Look beyond simple numbers when analyzing complex things…

On July 10^th, Kenwood Racing’s Title Fight won his debut at Gulfstream Park for trainer Steve DiMauro. On August 26th, our second two year starter with Steve, JW Racer, won his debut at Delaware Park. Yet according to statistics in the Daily Racing Form, Steve sported a record of 1 for 40 (2%) with first time starters going into Title Fight’s race. Obviously someone not very good at winning races with young horses; certainly a far cry from the trainer who won with 22% of his two year old starters (17 for 80) the last 5 years for Kenwood, who just happens to be the same Steve DiMauro.

So how could both be correct, and what does it say about statistics in the Racing Form  and elsewhere that handicappers and owners use to make major financial decisions? Let’s start with the stat from DRF. It’s not a lie; Steve really was just 1 for his last 40 with horses making their first start, it just doesn’t tell the complete story. With limited space, DRF reports only the win percentage, and only for the very first time a young horse runs. In other words, a sizable number of his starters might have run 2^nd or 3^rd in their debuts and/or won the 2^nd or 3^rd time out, which would lead you to logically conclude he’s a far better trainer of two year olds than the one abbreviated statistic shows.

So where does the 22% figure come from and how accurate is that? I took ALL of the two year olds Steve has trained for us in the last five years (when we began purchasing two year olds at public auction with Steve) and compiled ALL of their two year old starts, take a look…

There’s some very interesting numbers contained within this table. There are 18 total horses (we purchased more than that, but the rest were trained by other trainers and since this is an analysis of Steve’s record I didn’t include them here).  Every one of the horses Steve trained (100%) raced at age two, compared to the national average of 40% of all horses that race at age two. 13 of the 18 (72%) won at age two, compared to the national average of 11% of all horses that win at age two. 6 of those 13 won multiple races at age two, a stunning statistic that only the most elite two year trainers can match. Obviously, looking at these numbers, Steve DiMauro does a much better job with two year olds than the 1 for 40 statistic listed in the Daily Racing Form would indicate.  While this analysis is about two year old statistics, it’s worth noting also that all five of the non-winning two year olds went on to win at age 3, some for Steve and some for other trainers after being claimed from us. Most of these 18 horses as you can see above had long two year old campaigns, and most of them are still running today at ages 3,4,5, & 6, evidence that Steve’s patient approach results in sound horses who go on to have long, productive careers.

I used Steve DiMauro’s record (a trainer I am personally familiar with) to illustrate a point about how abbreviated statistics found in various publications can frequently be grossly misleading. The same would apply to a number of other trainers that the public perceives as under-performing with their two year old runners. Hall of fame trainers Nick Zito and Shug McGaughey to cite just a couple of other notable examples show similarly poor numbers with first time starters, yet if you looked beneath the hood at all their two year old starts, as with Steve, their stats would look very different.

A Kenwood co-owner who happens to be a very savvy handicapper pointed out that if a trainer is 1 for 40 with first time starters, while it might not say much about their overall record with young horses or their skill as a trainer, it does tell you to tread carefully when making a bet on one of their horses running for the first time. Point well taken, although even there the 1 for 40 in the Racing Form doesn’t tell you how many of those 40 horses were 2^nd or 3^rd in their debuts, many at juicy odds, since betters see the 1 for 40 win percentage and then avoid the horse in all wagers. You could have cashed some monster perfecta and trifecta bets by putting some of these horses in the mix at huge prices! What is fair to say is that trainers like Steve DiMauro, Nick Zito and Shug McGaughey are thinking long term, trying to give each horse the best possible shot of having a long and productive career, rather than winning first time out of the box. The fact that many champions like Triple Crown winners Secretariat and American Pharoah had the worst race of their careers in their debut indicates that the first race tells surprisingly little about a horse’s ultimate ability. Really good trainers understand this, and while they are only too happy to see their horse win first time out, they train with an eye towards having the horse move forward as their career progresses. But all of that is not the main point of this article. One can debate the skills and methods of different trainers, but what is crystal clear is that simplified statistics rarely paint an accurate picture when evaluating trainers, horses, basketball players, stocks, real estate, or pretty much anything anything else. If you want to succeed in any business or investment, you need to look beyond a few simple numbers when evaluating complex things! 

Robb Levinsky