Rail Bird Figures

What the world needs is one more index figure to confuse the hell out of young horseplayers around the world. Enter the Daily Racing Form with the new Moss Figures. This is, I assume, another calculated index of a horse's race to put his effort in numerical form with which to assess his performance with that of another from another track, another distance, perhaps another time. Horse racing has more index figures and calculations than i could shake a stick at... so I figure the sport needs one more.

I'd like to introduce you to "Rail Bird Figures"

Here's how this works, I'm going to take as much possible information on a horse to come up with a picture of a number, that's right, that encompasses all you need to know about a horse's race.

It starts with a very simple calculation of race put into a numerical form which I have not and will not seek to do. We're going to stay in hypothetical land and I'll just uses the Beyer figure as an example. Let's say a horse runs a good race and comes up with a 100 Beyer. I start with that and then run it through an assembly line of changes starting with:

The color of the number. Lighter color blues indicate that a horse has run better over shorter distances and the blue gets darker through the entire blue spectrum until you get to a horse that only runs well at 2 miles. Mix in green when the horse runs on turf. Of course, a key of some kind will be published on the first page of the form. The color evolves from one race to another so the color of the most recent race indicates where the horse is at that point in his career.

Crappy trainer? We make the number bigger. The number gets smaller the better the trainer's numbers are until you arrive at a tiny font for the likes of Pletcher or Frankle. Maybe it doesnt matter to some but if a see a large 100 go suddenly to a small number trainer I'm going to pay more attention.

The quality of the horse's sire changes the boldness of the number. Storm Cat being the extreme bold while the $500 sire is a very fine line. Also if the sire produces turf runners the number is in italics and if his offspring prefer dirt it is underlined.

If the horse gets a bad trip for whatever reason, stuck on the rail, swung out twelve wide, the number has a line through it.

Did the horse or his connections overcome Bob Costas style adversity? Owner killed the day before, horse was born ugly as hell and no one wanted him, trainer was temporarily blind but now he can see, Auburn John bet on him, horse was blind but now can/can partially see, almost died then nursed back to health as a yearling, ornery as hell but calmed by a best friend who happens to be a cat, generally smellier than most other horses but loved in spite of it, these horses get their numbers circled for their particular odds overcoming race. This prevents us from being forced to hear the soft piano music before every horse's sad tale is unfolded before us, the unsuspecting public. You can stop right there Bob, I already circled it, the people already know.

So if a horse has a crappy trainer, likes medium distances on the dirt, has a good sire whose offspring prefer the turf, a good trip and no Bob Costas adversity his number might look like this. 100

Feel free to offer suggestions or changes, I feel perfection is around the corner.