If you are a handicapper who wagers regularly on a few tracks or a trainer entering horses across the United States, you’ve no doubt come across a race condition based on Trackmaster ratings. Whether the mathematical system for ranking horses, which began seeing use at Hoosier Park in May 2018 and has spread to nearly a dozen tracks in one form or another, is a good fit for the industry or is being properly handled by tracks, is certainly worth discussion. Before diving head first into the use of the ratings, it would be helpful to know some background on the number. The Trackmaster rating is created by assigning a numerical value to each past performance line and developing an average based on four of the previous eight races within a 150-day period. Each time a horse races the number changes, going up and down based on performance. Trackmaster simply provides the ratings to each track and it is up to the racing offices to decide how to use the information. The two most common methods of use have been to card races for horses that have a “Trackmaster Rating of XX or less” or to combine the rating with a condition based on money earned in recent starts. For instance, “Non-winners of $5,000 in last 5 starts. Also Eligible: Horses with a Trackmaster Rating of 78.3 or less.” On June 15, three tracks utilized the TM Ratings in one form or another. Hoosier carded nine races and Vernon Downs five races using the rating as part of an also eligible condition and The Meadowlands has three straight TM classes with another trio as AE listings. Tossing aside for a minute the validity of the ratings, it’s the use that leaves me often scratching my head. Picking a random number and allowing any horse below that rating to enter a race seems too broad of a range. Of course, when there are split divisions of a race due to a large number of entrants, you can get a fair split. On June 8 at The Meadowlands, a race was carded for a TM Rating under 80 (80.95 if a non-winner in last 5 starts) and there were two divisions with one far and away the better of the two. The first division had six horses with a rating above 78 and a range of 76.18 to 80.93. That division went in 1:51 1/5. The second division had three horses above 78 and a range of 69.96 to 80.62. That race went in 1:53 1/5. “I don’t think they are using them in the most optimal way possible,” said Trackmaster President David Siegel when asked about the use of the ratings by tracks. “On the other hand, there were lots of naysayers as there always are in this business. There were four tracks that used it last year and there are 10 that are using it now, and there will be an eleventh when Dayton opens. From that perspective, I’m happy.” Siegel has always felt the TM Rating works best when you have a large grouping of horses and separate them into even divisions. “Overall I still think what I call the accordion method works best; write a single class for girls and one for boys. Anyone can enter and if you get 50 entries in each, make five races of 10 according to their levels,” said Siegel. “When you use the accordion method, you have gaps at the top and bottom but compression in the middle.” Siegel added that the bottom and top races, which might have horses separated by large margins, could be made even by writing horses out or handicapping those races. He was also quick to point out the positives of the Trackmaster races versus typical conditions. “The numbers on field size for the Trackmaster races are higher,” said Siegel. “In general the number of odds-on favorites are lower and the number of 30-1s are higher, but not by as much as when there are pure Trackmaster races replacing the non-winners races.” Getting back to the example from The Meadowlands, it is worth noting that the highest ranked horse in the second division that went two seconds slower was 15-1 morning line and went off at 56-1. The horse with far and away the lowest rating in the race was 5-1 morning line and went off at a respectable 10.80-1.  So the system, similar to the Trackmaster morning line, is not perfect. There are certain variables, like low-percentage trainers or drivers and major driver changes, that don’t compute when it comes to the ratings, which is why despite concerns that it will completely eliminate the personal touch of race office personnel is unfounded. The system will always require race office staff to fine-tune the final output, handicap races and simply hustle to fill fields. “That just happens in society,” said Siegel about the concern over loss of jobs. “That was one of the biggest things when we came up with the automated morning lines. I would show the tracks that I had proof our lines were better than whoever was doing it. If it doesn’t cost anything, why wouldn’t you use it? The answer was, ‘We have a guy who has been doing it forever and we don’t want to fire them.’ I would come back and say, first, why don’t you have them use our morning line as a starting point and let him edit those lines; you’ll end up with a better product. The other thing is have that person write a handicapping column and pay them the same amount of money.” Another potential issue brought up by handicappers is that horsemen could potentially “work” the system by going slower times in order to lower their horses’ TM Rating so they can drop in class. Siegel did not shy away from the issue. “That is in theory correct, however it is not easy to do that,” said Siegel about beating the system. “The algorithm is the best four of the last eight starts. If a guy looks and he calculates all of the numbers, then he could come back and race lousy if he knew one of the starts would come off. “I would think that would be so much harder to do than in the non-winners money conditions, since you can easily see how much is dropping off a horse’s card and you know exactly what you have to do to drop in class.” It would be interesting to see the TM Rating system in place as Siegel suggested above to truly see how well it works. That said, I’d like to induce a bit of a human touch as well. After 50 horses are broken up into five fields of 10 based purely on TM Rating, a member of the Racing Office should be able to weed out horses that seem out of place and move them to the appropriate spot in the group of 50 horses. This would certainly benefit the track in terms of producing the most even-matched fields. Of course some horses might end up racing in tougher spots but on the flip side others would drop into fields where they could be more competitive. In the end the TM Rating system works very similar to the “ABC” conditions that have been used on and off for many years. Buffalo Raceway is currently using it. The key difference is that the Racing Office doesn’t need to spend countless hours classifying and re-classifying horses. Like with the Trackmaster morning line, a baseline is provided and with minor adjustments, in theory, a strong final product can be achieved. From a handicapping perspective, the TM Rating does throw a bit of a wrench into the system because they are often being used to squeeze horses into races via also-eligible conditions. Trying to figure out exactly how each horse “fits” in a race is becoming more and more difficult as tracks compete to fill classes by combining horses of all ages and backgrounds. Additionally, situations like the 80.95 TM Rating or lower race at the Meadowlands can be tricky for players when those horses race next week. Taken in a vacuum all 17 horses raced in the same class but in reality eight of the group faced tougher competition, and it won’t always be as apparent as a two-second difference in time to point out the disparity. For now, we will likely continue to see experimentation with the TM ratings. Whether they will fade away like the ABC system or flourish remains to be seen. As with most things in life, the ratings aren’t all good or all bad. It is a potential tool and it is up to the tracks to decide how and when to use it.