For The Love Of Numbers

Hi, my name is Doug, and I have numerophilia. Okay, so I'm not sure that's an actual word...and my spell checker is pretty adamant that it isn't an actual word. Then again, I found it in an online dictionary. As everyone knows, they can't put something on the internet if it isn't true. Right?

Anyway, I'm going to go with it. I have numerophilia. That makes me a numerophiliac. No, I said NUMERO, not the other one. A love of numbers, not of dead things. That's how nasty rumors get started.


Okay, let's regain our focus. Focus on the numbers. If you've stuck with me this far, I imagine that you at least have some interest in numbers. Or maybe you're just a glutton for punishment. Of course, you might just be one of the people that sits down with some popcorn and enjoys watching a good train wreck. There's probably a "philia" for that too. I'm going to resist the urge to look it up though, as I'm starting to lose the focus that I tried to start this paragraph with!

Anyway...trying to compare things using the numbers is what I (and quite a number of others) enjoy doing. Comparing Babe Ruth to Barry Bonds. Jack Nicklaus to Tiger Woods. Secretariat to American Pharoah. (God, I love that name. The way to know that you've spelled it right is to have your spell checker tell you that you spelled it wrong! Pure awesomeness.) It's in our nature to try and compare things. Share our opinions. Make bold proclamations. Argue.

"Babe Ruth is the best home run hitter of all time."
"How can you say that? Barry Bonds hit more home runs than anyone else."
"Yeah, well Babe Ruth never used steroids."
"At least Bonds played in an integrated league."

And on and on it will tend to go, with two sides that aren't going to give an inch. Their minds are made up. They KNOW that they are right.

It's why people are always working on different statistics. Trying to find a better way to compare two people (especially across different eras). Figure out the definitive answer. Settle the arguments once and for all. Of course, this is probably a pipe dream. But, it's fun to work on nonetheless.

If you're still with me (you really ARE a glutton for punishment, what's the
"philia" for that???), you're probably wondering what's all this have to do with our little Photo Finish world. I really am getting to that. Well, trying to anyway.

With American Pharoah's recent winning of the Triple Crown, there came the inevitable comparisons to past winners, especially Secretariat.

"It was the second fastest Belmont time for a winner of the Triple Crown, behind Secretariat."
"It was the sixth fastest Belmont time ever."
"He ran a faster final quarter than Secretariat."

And then the usual discussions (arguments) commence.

Then the news comes out that Pharoah got a 105 Beyer for the race. After that seemingly (very?) low number came out, there was a lot of head scratching...questions ("Did he even watch the race?" "What race was he watching?')...accusations ("Numbers must be purely subjective." "There's a personal bias built in.") It isn't a 105 Shepard, so I can't say one way or the other, but the number makes for good conversation.

Which brings us to our little world. The 17th running of our Kentucky Derby was just completed, and the winner, Affection, posted the fastest winning time to date in the race. So, if we use our home run example from before, the "Bonds as greatest home run hitter ever" person would probably rank our winners like this...

1. Affection 1:58.67
2. Autharky 1:58.70
3. Ghino di Tacco 1:58.90
4. New Tower 1:58.96
5. Pegasus Song 1:58.98
6. Gradient 1:58.99
7. Ikran 1:59.10
8. Perfect Bell 1:59.21
9. Thunder Arctic 1:59.28
10. Negredo 1:59.42
11. Hagrid's Backhand 1:59.62
12. Isca's Dawn 1:59.67
13. War Machine 2:00.09
14. Down The Drain 2:00.19
15. Sligeach 2:00.42
16. Spanish Midnight 2:00.49
17. Taco Bell 2:00.59

Nice and easy. Fastest time equals best winner ever, right?  Nothing is ever that simple though, is it? Why not use that nifty little PSR stat that we have in our little world? What does PSR have to say about it?

