Compiling your own standard times

[Drone]

Eh?

You’ve got the wrong end of the stick Mr Wilson

In my admittedly usual roundabout way I was praising The Blues Brother for attempting to ‘go it alone’ in compiling his own standard times

Just at pains to point out that his may or may not be any better/worse than those in the public domain, but at least having his own will mean only he will be privy to them; hence they may provide the edge he’s looking for viz profit through their judicious use allied to vanilla form study etc etc

I am not, and never have been in the business of denigrating folk prepared to put in hard work. Particularly those who graft away in our little world because as someone else mentioned most punters are lazy and expect a lot or summat for nowt

My post was aimed mainly at Fist’s misplaced (IMO) use of the word "fortune"

HTH

[Anonymous]

I think both Fist and Drone have been unfairly and highly biased in their critical views over someone wishing to extend their knowledge and research in the science of how a horse achieves a mathematical level of performance.

In future it would be best if both of you weighed up the pros and cons for both sides of the argument in future as it comes across quite frankly very childish, particually with Drone as I expect a more level headed and professional response than say Fist who’s…well I’ll leave it there.

Bluesbrother I hope you find the answers you’re looking for and let us know how you get on in the near future.
Thanks

mrw

WOW!! and all this from a little weasel who joined the forum to show us all how it’s done.

Should go dig up his thread in lays and plays.

Fantastic stuff….started off after timing but the lads soon put a stop to that. But that didn’t stop him he was going to show the world how it’s done.

So Mr. How it’s Done pulled out half a dozen horses armed from his data base…these were all handicapped wrongly by the BHA he had it all worked out, they were all going to win, how could they lose? afterall he is a genius. Awe diddums! alas he failed miserably with only one winner at measly odds and lost his wad. The horses went on to be dropped by te handicapper and there still trying to win arace between them

Mr. How it’s Done hold the record for the quickest balls up on the forum…lasted two pages and was never seen again.

Now he goes around having nasty little digs at people but because he’s stupid he thought he’d pick on me.

Mr. Wilson next time you decide to be abusive in my notebook don’t come to a gunfight with a banana in your hand. We are simply two people having harmless fun and can do without you sticking your nasty little face in where it doesn’t belong

Anyone who listens to your advice will end up in the grubber because quite frankly your clueless.

[Slowhand]

Buy a stopwatch ? crazy way to try and find winnersIMO

What I do through, after being advised to, is look back the results of the day and compare time for time on that day only………what is good to soft exactly?……damn sure it isn’t the same on a Monday as it is on a Tuesday. So judging horses by time can be a mile off.

If you use the above method it pretty much gives you an idea what the pace of the race is but you will get grade 1 hurdles being run slower than Novice hurdles at time so using it as a beting guide is near on usless most of the time.

Look at the past year on the flat. Some amazing times put up by horses that got stuffed next time they ran…..a few even broke track records……..not my cup of tea.

Fist

There is so much wrong with that post that I don’t know where to start really.

Just picking the last comment for instance, which is my favourite comment from someone who usually doesn’t appear to understand the subject, I read it so much on the Betfair forum. The track record breaker isn’t any more significant than any other winner, its more to do with how fast the surface is, so why would you expect a horse to automatically run well next time out? Same with the horse that puts up a fast time, why does it have to win next time out?

These seem quite naive and simple expectations you have, does every horse that wins easily win next time out? So why expect fast time winners to always win next time out?

[oldjohn69]

now then John

those things you highlight are sure important

but punters in general are lazy – so any angle that involves putting some work in could give you an edge over that laziness

most punters know about going, course, draw – its factored into prices

whereas aspects of speed ratings and sectional timings involve a bit more – could just be more of an edge there than you think

Not sure about this Slowhand because a horse’s speed or time factor can only be relevant to those courses each horse has produced it’s best time on,or courses of very similar characteristics,and the going is vitally important because most speed ratings can only be relevant to good or firmer.There are so many factors to form that it’s a matter of sifting through a great many red herrings and when you’ve given it your best shot you still have to assess weights,value in the price etc etc.
To me times are way down the list, and after 50 years of learning the game I only know enough to make a small but fairly regular profit.Not trying to say my way is right or wrong…..you should hear me rant on when somebody mentions SYSTEMS….AAARGH ! Thanks for your comments Slowhand.

[Gingertipster]

WOW!! and all this from a little weasel who joined the forum to show us all how it’s done.

