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Equibase Ratings Races Are Gaining Traction

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No one track has carded more races of late based on the Equibase Rating System than Laurel, which has run, through Oct. 15, 15 ratings races at the current meet. Laurel Racing Secretary Jillian Tullock says that she is still “dipping her toe in the water,” but has liked what she has seen so far.

“These races have been filling,” she said. “You always have your detractors. You have the people that don’t want the claimers in there. You have the claimers who think the ratings horses are too hard. But looking at the races that I’ve run so far, it seems like they’ve been quite competitive. It has worked out pretty well for us.”

The Equibase Rating is a single number, published for every active Thoroughbred in North America. It measures what a horse has shown it can do on the racetrack. It is built from race performance: final time and speed, beaten lengths and finish position, the strength of the field, the class of the race, track conditions and surface, ground lost on the turns, time between races and recent form. The number is updated each time a horse races.

Forever Young (Jpn) (Real Steel {Jpn}) has been assigned a rating of 114. A $4,000 maiden claimer at Mountaineer Park will typically have a rating in the twenties. How the races are carded is left to the discretion of the racing secretaries, but a typical race at Laurel might be for horses that have received a rating of 75 or less. Other racing secretaries may choose to card races with upper and lower limits when it comes to the ratings.

The ratings races debuted at Santa Anita in October 2025, and just two were contested that month. Eleven months later, during September, 2026, there were 20 such races. Through September, 111 ratings races had been run with 13 North American racetracks taking part.

“What’s happening? I think just awareness,” said Equibase Head of Strategic Projects Chance Moquett. “We also needed to build trust with horsemen and racing offices and get feedback and implement the feedback into how the algorithm is made and what components weigh more and what components weigh less. All of that feedback over the first year has been implemented. Every time that we have a conversation with a racing office or a trainer, something productive comes out of it. Word of mouth and that productive movement are what have made people more aware and more willing to try this.”

Ratings races are unlikely to be carded for top-level horses and are instead meant to be an alternative to claiming races, which, according to Equibase, are on the decline. Claiming races in the United States and Canada fell from about 45,800 in 1991 to about 12,500 in 2025.

The Equibase team has tweaked the algorithm that produces the numbers six times since they were first implemented, an attempt to refine the system and make the numbers a better reflection of a horse’s ability.

Ratings races have drawn an average of 7.9 entries per race. That is in line with the national average, but, after scratches, field sizes for these races are slightly smaller than national average.

“We’re never satisfied,” Moquett said when asked about field size. “But I would challenge you to look at Laurel. Laurel Park has been working with their horsemen to see what works for them. Their average field size is the highest for ratings races and the average beaten lengths is the lowest. We’ve got to put a bit of an onus on the racing offices to figure out how they want to actually handicap these races. That’s a big component whenever it comes to making people feel like they’re accurately weighted in a competitive place and getting more people attracted to the event. I think that how we assign weight to these is the next and arguably final piece that’s missing.”

The biggest proponents of the rating system races seem to be the smaller stables, those who cannot afford to lose a horse through a claim.

“The horsemen who have small to mid-size stables have given feedback that it’s a great opportunity for them to continue running horses that are sound and bring them home and to be able to keep campaigning them and not have to wait for the perfect spot,” Moquett said. “If they want to keep their horse, I think that it can help with trainers keeping their numbers up and owners keeping a horse in the barn.”

Tullock said that she will continue to evaluate how well the races are filling and how competitive they are, but she anticipates that they will continue to be a part of her program.

“I’m keeping track and keeping my charts together so I can go back and look and see any type of tweaking we may want to do,” she said. “But at the moment, what we’re doing is working. I’m sure they’ll probably evolve a little, but like I said, we started somewhere and I know that we’re happy with the start that we have had. Nobody likes change, but if we don’t change, we won’t be here.”

The post Equibase Ratings Races Are Gaining Traction appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Six Speedy Fillies For The Week of October 5-11, 2026

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This week’s fastest females all excelled on grass or Tapeta:

6–ITZEL, 8th–KEE, 10/11, Franklin S.–GII, 5 1/2fT
Beyer Speed Figure-91 (3rd) (video)
(m, 6, Mo Town–Catch That Song, by Unbridled’s Song)
O-BSF Equine Athlete. B-Eric/Randi Moreau-Sipiere (Tex). T-John Ennis. J-Edgar Morales.

The longest shot on the board at 35-1 in her graded stakes debut, Itzel rocketed away from Kehoe Beach and Ag Bullet to a clear early lead and held nicely for third. The graded placing was a significant catalog upgrade for her dam, purchased by the breeders in 2018 for $3,000.

