Op/Ed: Do Fillies Really Improve When Racing in Foal?
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THURSDAY, 6 JULY, 2017 EON ON TOP OF THE WORLD IN SWEDEN OP/ED: DO FILLIES by Tom Peacock REALLY IMPROVE WHEN SWEDENBBIt could hardly be argued strongly that Tuesday's inaugural Lady Jockeys' Thoroughbred World Championship did RACING IN FOAL? not deliver a suitable winner. Maryline Eon was the highest-placed woman in the French standings last year and recently broke new ground, as well as earning wider recognition, when becoming the first female to ride in the G1 Prix de Diane Longines. Certainly this invitational competition at Europe's newest racecourse Bro Park just outside Stockholm has a grand title and forms part of loftier aspirations by Swedish racing organisers Svensk Gallopp. However, its purpose is rather to offer some accessible, enjoyable sport that gains promotion than an intention to disrupt the global order of the Turf on its own. Eon took two of the five races, with the selection of predominately locally-trained horses decided by a team of independent experts to give each rider one strong chance, two medium and a couple of outsiders. The 22-year-old had just Chinese White winning the 2010 Group 1 Pretty Polly S. enough points in hand to hold off the Dane Sara Slot, whose at The Curragh | racingfotos.com mount Norse Magic (GB) (Norse Dancer {Ire}) pipped her Loop by Kevin Blake De Li (Swe) (Merchant Of Venice) close home in the finale. The great triviality that is horse racing is full of unanswered Eon received her trophy from the competition's patron, questions, most of which are destined to remain unanswered ABBA's Benny Andersson. for as long as thoroughbreds are raced. However, today for the "I wasn't very confident even though I've ridden in the Prix de very first time, one such question can finally be addressed using Diane," she said. "It's been a really good experience and I hope robust statistical evidence that has never before been collected other lady jockeys will have the same experience." or examined. Andersson is more a benign figurehead than a driving force of The effect that being in-foal has on the racing performance of the LJTWC, even crediting its creation to the presenter and fillies has been the subject of discussion for decades. Every year event compere Derek Thompson. A renowned owner-breeder, without fail, fillies win races in the 120-day period during which he is a regular and recognisable face at the course, not least as they are permitted to race after becoming pregnant. There are his appearance is slightly greyer but otherwise undiminished multitudes of examples of this occurring from the lowest levels since the 70s pop glory days. of the sport right up to the headline-making Group 1 wins of "It was a fun idea, I don't know who first said it, was it in-foal fillies such as Indian Queen and Chinese White. All of Tommo?" he said. "There were races last year (when Bro Park these successes have understandably served to reinforce what is opened) with female jockeys. They asked me and I said >fine', I'll a very commonly-held theory that pregnancy can often support it." Cont. p4 correlate with improved racing performance in fillies. On the face of it, the theory seems to carry plenty of weight. IN TDN AMERICA TODAY As well as masses of anecdotal evidence of the fairer sex SENKOVICH HOPES SUCCESS MULTIPLIES winning whilst in foal, there are seemingly sound physiological American Equistock looks to keep the momentum going at next explanations for why pregnancy could well lead to an week’s Fasig-Tipton July Selected Yearlings Sale. Click or tap improvement in racing performance. here to go straight to TDN America. Cont. p2 TDN EUROPE/INTERNATIONAL • PAGE 2 OF 11 • THETDN.COM THURSDAY • 6 JULY, 2017 important requirements is that there is enough data collected to make the conclusions drawn from it as reliable as possible. With It is well known that being in season can detrimentally affect this in mind, I examined all the data from the seven years from both the behaviour and racing performance of the beginning of 2009 through to the end of 2015. This resulted fillies. Thus, the fact that fillies cease to come in the identification of a total of 443 qualifiers that raced on the into season once they are in foal is considered Flat in Great Britain and Ireland while in foal. a significant positive offshoot of pregnancy in a Once this set of data was isolated, the next step was to come racing filly. As well as that, the calming effect up with a fair methodology to assess their racing performance of the hormone progesterone which is whilst pregnant. In terms of the basics, the number of runs and produced during pregnancy could also have a wins after their last covering date was recorded in each case. positive impact on racing performance. After that, "improvement" was defined as registering a That said, there has always been the career-best Racing Post Rating whilst in foal. This improvement possibility that the perception of this apparent correlation has was then measured by the difference between their best been exaggerated by the confirmation bias caused by the racing pre-pregnancy rating and their best rating whilst pregnant. Here public only tending to be made aware of or take notice of the is what the research revealed: fact that a filly is in foal after they have won a race. Sceptical The 443 in-foal fillies/mares had a total of 1,549 starts whilst observers suggest that there are likely to be multitudes of in-foal pregnant, an average of 3.5 starts each, and they achieved a win fillies that race without success that the racing public doesn't strike rate of 8.26%. To put that into context, the win strike rate hear about and that if we were privy to all of those, the full set of the entire population of three-year-old and older fillies/mares of data would show that it isn't the key to improvement that in Great Britain and Ireland in the same period was 9.35%. Thus, many consider it to be. the strike rate of pregnant runners was 11.7% LOWER than While there has been unending conjecture on the subject from non-pregnant fillies/mares. This is a statistically-significant both sides of the debate, until now the matter has progressed difference that would not have been at all expected by many. no further than that. The primary reason for this is that while it What makes this so surprising is that even if pregnancy had no has been considered on numerous occasions in multiple racing positive effect on racing performance, it would have been jurisdictions, it has never been made compulsory for trainers to expected that the strike rate of pregnant runners would have declare if the fillies in their care are in foal. This lack of reliable been higher than that of non-pregnant runners, as there is official information has made it very difficult for anyone to draw almost certainly a positive selection bias at play in the pregnant a robust evidence-based conclusion on the matter. group. As well as it being likely that the quality and pedigree of However, that doesn't mean that this long-standing question is those chosen to race whilst pregnant would be above average, destined to remain unanswered. Indeed, I believe I have what is certain is that with their trainers having a maximum of answered it with a strong degree of certainty using historical just 120 days to race them whilst pregnant, they would be data that has been hiding in plain sight all along. pulling out every stop to get them in the winner's enclosure Weatherbys require owners/breeders to formally report the and/or show improvement. Thus, for them to have a last date that their filly/mare was covered by a sire, as well as below-average strike rate is very much an unexpected the result of that covering including the date that those which eye-opener. successfully carried their pregnancy to full term give birth to There were more surprising results to be found when the their foal. Thus, while it was anything but a quick and easy sample was examined in search of how many of the pregnant process, it was possible to source that information from runners showed improvement. Just 67 (15.1%) of them Weatherbys and cross reference it with a racing form database produced career-best efforts while pregnant, with the average on a case-by-case basis to identify those that raced after their rate of improvement being 5.8lb. Just 13 of them (2.9%) last covering date and subsequently carried their pregnancy to improved by 10lb or more and 23lb was the most improvement full term. shown by an individual. While there isn't an appropriate means By only including fillies/mares that carried their pregnancies to to compare these percentages against the overall population as full term, we can be all but certain that they were indeed was done with the win strike rates above, given just how widely pregnant in all of their runs that came after the date of their last it is considered that pregnancy brings about improvement in covering. Thus, this methodology is exceptionally unlikely to racing performance, that 84.9% of the fillies/mares in this throw up false positives and therefore provided a reliable set of sample did not show any improvement is likely to come as a data which can be used to better answer the question at hand.