict rules is paying dividends. I suppose if you breed to good stallions who by there nature should throw decent stock without breathing problems you have to stand a good chance.
 
France ahs a higher percentage of winners to runners than the USA but this are mainly down to mares being covered by stallions based in Ireland . Many people send mares to France to be foaled. This is due to the very nice premiums for French bred runners even if they run in England and Ireland .
 
The only other factor which may raise a few eyebrows is the fact New Zealand bred horses are more likely to make the list than those bred in Australia . The thing to note here is that I have not tried to identify shuttle stallions at all. This will be of more concern though when comparing to sim data.
 
The next table breaks down the data into which distances the horses from each country achieved their best rating in for the turf division.

3YO Turf	USA	IRE	GB	FR	GER	JPN	AUS	UAE	NZ		Total
Sprint	0	4	1	0	1	0	2	0	0		8
Mile	17	7	14	1	3	0	2	0	0		44
Intermediate	1	23	4	2	3	1	1	1	1		37
Long	2	10	10	7	5	4	0	0	1		39
Extended	0	2	1	3	0	1	0	1	0		8
4YO+ Turf	USA	IRE	GB	FR	GER	JPN	AUS	UAE	NZ	ARG	BRZ	SAF	ITY	ZIM	CAN	Total
Sprint	5	9	5	1	0	1	18	0	2	0	0	1	0	1	0	43
Mile	21	15	16	3	3	4	14	0	6	1	0	4	1	0	1	89
Intermediate	18	21	9	4	5	0	1	0	5	0	1	2	0	0	0	66
Long	10	15	19	6	9	7	1	1	4	0	0	0	1	0	1	74
Extended	2	6	5	4	2	3	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	23
Totals	56	66	54	18	19	15	34	1	18	1	1	7	2	1	2

There are several trends to note. The first is in sprint racing. This seems to be the domain of the Australian the vast majority of there horses excel here in fact they have more horses in the division than any other country. The majority of there other horses are in the mile category. There is obviously a massive speed bias in Australian racing and they breed these kinds of horses very well.
 
The next stand out is the USA it is especially so in 3yo racing they seem to be a nation that breeds milers and have there are real stamina limitations with there stock. What you cannot see from the table is the fact many of the older horses with decent stamina are by retired, deceased or old stallions. The trend of breeding horses that are much more specialized will continue onwards. This is no surprise when you see how some decent horses with stamina have struggled to attract mares in the USA .
 
Japan is interesting in that it seems they tend to breed horses with decent stamina in the main. The lack of any horses at the intermediate trip is interesting overall the quality of the runners that made the list is not that great.
 
France seems to be a place where stamina holds out that is no surprise as the main aim of breeders there is to win the Arc. French horses tend to be raced more as three and four year olds and a two year old campaign are not of much interest to them. This tends to mean they are not so concerned with speed and precocious attributes in there horses.
 
Germany is very much the same as France with the emphasis on middle distance races for horses three years old and older. This is reflected by the fact most of the horses are in the intermediate distance upwards.
 
There is a slight difference between Great Britain and Ireland . This is where Ireland seems to produce more intermediate runners and Britain more long distance runners. This is actually due to the factors listed above in the report. Many of the American family’s that were introduced in the 1970’s and 1980’s tend to be Irish based where the older established family’s that tend to be more stouter due to historical factors (the Ascot Gold Cup run over 2/12 miles) was once the pinnacle of horse racing for older horses. It is not so hard to get that base stamina out of the breed.
 
New Zealand’s spread of horses very much follows trends. You would expect that to be common across the nations but it is obviously not the case which to a certain extent is very interesting. Darwin fans will be excited.
 
The last table represents sim stakes winners bred in 2008. I have overall and turf statistics. This is not the same as the World Rankings but is the best way of comparing them with the sim. You would expect some form of symmetrybetween the two sets of data.

SIM 2008 STATS	OVERALL SW	Horses	%	TURF SW	Horses	%
FR	32	2440	1.31%	17	1859	0.91%
ARG	3	419	0.72%	1	268	0.37%
AUS	134	6040	2.22%	90	4751	1.89%
BRZ	3	329	0.91%	1	246	0.41%
CAN	5	803	0.62%	2	543	0.37%
ENG	191	5158	3.70%	136	4476	3.04%
GB	28	1877	1.49%	17	1237	1.37%
GER	18	824	2.18%	12	661	1.82%
IRE	487	13520	3.60%	335	10472	3.20%
ITY	3	351	0.85%	2	253	0.79%
JPN	116	4287	2.71%	58	3155	1.84%
KY	1583	33202	4.77%	648	22393	2.89%
NZ	19	1236	1.54%	13	979	1.33%
ZIM	0	13	0.00%	0	10	0.00%
SAF	23	1202	1.91%	16	956	1.67%

I have used Kentucky instead of the USA as that is where over 95% of thetop horses in American are bred. It also made producing the data a lot easier. The first factor that jumps out at you on the list is what so many have known for a long time that sires based in Kentucky are to good as turf sires. It is fair to say Mike has improved this over the past few years which are good.
 
The situation is now being distorted to a certain degree by dam sires where there are massive differences between sim life and real life. I will not name the sire but here are two sires who raced in France both good race horses and dam sires in real life. Over the past ten years one has had 18 graded winners world wide as a dam sire the other 17. You would therefore expect their sim records to be somewhat similar in percentage terms. The one based in France has had zero stakes winners and zero graded stakes winners as a dam sire in the sim over the last five years. The other has had 16.7% stakes winners and 4.7% graded stakes winners. One is obviously grossly over rated the other grossly underrated.
 
It is still fair to say that sires based in Ireland , Great Britain ( England ) and Germany is seriously undervalued in the sim. There sim crop sizes are not massively out from real life either so usage is reasonable and therefore comparable. These sires need to be upgraded and this in the main can be achieved by the down grade of the ability of USA based stallions on the turf where those stallions ability is far greater than reality.
 
The one that does surprise me is how few Australian horses are bred in the sim. The results look very good in fact it may well be argued that these sires are overrated. The factor that real life and the sim cannot compare on my data is the number of (AUS) bred horses on the list that have sires due to shuttling would have been bred in other areas.
 
The list indicates that as a generic group sires from Japan are far too highly rated with the sim.
 
The conclusions which can be drawn from the data which would be useful for the sim are as follows.
 
1, All sires that are not based in the USA need to have there dirt racing ability drop to reflect reality.
 
2, USA based sires need to have a major reduction in there turf ability to reflect reality. This will need to be factored in over a number of years as the drop is in the region of 75%.
 
3, Australian horse need to be more speed emphasised on there ratings ability to reflect real life.
 
4, European based sires need to be better at distance as 1 mile plus this is even more important the longer the race gets.
 
5, Irish, British and Germany sires need an upgrade in ability. This is to reflect their true merit in the sim.
  
6, As a generic group sires from Japan need to be downgraded considerably in the sim around 50%.
 
7, Dam sire ratings need to be reviewed this is a horrible and mammoth task. It would be unfair for Mike to do this alone. If it was possible to draw the information out of the database I use online and match it to sim sires that would be a great help. Someone that has the ability to do this could maybe help here otherwise it would take someone a week at least to do it by typing and matching those records to sim sire id numbers.
 
Hopefully the data and findings may help or give one or two people ideas of what to breed or not to breed and potential changes going forward. Mike may have already done an experiment like this for all we know and be introducing the results into the sim.