Should go dig up his thread in lays and plays.

Fantastic stuff….started off after timing but the lads soon put a stop to that. But that didn’t stop him he was going to show the world how it’s done.

So Mr. How it’s Done pulled out half a dozen horses armed from his data base…these were all handicapped wrongly by the BHA he had it all worked out, they were all going to win, how could they lose? afterall he is a genius. Awe diddums! alas he failed miserably with only one winner at measly odds and lost his wad. The horses went on to be dropped by te handicapper and there still trying to win arace between them

Mr. How it’s Done hold the record for the quickest balls up on the forum…lasted two pages and was never seen again.

Now he goes around having nasty little digs at people but because he’s stupid he thought he’d pick on me.

Mr. Wilson next time you decide to be abusive in my notebook don’t come to a gunfight with a banana in your hand. We are simply two people having harmless fun and can do without you sticking your nasty little face in where it doesn’t belong

Anyone who listens to your advice will end up in the grubber because quite frankly your clueless.

Don’t know how you get away with it Fist?

Mr. Wilson was only defending someone’s hard work. It is you who is attacking Bluesbrother’s work. Yet you called Mr. W a "weasel…. having nasty little digs at people…. he’s stupid….abusive…. sticking your nasty little face in where it doesn’t belong…. quite frankly you’re clueless".

That itself seems like abuse to me, all made by you Fist.

You’ve demonstrated on more than one occaision in other threads Fist, you don’t understand times. Then dismiss what Bluesbrother is trying to do out of hand, yet cry foul when someone turns the tables.

Value Is Everything

[Slowly Away]

I used the RP Standard Times for my all weather ratings.

But now that I’ve got 18 months figures it’s apparent that there are inconsistances.

For example every other winner over 5F at Dundalk clocks a group one speed fig – obviously the standard time is too low.

Also the figures at Wolves are consistantly lower than the other tracks in the UK for the same class of race

I think my next project will be to use my figures to try and ‘correct’ the RP standards.

I’ll wait till the RP produce the new set of standards after the flat season – then my plan is to note every winners rating in class 4 handicaps in double figure fields at each distance and see what I get. Hopefully they’ll be true run races in the main and have the same group of horses running in them

My impression is that Wolves ratings are about 20lbs below Kemp, Ling and southwell for the same class of animal – but once I’ve collected a years figures I’ll work this out !

I’ll be doing all this manually – should keep me out of mischief…….

Hopefully the result of this will be that i can say ‘oh, the 7 furlong standard at Wolves should be 1 second lower’ etc………..

I’ll probably give up after a few weeks though and just stick with my gut feeling as to which standards are too high or too low, but it would be neat to put some figures to it.

[TheBluesBrother]

I think my next project will be to use my figures to try and ‘correct’ the RP standards.

I’ll be doing all this manually – should keep me out of mischief…….

You can have a copy of my database if you like?
Currently stands at 116,000+ races up to 2008, should be completed in 3 days.

Note: You will need Excel 2007 to read, as it is an.xlsx file, it exceeded the 65,000 limit of Excel.xls.

[Slowly Away]

Thanks for the offer, Bluesbrother, but I’m afraid i wouldn’t know what to do with it.

Excel is a foreign country to me………….

Besides,it would fill up my little computer…….

I like tinkering about with speed figs and what have you

[Anonymous]

I think that Tom Segal hit it on the head with a article in the weekender a couple of months ago when he talked about the Mathematicians and the artists(think AP talked a little about it in his book)
I did do some speed figs a few years ago on the AW before Polytrack but leave it to some of the experts now although i applaud anyone who does put the work in.
Its HOW you back your selections that can be important,making sure that the more right you are, the more you win.
Last year i had a conversation over on Betfair with the respected Steeplechasing(i wont stick his real name up) and we went through the years with shorter priced horses at festival meetings and found that shorter priced (3-1 and below) returned a far worse roi than at the normal cheltenham meets(its the same with the Royal meeting)
armed with this i took on the big 4 at the festival last year with the main dangers trying to get them out of the 1st two and was rewarded by two f/c dividends that paid well.

Dont be afraid of losing, it sounds strange but tin the long term its the only way to win

[360 degrees]

TheBluesBrothers,

Hi, good luck with your project.
Been there myself & it’s not the easiest scenario. The sheer volume of data and time span makes the whole thing a little unwieldy (I was using a database – Oracle – and I can’t imagine using Excel to hack this; maybe a cool Excel hacker can, though.)

