Yesterday was an important learning day. I opened an ad in Thorooughbred Daily News and entered the world of horse sale “data analytics”. I knew this information was available, I just had not focussed on it. I knew the guys at Dare to Dream sometimes discussed things like stride length when talking about horse they looked at. The ad I saw was from a firm called DataTrack International. It appears there are at least six different competitors.
DataTrack has at least 6 different products. They go from something simple like a BreezeFig which is one number that evaluates workouts by something other than raw time, to more complex biomechanical analysis. They also do heart evaluation. All the information is a little intimidating. How can you compete without this information?
That is an important question. I am sure this information is not $20/horse. The ad does not discuss pricing, that is a bad sign. Does everyone use this information? How do the competitors differ? Can the performance of these tools be measured?
So many questions and so few answers. One thing that was interesting was a fantasy horse selection competition held by TDN among the different data providers, it was last held in 2005, but DataTrack is still quoting the results.
My first reaction is that I certainly need this data if I am going to spend $500,000 on a horse, but what about $50,000. I need to learn more before spending real money, but for now I will wait until after the July Ocala sale to bother these guys.
In one of the videos that supports their ad they the tell the story of The Green Monkey. This was a horse that sold for $16 million from a training sale in 2006. The horse ran three races and was retired. Slow motion stride analysis showed his feet actually hit the ground in the incorrect order. I am not sure what lesson to learn from the story.
Buying A Race Horse 