About NACR

Every Thoroughbred running a race here in North America will receive a rating by the computer for that particular effort and it's from these ratings the list you're seeing has been assembled. The times of races aren't being utilized by the computer at any point in the process so speed figures and all subjective calculations are out, nor are earnings being used, par times, class labels etc, all of the usual 'traditional' indicators of class are cast aside. This is horse vs horse number crunching on a massive scale with beaten lengths, weight, surface-types and distances as the inputs. To put it into some kind of context you can think of a class rating as the quality of a horse's effort relative to its competition. 

Horses which have three or more starts in North America will be 'ranked' on class as this is the minimum required by the computer to make a viable estimate. Horses that haven't started within six months are allowed to drop off the list, if/when they race again they will reappear on the list. The computer spends several hours each night in data processing mode where it's programmed to recalibrate efforts based upon the latest results. Rankings can and do change on a nightly basis so an updated list should ideally be posted on a daily basis however due to time constraints at least in the immediate future I only plan to post updates on a weekly basis.

Now for some Q&A:

Q: Why only North America, what about the UK, Hong Kong etc?

A: If I'm ever able to source international charts in the required format for UK racing etc it would be fairly easy to rank globally and I consider that to be a long term goal, however with that being said I currently have a very full schedule and I have no short-term plans to pursue a source.

Q: Horse A just defeated Horse B and yet you still have Horse B ranked higher, why?

A: I'm not going to get into discussing anything proprietary but I will say the computer is optimizing the output to be predictive and in order to be most predictive consistency does count for something. Also if a horse's current form becomes erratic you may notice a fairly sharp drop in the rankings. In any given case it may be incorrect to drop a horse down that far. I cannot say anything more than the computer does what it has to do to remain predictive.

Q: The word predictive has been mentioned a lot, the question is how predictive?

A: The horse ranked highest in any given race will win 30% of the time and half the races are won by one of the top two ranked horses. For a ranking to achieve this degree of accuracy without considering any other handicapping factors even excluding all of the handicapping factors specific to today's race is in my personal opinion remarkable.

Q: The list is giant and it's a hassle to press ctrl+f in the web browser to type in each horse's name, is there an easier way?

A: Not really at this time. At the moment this list is kind of just a curiosity, perhaps something a fan can revisit each week to keep tabs on who is performing at a high level in the sport. For the handicappers out there I agree it's a hassle, they would have to type each horse's name and jot down the rating, which probably takes a few minutes per race so yes it's cumbersome (it is however free). At some point I suspect the rating may appear in past performances of some sort however nothing is in the works right now. I currently do have a product in the market which would be fairly easy to drop this rating into as an enhancement but I'm in no rush to implement it. Update: As of 4/6/2018 NACR has been added to the format of On-Target Performance Ratings so if you're tired of looking up numbers a subscription might be for you. Subscriptions are sold exclusively through Trackmaster.com under Thoroughbred Racing> Advanced Reports

Q:  There already is a 'world's best racehorse' ranking out there, why do we need another?

A: With all due respect to the 'world's best', I mean no disrespect to their subjective decision making process regarding the best performance of the year. However I believe most people have different expectations when it comes to such a ranking, i.e. they want something which reflects current events in order to be more predictive today. Furthermore the computer has no bias, from week to week it's self-correcting, it is not at all subjective in producing the output, this is simply a process that runs overnight. I'm all for subjective when it comes down to year end awards but I do believe the computer rankings are a valuable tool which can allow informed people to make better decisions over the course of the year. Plus for casual fans I think it's just plain fun to follow along with the weekly standings.

Well that's it for now.

Enjoy. :)