Edited Equibase Press Release
Equibase Company is a partnership between subsidiaries of The Jockey Club and the Thoroughbred Racing Associations of North America and serves as the Thoroughbred industry’s official database. Through its website and mobile applications, Equibase offers a comprehensive array of free statistical information as well as premium handicapping products and reports in support of the North American Thoroughbred racing industry.
In June 2017 STATS, the global leader in sports intelligence, and Equibase Company, the Thoroughbred industry’s official database, joined to make available a mobile version of STATS Race Lens™, the interactive past performance product released last summer.
“STATS Race Lens is a truly unique and innovative tool for horse racing that uses algorithms similar to those we have developed for other major sports,” said STATS Chief Revenue Officer Richard Henderson. “By developing a mobile version of the product we have opened the platform to a wider audience and to bettors who want to access the performance data at the track.”
STATS Race Lens includes four key features all now optimized for mobile devices with every feature having been formatted to be easily viewed regardless of the user’s screen size: advance search and custom handicapping angles, the ability to back-test handicapping theories, customized past performance data with conditional formatting, and STATS proprietary predictive modeling.
The predictive modeling feature, which looks at how a race could unfold and is known as STATS True Odds, was optimized for mobile last fall when it was offered as a stand-alone product.
“One of the unique qualities of STATS Race Lens is the ability to create an angle specific to the way you handicap and then test that theory based on past races to see how the angle would have performed,” said Equibase President and Chief Operating Officer Jason Wilson. “Now the easy access to STATS Race Lens from your phone makes it perfect for checking your angles on race day wherever you are.”
STATS Race Lens and STATS True Odds are available for purchase at equibase.com trackmaster.com, at TVG’s handicapping store at tvg.com, and at Xpressbet’s Pro Shop at Xpressbet.com. More information about STATS True Odds and STATS Race Lens is available at stats.com/racelens.
STATS is the global leader in sports intelligence. Trusted by the world’s most innovative teams, leagues and brands seeking the winning edge at the intersection of sports and technology, STATS combines the industry’s fastest and most accurate data platform with video analysis, sports content and research, player tracking through STATS SportVU®, and a range of customizable digital solutions for brands. The pioneer of live sports data, STATS continues to speed innovation in the industry today to enhance both team performance and fan experience. For more information, go to www.stats.com and follow STATS on Twitter @STATS_Insights.
Equibase expanded available racing statistics on equibase.com in December 2017 and incorporated a tool that enables easy comparison of data among horses, jockeys, trainers, and owners. The comparison tool is accessible from all individual profile statistical pages for horses and people and also from the annual leaders lists pages.
The new comparison tool allows racing fans to select up to five horses, jockeys, trainers, or owners and compare their respective statistics – which include starts, wins, placings, earnings, earnings per start, and win (and top three) percentages – against each other, but also against the national average. The national average data can be limited to the top 100 in each category or viewed for all starters, and the data can be filtered in a wide variety of categories including age, sex, racing surface, and race type.
“If you enjoy comparing statistics for specific horses or people, then you are going to like this new feature,” said Jason Wilson, president and chief operating officer for Equibase. “This tool provides just another way to explore the free data available on equibase.com.”
In addition, racing statistics have been added to the current year statistics section of individual profile pages for trainers. Each trainer profile page now includes the number of starters, the average starts per starter, and the average earnings per start and per starter. A tutorial video of the comparison tool provides an overview of how to add horses or people: youtu.be/DFRsBkN7WSs.
Equibase Company announced in May 2018 enhancements to the individual profile pages available on equibase.com with the addition of statistical graphs and the ability to filter those graphs for every horse, jockey, trainer and owner.
All data within the statistics tab of every profile page is now displayed via a graph in addition to being listed in a table format. The graph changes each time the user clicks on any column heading: starts, first, second, third, earnings, earnings per start, win percentage, and in the money percentage.
Data for every horse, trainer, jockey and owner can now be filtered to view yearly and career statistics by a variety of categories, including racing surface and all races vs. stakes races or just graded races. The filtered information is also displayed graphically and in a formatted table below the graph.
