Inside the Trip: Top Four Moments in Data From 2014

Hootenanny, pictured winning the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf, was identified as a potential star from Trakus data after his maiden win at Keeneland. (Photo by Eclipse Sportswire)
A new season awaits and 2014 has come to a close. But as we’ve done before, let’s take a look back at the four most compelling moments in data collected and reviewed on the blog.
#4 – Texas Red’s FrontRunner
In the FrontRunner, American Pharoah seemed fairly geared down in the final furlong while landing an easy score. Our Breeders’ Cup preview blog highlighted the closing two sectionals of the top three finishers of the race, and surprisingly, both American Pharoah and Texas Red were fairly similar. Both had the same final eighth, while Texas Red was just 0.12 seconds slower than the well-fancied American Pharoah in the last quarter.
When both he and Calculator scratched, Texas Red was the best of the rest from the FrontRunner in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile and made it happen in a big way.
BREEDERS' CUP JUVENILE

#3 – Tonalist’s maiden win
Our blog from early February highlighted data from 1 1/8-mile races at Gulfstream Park. In that was a little nugget that identified a particularly compelling statistic about Tonalist’s maiden win from January.
Of an admittedly small sample, Tonalist was just one of five horses to win a race at the distance after covering the widest or second-widest trip, accounting for just 12% of all races in the study. More so, he was just one of four to horses to win from four or more lengths behind after the opening half-mile.
Of course, Tonalist missed the Kentucky Derby, but went on to victory in the Belmont Stakes, and successfully endured a wide trip doing so.
BELMONT STAKES

#2 – Shared Belief’s wide runs
When winning the Awesome Again, Shared Belief covered 66 feet more than Fed Biz, a distance that approximates to covering an extra 7 ¾ lengths. In the Breeders’ Cup Classic, Shared Belief went 58 feet, about 6 ¾ lengths more than Bayern. From last Friday’s Malibu Stakes at Santa Anita, he went 19 feet more than longshot Conquest Two Step and 21 feet more than Chitu.
AWESOME AGAIN STAKES

Overall, in his last three races, Shared Belief traveled the equivalent of 16 ¾ lengths more than both the second-place finishers in his two wins and Bayern in the Classic. He’s done it harder than most of his competition, and was a rare open-company winner “early” in the season, when he was also fairly wide in the Pacific Classic.
#1 – Hootenanny’s maiden win
When Hootenanny debuted at Keeneland, he rallied from just off the pace to win, and left us with the immediate visual impression that he ran faster in the final two furlongs than first two furlongs of the 4 ½ furlong race on the now-removed Polytrack. A quick assessment of the data proved that to be true.
HOOTENANNY'S MAIDEN WIN AT KEENELAND

We went back to search our data and find any other similar instances of juvenile maidens over course and distance to do the same – only finding three others, two graded stakes winners and the other stakes placed, to do the same as Hootenanny: Judy the Beauty, Gypsy Robin, and Holdin Bullets. The early data was as impressive as it looked. Hootenanny went on to win the Windsor Castle Stakes at the Royal Ascot meet, run a close second the Prix Morny at Deauville, then finished the year winning the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf.
BREEDERS' CUP JUVENILE TURF

All the best in 2015. Happy New Year!