Everybody wants to know who the best jockeys are.
But traditional jockey ratings are flawed.
Suppose a talented jockey gets stuck racing claimers at an out-of-the-way track. How would we ever notice them?
Speed Above Replacement Jockey (SARJ) solves this problem by measuring how many Trackmaster speed point a jockey adds to their mounts, compared to an average jockey. An average jockey has a SARJ or 0. A jockey with a SARJ of +4 adds 4 speed points on average to their mounts—which is enought to make the difference between first and second place in most races.
First in a 2022 Bloodhorse article, SARJ works off what happens when a horse changes jockeys.
Jockeys | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
👕 You | 👕 Me | 👕 Bill | ||
Horses | 🐎 Quicksilver | Speed 94 | Speed 90 | |
🐎 Suchadrag | Speed 78 | Speed 74 |
SARJ averages these comparisons across about 1200 active jockeys riding 50,000 horses in 300,000 starts every year. It adjusts for changes in track, condition, age, medication, weight carried, competition, and other factors that might affect a horse's performance. The result is a single number that tells us which jockeys are really making a difference.
Want to see how a specific jockey stacks up? Let's look at an example.
Let's take a look at Irad Ortiz, who's been the busiest jockey in North America for the last few years. Our SARJ graph confirms that Irad was a top jockey in 2024. With a a SARJ rating of +4.5, Irad would usually win on a horse that an average jockey would race to second.
That's not a big surprise, but of course you can't hire a big name like Irad Ortiz for every race. Are there other jockeys who are just as good but not as well known?
There must be. Irad's SARJ ranked him 38th out of 1129 active jockeys, implying there were 37 jockeys whose SARJ was at least a little better, and another 30 or so whose SARJ wasn't much worse.
We can see comparable jockeys by hovering over the graph.
Curious about another jockey? Want to compare two jockeys? Look 'em up.
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