HOW SCORING WORKS
Every horse that breezes at an under-tack show receives a ThoroughByte score. Here’s how to read it.
A composite number representing the horse’s overall athletic performance in the breeze, normalized for environmental conditions, session timing, and distance. Higher is better. The score is not a raw speed number — it synthesizes multiple performance dimensions into a single comparable value. A horse that scores 75 at OBS March can be meaningfully compared to a horse that scores 75 at OBS June, because both have been adjusted against their respective sale conditions.
A classification based on score thresholds:
| Tier | Score Range | What It Means |
|---|---|---|
| ELITE | ≥ 80 | Top-of-sale athlete. Exceptional across multiple metrics. Historically, 45% of ELITE horses go on to win a stakes race. |
| STRONG | 65–79 | Well-above-average breeze. Multiple standout metrics. The sweet spot for value buyers — not always priced like elite, but frequently runs like it. |
| ABOVE AVG | 50–64 | Solid performer with one or more above-average metrics. Competitive racehorses live here. |
| AVERAGE | 35–49 | Middle of the pack. No glaring weaknesses, no standout strengths. Outcome depends heavily on training, management, and opportunity. |
| BELOW AVG | 20–34 | One or more metrics significantly below the cohort baseline. Higher risk profile. |
| WEAK | < 20 | Multiple metrics well below baseline. Historically the lowest-earning tier by a wide margin. |
Where the horse places among all horses of the same sex who breezed the same distance at that sale. Rank #1 is the highest-scored horse in the cohort. Rank provides ordinal context that score alone doesn’t — a score of 72 might be #15 in a deep March sale or #5 in a thinner June sale.
The percentage of horses in the cohort that scored lower. “Top 22%” means the horse outscored 78% of its peer group. Percentile is often the most intuitive way to understand where a horse stands relative to the field.
The comparison group. Horses are always scored and ranked within their sex (colts vs fillies) and breeze distance (1/8 mile vs 1/4 mile). A filly who breezed a furlong is compared only against other fillies who breezed a furlong at the same sale. This prevents distance and sex differences from distorting the rankings.