Withers Beyer Speed Figure gets raise
The Beyer Speed Figure for the horses who ran in the Grade 3, $250,000 Withers Stakes on Feb. 5 at Aqueduct has been elevated by nine points with the winner, Early Voting, having now been assigned an 87.
The change was made to reflect the improvement horses who finished behind Early Voting have shown in their subsequent starts following the Withers. Un Ojo, second to Early Voting, came back to win the Grade 2, $1 million Rebel on Feb. 26 at 75-1 while Grantham, fourth in the Withers, came back to run second at 37-1 to Classic Causeway in last Saturday’s Grade 2, $400,000 Tampa Bay Derby. Smarten Up, sixth in the Withers, was beaten a nose in the three-horse City of Brotherly Love Stakes at Parx on March 8, a race which saw Courvoisier, seventh in the Withers, run last of three.
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Andrew Beyer, who developed the speed figures decades ago, said there was some discussion among his team early on that the Withers figure might have been too low. Beyer noted the figure was difficult to make in part because it was the only two-turn race on that day’s nine-race card.
Beyer said races are frequently flagged for possible adjustments when the figure was deemed too difficult to make due to weather/track conditions or possible timing issues.
“There was enough of a body of evidence to suggest that 78 was too low,” Beyer said. “At the time of the race we wouldn’t have been smart enough to know that. None of the top six finishers in the Withers had ever run a figure better than a 76. It looked like it could have indeed been a weak field, but when these horses started coming back we boosted the number to an 87 to jibe with the subsequent performances of the horses. There are plenty of times when the two-turn races will have a different character, a different variant than one-turn races. If there had been another two-turn race on the card we wouldn’t have been so wary of this.”
Early Voting is pointing to the Grade 2, $750,000 Wood Memorial at Aqueduct on Aug. 9. Gilded Age, third in the Withers, is scheduled to make his next start in the $1 million UAE Derby at Meydan on March 26.