1. Pegasus Song - 116
2. Thunder Arctic - 112
3. Perfect Bell - 109
4. War Machine - 107
5. New Tower - 103
6. Down The Drain - 100
7. Spanish Midnight - 99
8. Taco Bell - 94
9. Ghino di Tacco - 90
10. Autharky - 89
11. Gradient - 88
12. Affection - 88
13. Ikran - 86
14. Negredo - 84
15. Hagrid's Backhand - 83
16. Isca's Dawn - 81
17. Sligeach - 72

Ugh. Obviously, that list is problematic. I use the exact same program that spits out the PSR's, but I've tweaked it a bit so that the numbers for certain distance/surface combinations aren't so "off". My PSR for Affection's stakes record time comes out to a 104. Sligeach is actually an 88 in my sheet. Isca's Dawn a 97. It seems like the official PSR list isn't going to settle anything and we should probably just scrap it. Does that mean that we just have to live by ranking the races by final time? Not necessarily...

What if we were to remove these particular races from the history of Photo Finish and just compare them amongst themselves. Why compare them to a world record time that really has no connection to this particular race? Why compare them to a race run on a completely different track under completely different circumstances? Let's compare these seventeen Derbies to each other and see what we come up with.

So, where do we start? How about we come up for a par for the race? The average winning time for the Kentucky Derby is 1:59.49 (well, 1:59.4875765 actually...but, who's counting...besides me anyway). If we compare each winning time to the par, using one of my super secret formulas, we get a list that looks like this...

1. Affection - 108.094
2. Autharky - 107.873
3. Ghino di Tacco - 105.850
4. New Tower - 105.267
5. Pegasus Song - 105.060
6. Gradient - 105.013
7. Ikran - 103.914
8. Perfect Bell - 102.738
9. Thunder Arctic - 102.081
10. Negredo - 100.669
11. Hagrid's Backhand - 98.673
12. Isca's Dawn - 98.195
13. War Machine - 93.995
14. Down The Drain - 92.977
15. Sligeach - 90.691
16. Spanish Midnight - 89.987
17. Taco Bell - 89.927

Right about this time, the more observant readers (if any that have made it this far don't have glazed over eyes) will be saying to themselves that this list looks a lot like the first list only with a different number behind it. Hmmmm...you weren't supposed to notice that. Now, I'll have to keep going. Come up with something new. Wow you. Oh my, I'm not sure that I'm up to that. Damn you Jim for mentioning those real mathematicians!

So, anyway...even though that is basically the "time" list, the one thing I like about seeing it that way is that everything 100+ ran the race faster than the average winning time. It's a neat little way to give a final running time an historical perspective. I separated out the seventeen runnings of the Kentucky Derby, as it was the easiest way to quickly break this down. It could also be done to include all ten furlong dirt races at Churchill Downs. Or even all ten furlong dirt races ever run in Photo Finish history. But, there again, you're getting into the debate of how much does a race run at Churchill have in common with races run at Saratoga, Santa Anita, or Shenandoah Downs.

Which brings me to my final little tweak to what we have so far. In saying that a race at Churchill is very different from a race at Santa Anita, it's also true that Churchill can be vastly different over the span of seventeen (or seventeen hundred for that matter) races. This year's Derby was run over the fastest track that we've ever had for the Derby. On the other end of the spectrum, War Machine's Derby was run over the slowest track that we've had for a Derby. We have to try and account for that in some way, so the super secret formula gets a little tweak and this is what we get...

1. Ghino di Tacco - 109.165
2. Autharky - 108,228
3. Pegasus Song - 108.123
4. Affection - 106.911
5. Gradient - 106.513
6. New Tower - 106.487
7. Ikran - 104.849
8. Thunder Arctic - 104.230
9. Perfect Bell - 103.986
10. Negredo - 102.772
11. Hagrid's Backhand - 101.922
12. War Machine - 99.571
13. Isca's Dawn - 99.332
14. Down The Drain - 92.269
15. Spanish Midnight - 91.643
16. Sligeach - 90.945
17. Taco Bell - 89.829

And there you have it, my ranking of the Derby winners to this point in our history. Is it perfect? Hardly. Will some consider me the biggest idiot ever? Most likely. Am I? Signs point to yes.

Just an FYI, I will add to this at some point soon with a list of the top-25 or so overall Derby runners. My laptop has eaten this particular spreadsheet twice now. I'll rebuild it again in a bit. Just not today...I'm off to bed. At least you'll have this small article to mull over for a bit. Or to print out, crumble up, and practice your jump shot into the trash can. The latter would probably be more fun.