Q. My wife and I are part owners of a horse name Dun Drum who raced at Woodbine last Sunday. He is a stakes winner. His Beyers seems to be consistently behind other horses and especially behind the speed figures through Equibase. We will soon be making the decision to keep him staked to the Queen’s Plate ($10,000 entry), but his low Beyers gnaw at me. Any comment at all would be more than greatly appreciated.–John StapletonA. When Dun Drum finished a close third in the Woodbine race, he earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 71 – the best of his five-race career. He’s been a consistent and productive runner for you so far, but he would be overmatched in the Plate, which has been won with figures of 95, 96, 85, and 87 in its last four runnings.After more than four decades as a journalist covering the sport, I know the worst mistake that an owner or trainer can make: It is to run a horse in a spot where he is badly overmatched. Doing so is not a harmless exercise – horses usually regress after being subjected to stress that they can’t handle.The golden rule of managing horses is to run them in races where they belong. Until now, your ownership group and your trainer, Ian Black, have done everything right with Dun Drum. He won a race for Ontario-sired maidens impressively enough that he deserved to run in stakes for Ontario-sired or Canadian-bred horses. He’s run creditably in all of them, earning nearly $100,000 – not bad for the son of a sire with a $2,500 stud fee. But be realistic: Even though your horse is listed at No. 9 in the Daily Racing Form Queen’s Plate Watch, he just lost a slow five-horse race. Don’t get overly ambitious now. If Dun Drum is ever ready to be competitive in a $1 million race, he’ll let you know. –Andrew BeyerQ. I recently watched a horse named Erlich that you gave a 95 in his Aqueduct maiden win. He ran last in the California Derby on April 27. The 95 Beyer was an extreme upgrade from his other starts. What would have caused your team to give him such a high number?–Brian KozakA. Erlich earned the 95 by running fast. As you noted, he improved sharply in his March 10 Aqueduct race, running 20 points faster than his previous best. He was probably helped by getting a clear early lead on a sloppy track, but the figure was legitimate. Second-place Orbed received a figure of 88 when he finished 4 1/2 lengths behind Erlich; he came back a month later to win a maiden race with a figure of 87. After Erlich’s victory he shipped across the country to run in a stakes over a synthetic surface. This was probably not an ideal spot for him, judging from his 23-length loss and his Beyer Speed Figure of 43.–Andrew Beyer