“We are excited to be able to offer a visual way to communicate the free racing information available on equibase.com,” said Jason Wilson, president and chief operating officer for Equibase. “Users can now interact and engage with the data in a new and dynamic way.”
Earnings per start data was added as a new column of information in the statistics by year section on all horse profile pages. New data elements were also added to the by year section for trainer (starters, average starts per starter, earnings per start, win percentage, and in the money percentage) and jockey (earnings per start, win percentage, and in the money percentage) profile pages.
Complete lifetime starts information for jockeys, trainers and owners was added in by Equibase in 2017. That data can be accessed by year and is searchable and sortable by the following categories: track name, race date, race type, purse, horse name, and finish position. The lifetime starts information can now also be filtered by the horse’s age and sex in addition to racing surface and race type. A tutorial video provides an overview of the profile page enhancements and how to filter the data: youtu.be/av-2NGf6Fng.
GPS Technology In Tracking Performance
In October 2018 Equibase Company installed a global positioning satellite (GPS) system at Woodbine Racetrack, Golden Gate Fields, Laurel Park and Pimlico, and was named the official timer at these tracks. Equibase’s GPS technology partner, Total Performance Data, is based in the United Kingdom and has more than a dozen tracking systems deployed there.
“Since the earliest days of the company, Equibase has sought a viable system of collecting data through automated tracking,” said Jason Wilson, president and chief operating officer for Equibase. “We are excited to be making substantial progress in this area and pleased to have partnered with both Woodbine and The Stronach Group.”
“We have been using GPS timing since the beginning of July and have been pleased with not only its performance but the flexibility it offers,” said Jonathan Zammit, vice president of Thoroughbred Racing Operations for Woodbine. “We are also keen to explore future capabilities of the system.”
The benefits of GPS, in addition to timing, include the ability to provide comprehensive data for each runner during the entire running of the race, which can be used to drive on-screen graphics as well as positions and margins for charts. In addition, GPS tracks workouts, adds race-like accuracy to those morning preps.
In December 2018 Equibase Company partnered with Keeneland, at the request of the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission, to conduct a test at the Lexington, Ky., track to collect workout data using global positioning satellite (GPS) technology.
The goal of the six-week test, held September through October 2018, was to identify issues and potential solutions for using GPS technology to track workouts. Results of the study revealed the technology performed well overall and demonstrated the power of being able to track multiple workouts simultaneously. However, further testing would be needed with respect to the logistics of using this technology for workouts.
“We are grateful to Keeneland for partnering with us on this initial testing of the system for the collection of workout data, and we also thank the horsemen who participated and were instrumental in making the pilot study a success,” said Jason Wilson, president and chief operating officer for Equibase. “The test revealed that the technology holds great promise to provide race-like accuracy to workout information.”
“Our objective was to see if the timing itself was a significant improvement over the stopwatch method and if additional data could be collected related to each workout,” said Keeneland President and CEO Bill Thomason. “Overall, we were pleased with the findings and look forward to additional progress being made.”
In addition to the increased ability to handle large numbers of horses on the track simultaneously, using GPS to collect workouts would make significantly more data available to the public and trainers, including times for any portion of the work, stride length, and times for the run-up and gallop-out segments of the work. Next steps called for Equibase to continue to conduct additional workout testing at Golden Gate Fields and expand the number of installations at tracks in 2019.
In April 2019 Equibase installed global positioning satellite (GPS) systems at Hollywood Gaming at Mahoning Valley Race Course and Hollywood Casino at Penn National Race Course, and has been named the official timer at both tracks.
“Equibase has sought a viable system of collecting data through automated tracking since the company’s inception, and we are pleased to continue to make progress with TPD,” said Jason Wilson, president and chief operating officer for Equibase. “We are also happy to be partnering with Penn National Gaming to expand the number of tracks utilizing the system.”
“We have been using GPS timing at Mahoning for live racing since the start of the year, and we have been testing the system for timing at Penn National the past two months, with an official live racing start date of April 10,” said Chris McErlean, vice president of racing for Penn National Gaming, which oversees both tracks. “We are happy thus far with the performance of the system and excited about its future capabilities.”