5–FAITHFUL DEPARTED, 9th-KEE, 10/10, Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup-GI, 1 1/8mT
Beyer Speed Figure-91 (2nd) (video)
(f, 3, Yoshida {Jpn}–Speed Seeker, by Heatseeker {Ire})
O-Frank Ferrogine, Richard Rendina, Nick Coniglio and Greywood Farms. B-Robert Johnson (Ky). T-Grant Forster. J-Jose Ortiz.

In her first five starts, Faithful Departed ran three times for a claiming price, and was 35-1 in the Lacombe Memorial and 47-1 in the GII Appalachian Stakes. Now she’s one of the best 3-year-old turf fillies in the land, with a victory in the GIII Regret Stakes and solid seconds in the GI Belmont Oaks, GII Saratoga Oaks and now the QEII, in which she chased Tam Tam (below) all the way. From where she began, that’s already an unexpectedly strong resume.

4–LAMIRADA, 8th-WO, 10/11, Glorious Song Stakes, 7f (AWT)
Beyer Speed Figure-94 (video)
(f, 2, Army Mule–Sister Nova, by Verrazano)
O/B-Mark Dodson (ON). T-Josie Carroll. J-Fraser Aebly.

Twenty-four hours after her star trainee Luster faded to eighth as the favorite in the QE II, Carroll saddled Lamirada to an 8 1/4-length bounce-back victory that was quite the consolation prize. Among current 2-year-old fillies, her 94 Beyer ranks behind only Summer Starlet’s 97 in the GI Spinaway Stakes and Emphatic’s 95 in the GI Darley Alcibiades Stakes. She broke her maiden by 11 3/4 lengths on Tapeta in August but then set the pace and faded to seventh as the favorite on grass in the GI Natalma Stakes. Was the defeat due to the competition, or the surface, or the distance? Right now, that’s a guess – but we know for certain that in Tapeta sprints Lamirada is very fast.

3–KEHOE BEACH, 8th KEE, 10/11-8th, GII Franklin Stakes, 5 1/2fT
Beyer Speed Figure- 96 (2nd) (video)
(m, 5, Omaha Beach–Sweet Awakening, by Street Cry {Ire})
O-Thomas Bachman. B-John Bates, Ron Kirk and Michael Riordan (Ky). T-Wesley Ward. J-Jose Ortiz.

Previously one-dimensional Kehoe Beach showed a new dimension by kindly rating a couple lengths behind pacesetter Itzel (above) then overtaking her with 50 yards to go–only to be run down by Time to Dazzle (below) as the Ortiz brothers hit the wire together. Already a Grade II winner, she’s also a half-sister to stakes winners Predominate, Core Values and Are You Kidding Me, the former Canadian star who captured nine graded races.

2–TIME TO DAZZLE, 8th-KEE, 10/11, GII Franklin Stakes, 5 1/2fT
Beyer Speed Figure–96 (video)
(m, 5, Not This Time–Staria, by Unbridled’s Song)
O-Tracy Farmer. B-Dr. Rodney Orr (Ky). T-Mark Casse. J-Irad Ortiz Jr.

In winning the Franklin for the second straight year, steady Time to Dazzle boosted her career earnings to $1.4 million and ran a one-point Beyer top. A year ago, she cut the corner along the rail into the stretch to kick clear by 3 1/4 lengths, but this time she fanned five-wide into the lane and ran down Kehoe Beach (above) by a nostril. She didn’t win between her Franklins but ran well, including a second in the GI Kentucky Downs Ladies Turf Sprint and a sneaky-good fourth in the $2-million G2 1351 Turf Sprint on the Saudi Cup undercard.

1–TAM TAM, 9th-KEE, 10/10, Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup-GI, 1 1/8 miles (turf)
Beyer Speed Figure–96 (video)
(f, 3, Medaglia d’Oro–Princess Julia, by Distorted Humor)
O-Rigney Racing. B-Stonestreet Thoroughbred Holdings (Ky). T-Phil Bauer. J-Junior Alvarado.

Happily allowed to roll on the front end by Alvarado, Tam Tam backed up her Grade I score in August in the Del Mar Oaks with this first-ever Keeneland elite-level win for her Kentucky connections–owner Richard Rigney and Bauer. “Del Mar was extremely special,” Bauer said, “but Keeneland is the top.” They had previously won a pair of Grade IIs at Keeneland with Buchu, another turf filly. Tam Tam–whose dam Princess Julia is a half-sister to Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies winner Folklore – earned a career-high Beyer. Her last three Beyers are 96-92-93, suggesting she’s just beginning to find her best stride.