Anyway, one of the points I wanted to express is the varying nature of the calls made in the past (pre going stick, I guess) by the clerks re the going. One course’s ‘soft’ is another’s good-to-soft, going by the times, of course.
The other difficulty is with the time-span: over years, the clerk must change & so, too, the opinion over going; over years the drainage, surface (esp. AW), distance (remember Ayr’s 9f fiasco), layout and dolling practices change, too.
Having lots of data is a feast, but how consistently it can be analysed straight out of the box … another meal entirely.

IF, big ‘if’, I ever ventured there again, I’d probably stick to AW, get a handle on the different surfaces & layouts and histories of changes, in order to standardise the data. Probably, I’d seek to locate low grade race-types with sufficient races to be useful, trying to identify an area where the market looks relatively less efficient (analyse the winning & place SPs frequencies.) Throw in draw bias and distribution of pace … No ‘if’ about it, I’d not get involved again unless someone paid me up front.

All in all, there’s a lot of work and no angle of approach guaranteed to pay off, either, before engaging in it.

Hope you enjoy yourself, though.

[360 degrees]

oh, and the wind, too.
Nice to have air viscosity, too …

[TheBluesBrother]

(I was using a database – Oracle – and I can’t imagine using Excel to hack this; maybe a cool Excel hacker can, though.)

The main database is SQL, and then I export it to an excel sheet.
My web scraping program has a SQL database built in it and this is what I use to collect the data, if you copied the data straight to an excel file, the bigger the file got the slower it would run.
The excel file size at this moment is just over 11MB.
I am using excel, because when I finished I need to covert the time format

3m 39.6s

to seconds, I will need two blank columns to achieve this.

[Gingertipster]

Having Timeform timefigures, it would not be cost effective for me to create my own speed ratings / standard times. With racecourses moving their rails, inconsistent going reports (although times can be a more accurate guide), wind speed and direction; slow, fair, good, strong and overly strong pace – must be a difficult science to master.

Respect to anyone who tries.

Value Is Everything

[Slowhand]

There is a lot of overcomplication going on here. You don’t need 1000’s of races, you need a lot less, but they must be RELEVANT races, to produce standard times.

Anyone reading this thread is beat before they start.

[wwweeerrr]

STANDARD TIME AND TIME FIGURES

The best and most accurate way to award any kind of time rating is to compare horse against horse on the same day over the same trip!

No going allowances are needed and you can do whatever formula you like to calculate the differences in seconds or parts thereof and turn them in to pounds.

Alex Bird himself used to do this to try and find a "fast" 2 year old who has run against an older horse at the same track on the same day over the same trip.

However the point is it doesn’t matter what standard times you use, or Pars or Class you are all dealing with final time only. Without sectionals you are only guessing what the pace of the race is and where the sudden bursts of speed started from. A slow final time could mean a very fast early pace which would affect all the horses in the race and cause a slow down in the last couple of furlongs.

The whole point is though trying to get an edge if a horse does a fast time everyone will know about it and the price will be tightened up accordingly.

Ratings and Time figures are important but at the end of the day it is the individuals assessment and judgement of the Form that will inevitably produce the long term profit but remember that all the info you have the Bookmakers have and more so it’s going to be an uphill struggle. Take a leaf out of Patrick Veitch’s book. He watches most of the races that take place everyday. he notes impressive winners, horses that are improving , and horse who have no chance and makes notes of all of them. he then has £40,000 on his strong ones and has lost up to £400,000 in a short period but over the year makes in the region of £1 million. His profit on turnover for working 100 hours a week is approx 16.7 % . Harry Finlays ROI is around 4% but he puts around £100,000 on per bet.

You only get out what you put in!!

[Ground]

Andy Beyer says he sits down with a stack of charts,poster board, and a marking pen (book written before computer age). Average up times for each class level at each distance.
Do this with a bottle of Whiskey. Drink the whiskey, mark the board, and make your figures!

[Anonymous]

Here here BluesBrother you sound like a handy man when it comes to technology.

After joining Uni this year my time is limited and struggle to keep on top of ratings yet this is how my folders a worked out on the system;

Year > Month > Date > Excel Spreadsheet

As you can tell it’s a pretty mamouth task having to open up all these folders considering when you have around 4,000 of them so I was wondering if you knew of anything that could extract all the data from them folders and put it into one Excel database?

Speak Soon
MRW

[Author]

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