French Speed Figures / Past Performances

[USHANDICAPPER]

Good afternoon.

My name is Grant. I am a professional horseplayer residing in the U.S. As some of you probably know, the French PMU has authorized co-mingling with the United States as of about 30 days ago. I am eager to play into the French pools but can’t seem to find a good source for past performances (in English) and/or high quality speed figures. I am not concerned as much about the cost of this data as I am about it being of high quality. In the U.S. I can purchase Ragozin, Thorograph, etc. as well as data from a few private services but have been unable to find anything for France.

Thank you very much in advance for any suggestions.

Grant <!– s:D –><!– s:D –>

[robert99]

The best source for past performances is
http://www.zeturf.com/fr/accueil

That has a free and subscription service but is only in French.
You can use the browser to translate into your version of English but you soon pick up what the racing terms mean. France Galop and Paris Turf have English websites but lack professional detail.

There are no reliable speed rating or sectionals services for French racing, professional or amateur. You have to do your own.

[USHANDICAPPER]

Thanks for the reply Robert.

That is absolutely incredible. How in the world can the PMU expect US customers to wager into the French pools when there is no data available? It took them nearly 3 years to get the point where they can co-mingle for this??

If anyone has figures available they’d be willing to sell or any ideas they would like to discuss privately I can be reached at grantchandlerrewards@yahoo.com.

I could make figures if I had to but it wouldn’t be this year anymore. While I have a great deal of experience making figures both domestically and internationally, alas I lack the ability to build a database program that would allow me to print out pp’s easily once figures are created. I am in the process of creating figures for Hong Kong and have the same issue with not having the ability to create a program to print pp’s with my figures.

Grant

[TheBluesBrother]

Producing speed figures for the main French tracks needs a lot of experience because the official going descriptions most days are not even close.

I was working on the speed figures for

Maisons-Laffitte

this morning and noticed the time returned for 3.20 which was won by

Agent Mimi

was

slow by 0.38s

, this just isn’t possible on ground returned as

very soft

, I made the going allowance at

-0.05s/f

for the rest of the card which equates to the (slow side of good)

I made a going correction of

+0.30s/f

(good to firm) just to correct the 3.20

Unlike American racing the French racing is run at a slow pace, especially in the 2yo races, where some days you can return no speed figures at all.

[robert99]

Thanks for the reply Robert.

That is absolutely incredible. How in the world can the PMU expect US customers to wager into the French pools when there is no data available? It took them nearly 3 years to get the point where they can co-mingle for this??

If anyone has figures available they’d be willing to sell or any ideas they would like to discuss privately I can be reached at grantchandlerrewards@yahoo.com.

I could make figures if I had to but it wouldn’t be this year anymore. While I have a great deal of experience making figures both domestically and internationally, alas I lack the ability to build a database program that would allow me to print out pp’s easily once figures are created. I am in the process of creating figures for Hong Kong and have the same issue with not having the ability to create a program to print pp’s with my figures.

Grant

In essence, France has an effective monopoly on racing, betting and its data. Private companies pay very high fees and taxes to try to join in. So data provision remains primitive. I would expect they could not care less whether comingling is a success or not – they are a protected, self serving, monopoly authority, awash with cash – more like the old Soviet Union than customer friendly EU countries. The big advantage with France is that you are betting against even less informed people than is normal.

If you can do time figures then database work should be a doddle. MySQL is a common database that is fast and free. It does not require any programming as such you just ask it questions in a simple query language and it prints out the answers. I can send you a chapter from my professional racing tutorial to show how or you can just hire excellent software programmers in Philippines or India to do it for you.

Hong Kong has the sectional and "speed" rating data already on the HKJC website – it is done for you.

[USHANDICAPPER]

Thanks very much to Blues and Robert for the replies.

As far as the quirks associated with making the figures, yes I’d probably have to get used to them but the "official" going isn’t a concern of mine based upon the methodology I use to make figures. Of course this is only the case once I have an adequate base of past figures.

Re the database tasks, I appreciate the offer for instruction. I have MS Access and currently use it for some db functions, but I would rate my skills as merely adequate. A relative of a close friend of mine is an excellent programmer and we were hoping he would be able to build us an Access module to generate PPs, but we’re not sure he is going to have the time.

Re Hong Kong, I have found PP’s and figures out there but we are going to but XML data and I am going to make figures myself and generate PPs for our group, assuming of course I can get the db work done.

Thanks once again, and anyone that wants to discuss anything further or privately feel free to reach me through this board or at grantchandlerrewards@yahoo.com.

Cheers all.

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