The post Six Speedy Fillies For The Week of October 5-11, 2026 appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Equibase Ratings Races Are Gaining Traction

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No one track has carded more races of late based on the Equibase Rating System than Laurel, which has run, through Oct. 15, 15 ratings races at the current meet. Laurel Racing Secretary Jillian Tullock says that she is still “dipping her toe in the water,” but has liked what she has seen so far.

“These races have been filling,” she said. “You always have your detractors. You have the people that don’t want the claimers in there. You have the claimers who think the ratings horses are too hard. But looking at the races that I’ve run so far, it seems like they’ve been quite competitive. It has worked out pretty well for us.”

The Equibase Rating is a single number, published for every active Thoroughbred in North America. It measures what a horse has shown it can do on the racetrack. It is built from race performance: final time and speed, beaten lengths and finish position, the strength of the field, the class of the race, track conditions and surface, ground lost on the turns, time between races and recent form. The number is updated each time a horse races.

Forever Young (Jpn) (Real Steel {Jpn}) has been assigned a rating of 114. A $4,000 maiden claimer at Mountaineer Park will typically have a rating in the twenties. How the races are carded is left to the discretion of the racing secretaries, but a typical race at Laurel might be for horses that have received a rating of 75 or less. Other racing secretaries may choose to card races with upper and lower limits when it comes to the ratings.

The ratings races debuted at Santa Anita in October 2025, and just two were contested that month. Eleven months later, during September, 2026, there were 20 such races. Through September, 111 ratings races had been run with 13 North American racetracks taking part.

“What’s happening? I think just awareness,” said Equibase Head of Strategic Projects Chance Moquett. “We also needed to build trust with horsemen and racing offices and get feedback and implement the feedback into how the algorithm is made and what components weigh more and what components weigh less. All of that feedback over the first year has been implemented. Every time that we have a conversation with a racing office or a trainer, something productive comes out of it. Word of mouth and that productive movement are what have made people more aware and more willing to try this.”

Ratings races are unlikely to be carded for top-level horses and are instead meant to be an alternative to claiming races, which, according to Equibase, are on the decline. Claiming races in the United States and Canada fell from about 45,800 in 1991 to about 12,500 in 2025.

The Equibase team has tweaked the algorithm that produces the numbers six times since they were first implemented, an attempt to refine the system and make the numbers a better reflection of a horse’s ability.

Ratings races have drawn an average of 7.9 entries per race. That is in line with the national average, but, after scratches, field sizes for these races are slightly smaller than national average.

“We’re never satisfied,” Moquett said when asked about field size. “But I would challenge you to look at Laurel. Laurel Park has been working with their horsemen to see what works for them. Their average field size is the highest for ratings races and the average beaten lengths is the lowest. We’ve got to put a bit of an onus on the racing offices to figure out how they want to actually handicap these races. That’s a big component whenever it comes to making people feel like they’re accurately weighted in a competitive place and getting more people attracted to the event. I think that how we assign weight to these is the next and arguably final piece that’s missing.”

The biggest proponents of the rating system races seem to be the smaller stables, those who cannot afford to lose a horse through a claim.

“The horsemen who have small to mid-size stables have given feedback that it’s a great opportunity for them to continue running horses that are sound and bring them home and to be able to keep campaigning them and not have to wait for the perfect spot,” Moquett said. “If they want to keep their horse, I think that it can help with trainers keeping their numbers up and owners keeping a horse in the barn.”

Tullock said that she will continue to evaluate how well the races are filling and how competitive they are, but she anticipates that they will continue to be a part of her program.

“I’m keeping track and keeping my charts together so I can go back and look and see any type of tweaking we may want to do,” she said. “But at the moment, what we’re doing is working. I’m sure they’ll probably evolve a little, but like I said, we started somewhere and I know that we’re happy with the start that we have had. Nobody likes change, but if we don’t change, we won’t be here.”

The post Equibase Ratings Races Are Gaining Traction appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Six Speedy Fillies For The Week of October 5-11, 2026

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This week’s fastest females all excelled on grass or Tapeta:

6–ITZEL, 8th–KEE, 10/11, Franklin S.–GII, 5 1/2fT
Beyer Speed Figure-91 (3rd) (video)
(m, 6, Mo Town–Catch That Song, by Unbridled’s Song)
O-BSF Equine Athlete. B-Eric/Randi Moreau-Sipiere (Tex). T-John Ennis. J-Edgar Morales.

The longest shot on the board at 35-1 in her graded stakes debut, Itzel rocketed away from Kehoe Beach and Ag Bullet to a clear early lead and held nicely for third. The graded placing was a significant catalog upgrade for her dam, purchased by the breeders in 2018 for $3,000.

