Announcing Stakes Profiles
By Dana Byerly, Hello Race Fans Co-founder
Today we are launching a new feature, but before we get to that, we are also retiring a long-standing one.
In 2010, we sent out our first Derby Prep Alert, an email newsletter with previews and recaps of prep races for the Kentucky Derby and Kentucky Oaks. Our approach was twofold: Make it easier for casual fans and players to keep up with the Derby and Oaks preps by giving them a running narrative, and send it directly to them.
As time passed we adjusted our approach and ultimately ended up with previews that lived on our site; we also partnered with Brisnet to provide free past performances for every race and added replays, Brisnet charts as well as links to recaps available from a wide variety of sources.
When we launched the Derby Prep Alert, it wasn’t as easy for casual fans or newbies to follow the Derby/Oaks trails. In the past eight years, horse racing’s digital landscape has changed, and now there are plenty of ways to easily keep up with the Derby trail and beyond. We’re proud of our work, and appreciate the support and readership through the years, but we’ve decided to retire the Derby Prep Alert and refocus our energies.
In the spirit of our initial approach for the Derby Prep Alert, we wanted to create something that wasn’t as easy to find, something that could be useful and hopefully help nudge horse racing’s digital landscape forward again.
Introducing Stakes Profiles
Using chart data available at Equibase, we’ve created a series of charts, graphs and visualizations aimed at giving players a quick way to view historical data and trends for a specific stakes race.
We’ll profile 24 stakes races throughout the year, providing a quick and easy way to view the visual representation of following for each race from 1991 to the most current running:
- Odds and $2 Win payouts
- Ranked choice of winner (1st choice, 2nd choice, etc.)
- Field size
- How often favorites have won
- How often favorites were in the money
- The tracks winners come from
- Days since winner’s last start
- Winner’s placing in prior race
- Running style of winners
For races run for 3+, we will also include:
- Age of winners
- How “runback” starters, or those that have previously run in the race, performed
We’ve also partnered with Brisnet to provide visualizations to illustrate Brisnet Speed Ratings that winners earned coming into the race.
Stakes Profiles are not analysis or meant to be predictive; they are an overview of what has produced winners in a given race since 1991. Whether they’re used to help make handicapping and wagering decisions, for research or to better understand the history of a race, we hope you’ll find that Stakes Profiles are a fun and easy way to consume racing data.
For Derby Prep Alert readers, we suggest the following sites for Derby and Oaks points race previews:
Brooklyn Backstretch (Derby only)
Derbyologist
Picks and Ponderings
We welcome your feedback on our new feature! We’ll be making adjustments and are already looking at potential additions, so check out our new Stakes Profiles and let us know what you think.