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Why Andy Beyer Is Wrong—Sadly, Badly Wrong—About His Kentucky Derby Picks

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By Kim Eisler Published Friday, May 02, 2008

See Kim Eisler's Derby picks here.

For many years Washington Post horse racing writer Andrew Beyer was my hero. For a time, after the publication of his influential handicapping book Picking Winners, I became a virtual stalker, leaving messages on his answering machine and trying to sidle up next to him during the Daily Double at the old Sports Palace at Laurel Race Course.

Over the years, our relationship has cooled, largely because now we actually know each other.

Be that as it may, Andy never has been able to really get a handle on the Kentucky Derby. For many years, he admitted to his Derby cluelessness. Meanwhile, my own list of Derby successes has been pretty impressive. I picked the Derby winners in 2006 and 2007, Barbaro and Street Sense. I have nailed such unlikely winners as Winning Colors in 1998, Sunday Silence in 1989, Strike the Gold in 1991, Silver Charm in 1997, and Fusaichi Pegasus in 2000 (See Kim's current Derby picks here). I doubt whether Beyer had any of them.

For those who don’t closely follow racing, Andy is the guru, the Einstein who created the “Beyer Speed Figures.” From the mid 1970s until last year, the Beyer Speed Figures were the greatest advance in the history of gambling. For many years one had to buy his book and figure out how to compute them. I spents hundreds of hours of my life doing that. Then the Daily Racing Form decided to buy the Beyer Speed Figures and print them next to the entries and past performances for every horse at every track in America.

It was nice not to have to spend seven to eight hours every night doing the math. On the other hand, now anybody could pay $5 for the paper and get the numbers. Horses with high Beyer numbers, now widely circulated, would immediately be bet down at the windows. To try to scrounge out a profit, the trick became trying to use the numbers, trying to figure which horses were likely to replicate numbers and which were likely to “bounce” off of them and run a poorer race than the last number.

Beyer numbers were predicated on the fact that not every racing surface in America was the same. Dirt tracks varied not only from place to place, but from day to day. How fast a horse could run on a particular track could be affected by rain and wind. Andy had figured out how to compare and adjust all racing surfaces and change a horse’s final time into one handy “Beyer” number.

And then two years ago, something bad happened to Beyer Speed Figures. To try to make racing surfaces safer for the horses, state racing commissions began mandating the installation of “synthetic” racing surfaces to replace the old dirt tracks. The first two places to put it in were Turfway Park and Keeneland Racetrack in Kentucky. Now all the major tracks in Southern California, Santa Anita, Hollywood Park, and Del Mar also have it.

This was great for the horses, but not so good for the industry that had become Beyer Speed Figures. Synthetic tracks show very little variance from day to day. Overnight, the tracks had rendered Beyer obsolete. It was as if one day a scientist had disproven E=MC2, and it went from a principle of physics to a dusty footnote.

Beyer has not taken this well. Despite his personal and financial interst in the topic, the Washington Post has run columns from him critical of the surface switch, even though the evidence that it saves the lives of horses seems indisputable.

Beyer has become obsessed with the switch to synthetic race tracks, but never has that become more clear than in his Derby picks this year. In past years, Beyer would still use the basic principles of handicapping, looking at pedigree, past performances, recent form, trainer and jockey analysis. His own Beyer speed figures would be considered as well.

But this year his picks came down to one simple calculation. Beyer has thrown out any horse that ran well on a synthetic track and picked any horse that didn’t. In effect he has bet on himself. He hates synthetic racetracks and won’t pick any horse that does. His top Derby selection this year is Pyro. His rationale for picking Pyro was that this colt ran his worst race in the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland. Beyer dismissed with contempt Monba, the horse that won the race and finished 11 lengths ahead of Pyro. Beyer’s second choices in the Derby is Z Fortune. Beyer loves Z Fortune, a homely New York-bred horse with a modest racing record for one simple reason—his hooves have never touched the hated synthetic tracks.

Horses that have won traditional stepping stone races to the Derby at all dirt Churchill Downs, like Santa Anita Derby winner Colonel John and Blue Grass Stakes winner Monba, Beyer says to put an X through.

For him, it’s as simple as that. Beyer has become Ahab, obsessed by the great white synthetic race track that he can’t understand and which is destroying his life’s work.

Even in the best of times, Beyer was never able to understand the dynamics of the Kentucky Derby. Now he has picked Pyro to win in a sense to redeem his own life’s work.

The fact is that Colonel John, although all his races have been in Southern California, loves the dirt track. His morning workouts have been nothing short of amazing. It is a truism of racing that a great horse can run on anything. Colonel John, whose sire won not one but two Breeders Cup Classic races, will show that to be the case on Saturday.

And Beyer didn’t mention a horse in the race named Court Vision, #4. Court Vision won two stakes as a two year old, and one of them was right here at Churchill Downs and the other at Aqueduct. But he also won a race on the synthetic track at Keeneland, proving that adage about a good horse and any surface.

Watch for Court Vision to be coming after Colonel John in the stretch and box your exacta, 4-10 and 10-4, for a big payoff on Derby Day.

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Comments

Well he did pick Street Sense two years ago in the DRF, the Post and elsewhere, so your "I doubt Beyer had him" throws into doubt that you actually know anything about Beyer or what he has picked.

Posted by: Jerry, Apr 28, 2009 05:13:05 AM

Great article, your only a year behind.