5–FAITHFUL DEPARTED, 9th-KEE, 10/10, Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup-GI, 1 1/8mT
Beyer Speed Figure-91 (2nd) (video)
(f, 3, Yoshida {Jpn}–Speed Seeker, by Heatseeker {Ire})
O-Frank Ferrogine, Richard Rendina, Nick Coniglio and Greywood Farms. B-Robert Johnson (Ky). T-Grant Forster. J-Jose Ortiz.

In her first five starts, Faithful Departed ran three times for a claiming price, and was 35-1 in the Lacombe Memorial and 47-1 in the GII Appalachian Stakes. Now she’s one of the best 3-year-old turf fillies in the land, with a victory in the GIII Regret Stakes and solid seconds in the GI Belmont Oaks, GII Saratoga Oaks and now the QEII, in which she chased Tam Tam (below) all the way. From where she began, that’s already an unexpectedly strong resume.

4–LAMIRADA, 8th-WO, 10/11, Glorious Song Stakes, 7f (AWT)
Beyer Speed Figure-94 (video)
(f, 2, Army Mule–Sister Nova, by Verrazano)
O/B-Mark Dodson (ON). T-Josie Carroll. J-Fraser Aebly.

Twenty-four hours after her star trainee Luster faded to eighth as the favorite in the QE II, Carroll saddled Lamirada to an 8 1/4-length bounce-back victory that was quite the consolation prize. Among current 2-year-old fillies, her 94 Beyer ranks behind only Summer Starlet’s 97 in the GI Spinaway Stakes and Emphatic’s 95 in the GI Darley Alcibiades Stakes. She broke her maiden by 11 3/4 lengths on Tapeta in August but then set the pace and faded to seventh as the favorite on grass in the GI Natalma Stakes. Was the defeat due to the competition, or the surface, or the distance? Right now, that’s a guess – but we know for certain that in Tapeta sprints Lamirada is very fast.

3–KEHOE BEACH, 8th KEE, 10/11-8th, GII Franklin Stakes, 5 1/2fT
Beyer Speed Figure- 96 (2nd) (video)
(m, 5, Omaha Beach–Sweet Awakening, by Street Cry {Ire})
O-Thomas Bachman. B-John Bates, Ron Kirk and Michael Riordan (Ky). T-Wesley Ward. J-Jose Ortiz.

Previously one-dimensional Kehoe Beach showed a new dimension by kindly rating a couple lengths behind pacesetter Itzel (above) then overtaking her with 50 yards to go–only to be run down by Time to Dazzle (below) as the Ortiz brothers hit the wire together. Already a Grade II winner, she’s also a half-sister to stakes winners Predominate, Core Values and Are You Kidding Me, the former Canadian star who captured nine graded races.

2–TIME TO DAZZLE, 8th-KEE, 10/11, GII Franklin Stakes, 5 1/2fT
Beyer Speed Figure–96 (video)
(m, 5, Not This Time–Staria, by Unbridled’s Song)
O-Tracy Farmer. B-Dr. Rodney Orr (Ky). T-Mark Casse. J-Irad Ortiz Jr.

In winning the Franklin for the second straight year, steady Time to Dazzle boosted her career earnings to $1.4 million and ran a one-point Beyer top. A year ago, she cut the corner along the rail into the stretch to kick clear by 3 1/4 lengths, but this time she fanned five-wide into the lane and ran down Kehoe Beach (above) by a nostril. She didn’t win between her Franklins but ran well, including a second in the GI Kentucky Downs Ladies Turf Sprint and a sneaky-good fourth in the $2-million G2 1351 Turf Sprint on the Saudi Cup undercard.

1–TAM TAM, 9th-KEE, 10/10, Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup-GI, 1 1/8 miles (turf)
Beyer Speed Figure–96 (video)
(f, 3, Medaglia d’Oro–Princess Julia, by Distorted Humor)
O-Rigney Racing. B-Stonestreet Thoroughbred Holdings (Ky). T-Phil Bauer. J-Junior Alvarado.

Happily allowed to roll on the front end by Alvarado, Tam Tam backed up her Grade I score in August in the Del Mar Oaks with this first-ever Keeneland elite-level win for her Kentucky connections–owner Richard Rigney and Bauer. “Del Mar was extremely special,” Bauer said, “but Keeneland is the top.” They had previously won a pair of Grade IIs at Keeneland with Buchu, another turf filly. Tam Tam–whose dam Princess Julia is a half-sister to Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies winner Folklore – earned a career-high Beyer. Her last three Beyers are 96-92-93, suggesting she’s just beginning to find her best stride.

The post Six Speedy Fillies For The Week of October 5-11, 2026 appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.