Posted by: guninpocket, Apr 21, 2009 03:05:24 AM

I’ll see the author’s Winning Colors, Sunday Silence etc; etc; and raise her one Arcangues--Bertrando exacta that paid 900-1.

"Traditional" handicapping methods are essentially useless in the majority of races since they do not take into consideration information known only to the horse’s connections. How close is the horse to it’s ideal running weight? A difference of two or three stones (30-40 pounds) can result in a horse running up the track.

What is the true condition of the course--not the one designated on the tote board but the actual condition as determined by a trainer and jockey walking the course before a race. The track labelled fast may be deep and testing because of the drying effects of steady winds.

The day A.P. Andy won the 1992 Peter Pan there was a freakish windshear at midstretch. Entering the stretch A.P. Indy was assisted by a tail wind; at the eighth pole he was bucky a 20-knot headwind.

Similarly when he finished out of the frame in the Molson million it was discovered only after the race that he was suffering from an infected throat.

When Swale lost the ’84 Preakness only Woody Stephens and Lafitt Pincay knew it was because a rock-hard track has stung Swale’s tender feet.

(Arcangues, by the way, had a disc problem in his back which Andre Fabre and the Wildersteins (and I) knew about. Not one writer in the world press mentioned it in the analysis of the ’93 Classic.

The bottom line? There are no shortcuts to ferreting out the winner of a race. No magic numbers or principles.

Invariably, it’s a tedious business much like Scotland Yard knocking on doors to find clues about the identity of a thief.

Beyer is guilty of nothing more than giving American horseplayers what they want but which does not exist: a
simple tool to solve one of the most maddening riddles in sport: who will come home first.

Posted by: JCarpenter06@optonline.net, May 24, 2008 05:23:35 PM

A sportswriter in Chicago adduced formulas to use Beyer Speed Figures to trim KDerby and Preakness fields down to a handful of probables with great success. His name is Jim O’Donnell. I think his system - ODage, a play on Dosage - has hit something like 26 straight Triple Crowns races. Caveat: Some races, he is left with three or four possibles. It’s interesting

Posted by: Mike from Brook Park, Ohio, May 16, 2008 11:11:13 PM

Andy sat down next to me at Saratoga about 20 years ago and we had a discussion on the merits of Five Star Flight in the Travers. (He lost) But Andy is a nice guy, no megalomaniac. I also recall back in 1990 he was one of ten to share in a $1.34 million double triple so he is no dummy hadicapper. I would admit ,however ,that the Derby is not his best race.

Posted by: RexdePlumbum, May 06, 2008 09:43:39 AM

You made a couple of valid points even though both yours and his picks stunk. His throw outs were mainly in the bottom of the heap with Monba finishing 59 1/4 lengths behind and despite Coronel John’s great workout, he never fired at the end.

Posted by: George, May 05, 2008 10:34:18 AM

Invest in a spell checker.

Posted by: Don Otenlong, May 05, 2008 09:34:56 AM

sorry i got in the way of your bet. and guess what ? beyer is right! all these horses that are running on the "tires" are throw outs!

Posted by: bigbrown, May 04, 2008 07:14:57 AM

You were right about one thing: Andy’s ability to pick winners in the Derby has proven elusive over time. He was right to recommend ignoring those horses coming off of huge synthetic surrface performances, however, as they all ran up the track in this yr’s Derby. And your questioning his motives was disgraceful (the whole column was a thinly veiled ad hominem attack). What you seem to miss is horses that excel on synthetic surfaces very often don’t perform well on dirt tracks. Churchill is a dirt track. Ergo, Andy pitched the synthetic-loving horses. Got it? It doesn’t have anything to do with his Beyer Speed Figure franchise. If you’re wondering, I’ve never met Andy Beyer and I certainly have no monetary interest in his business. I’m just pointing out the obvious, i.e., you have no idea what you’re talking about when it comes to Andy’s thoughts on betting synthetic surface lovers in the Derby.

Posted by: Mike, May 04, 2008 06:25:52 AM

Dear Kim,

In reviewing your criticism of Andrew Beyer’s Derby picks for 2008, I feel you have made quite a mockery of yourself and demonstrated a significant lack of handicapping expertise. It is clear that Big Brown’s performance was a standout and for the first time in 30+ years, we may actually be witness to a Triple Crown celebration. You felt Big Brown had a poor chance of winning based on a number of lame excuses. I suppose the performance and results speak for themselves. I feel it was very unprofessional of the way you criticized Andrew Beyer. I could go on an on about the negative approach to your lambasting of Andrew Beyer and your poor Derby picks. Your article speaks true colours about your lack of ability and class. Yesterday, based on the betting strategies I learned from reading Andrew Beyers books and the fact that Big Brown had the highest Beyer speed figures in the race, I keyed all my exotics around Big Brown. I wagered $164 on the race and my key $1 tri-key bet was 20/1,5,6,9,10,16,18,19. I walked away winning 1/2 of the tri valued at $1,700 plus. It was a "king of the world" experience. (thanks Andy). Perhaps you could tone your criticism down in the future. Your last article made you look rather foolish.

David from Canada

Posted by: David from Canada, May 04, 2008 04:58:46 AM

This piece is a grand slam. To know Beyer is to despise him--a complete megalomaniac. As usual, he’s a complete transparent phony and full of more waste than all the barns at Churchill. Then again, he’s just a typical sportswriter with paper-thin skin. What else is new?

Posted by: horseman 2600, May 03, 2008 07:11:26 AM

Why Andy Beyer Is Wrong—Sadly, Badly Wrong—About His Kentucky Derby Picks

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