speadsheet assessment

[onefurlongout]

Afternnoon,

I’m still developing a spreadsheet that assists me with my selections I just wondered if anyone had come across any thing similar on the net?

How does the RP come up with RPR? How does ATR come up with their rating?

I’m just looking for some addional inspiration as I struggling with the allocation of points.

Sorry if this is confusing but thanks if anyone can help

[Gerald]

I haven’t regularly bought the RP for the last decade or so, so some of this might be wrong/vague.

The Racing Post Ratings were the work of one man. I find this slightly unbelievable, as the BHB and Timeform etc employ a team of handicappers.

RP seem to have merged with the Form Book / Raceform in the past few years. Are the RPR now the work of the Raceform handicappers?

I was going to write something else, but have just realised I need a shower, and then go to work.

I’ll come back to this thread this afternoon, because as well as contributing an answer (pounds per length at various distances, collateral form etc) , I’m interested in the answer myself!

Gerald

[Dolus]

You seem to be asking a million questions at once there.

Am I right in thinking what you really want to know is how t produce your own ratings.

The RPR ratings are on the same scale as the official ratings and are measured in pounds. Every time a horse runs its RPR is adjusted according to who beat who, how many lengths beaten, weight carried.

By ATR ratings I assume you mean Lawrence Taylors speed ratings as the ratings presented with the card are the official ratings. Speed ratings as the name implies are produced from time and adjusted to distance going and course and sometimes weight.

I am not having a go at you but how do you expect to produce something to better the professionals (he said tongue in cheek) if you do not know the fundamentals.

You would be better starting with something simple like the Fineform rating formula and developing something from there.

Last two outings this season only
5 points for a win
3 points for a 2nd
2 points for a 3rd
1 point for a 4th

1 point for a course win
2 points for a distance win

Of course it all depends if you just want a method to find the winner or if you want to make money at it.

If it is the first then start with odds on favourites as they win about 67% of the time. If it’s the second you need to develop your own unique angle to weed out the horses everyone else is overlooking.

You could let someone else do the donkey work and try and manipulate an angle out of their ratings.

Which ever way you look at it, it ain’t going to be easy.

[onefurlongout]

I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel just trying to develop my own system of selection through the use of a spreadsheet.

One area that I’m particularly weak around is weight/handicapping i was just interest in find out a little more about this.

Thanks for the fineform info BTW

[cormack15]

ofo- I think the difficulty is that your question is a huge one.

Are you looking to compile your own ratings based on collateral form-lines?

[Dolus]

One area that I’m particularly weak around is weight/handicapping i was just interest in find out a little more about this.

You could spend a lot of time and effort reading about all the ins and outs of handicapping leaving less time for you to work on your spread sheet.

The logical thing would be to use the RPR or Official handicap rating, (or both), which are handicap ratings based on weight. Enter them into your spreadsheet and depending how important you think they are, adjust them with the other variables, or if you think think they are less important adjust your rating from the other variables with these ratings.

There is a pretty cheap book called Racing Systems with the Pocket Calculator, where the author discusses adjusting ratings with variables that the handicappers do not use (supposedly). This might give you a few ideas.

[Gerald]

Okay, here goes.

There was actually someone doing my job when I arrived at work this morning, so I came home again. Been messing about on the main threadsites ever since. It is always precarious for me to do overtime on a Sunday, as the factory opens at 6, and I don’t get there until about 8.30, because of the trains.

First of all, if it is an all-aged Group 1 race "at level weights", they don’t all carry the same weight. Fillies and mares get a sex allowance of 3, 5 or 7 lbs, depending upon the type of race.

Except with the permission of the Directors, fillies and mares shall receive the following allowances other than in Handicaps:

(a)
All Flat races other than Flat Pattern races, Flat Classified Stakes and Rating Related Maiden races – 5lb
(b)
All Flat Pattern races, Flat Classified Stakes of Classes 1 ,2 and 3 and Rating Related Maiden races – 3lb
(c)
All Steeple Chases, Hurdle races and National Hunt Flat races excluding Classified Stakes – 7lb.
(d)
All Steeple Chase and Hurdle race Classified Stakes – 3lb.

Secondly, depending upon the time of year, and distance of the race, immature horses get an allowance to give them an equal chance of winning as older horses.

This is the WFA scale for the Flat.

http://rules.britishhorseracing.com/Ord … 00&depth=2

This is the WFA scale for Jumps.

http://rules.britishhorseracing.com/Ord … 00&depth=2

Thus for the King George run over 1m4f at the end of July

4yo+ colts, geldings and horses carry top weight

4yo+ filies and mares get a 3lb sex allowance

3yo colts and geldings get a 12lb age allowance

3yo fillies get a 12 lb age allowance, plus a 3lb sex allowance.

If a 4yo and 3yo colt dead-heat in the King George, they would both get the same rating, despite the fact that the 3yo is carrying 12 lbs less.

The WFA scale is intended to be an average of how much horses will improve as they grow and develop. It is assumed that the 3yo will improve by 12 lbs over the next year, and that if the two horses meet again the following year, when they are both mature, they should deadheat again.

As an aside, this is where the notion of 2yos "not training on" comes in. A horse as a 3yo might be just as good as he was as a 2yo, but he hasn’t physically developed over the winter, and is now inferior to his peers who have.

The WFA scale applies to h’caps as well, so if a 3yo and a 4yo were meeting over 1m4f in late July, and both were rated 83 by the Official Handicapper, the 3yo would carry 12 lbs less.

The main principal of handicapping is that more weight carried means that a horse will run slower. By how much? This is a question that I am very interested in, but unfortunately I lack the tools to analyse. I am wanting to invent the wheel from scratch, so to speak.
The main rules of thumb used by people are

on the Flat – divide the distance of the race into 16 furlongs to give the number of pounds per length.
Thus a 1m race is 2lbs per length
A 5 furlong race is 3.2 lbs per length

Over the Jumps
1lb per length. Remember, this is a RULE OF THUMB.

I know very little indeed about Jump Racing, and don’t know what the actual figures are that people use.

The length has become standardised recently, but I can’t find the figures, although Prufrock might have sent them to me. I want a copy of them myself.
I think it is something along the lines of 6 lengths per second on the flat, unless the going is Soft or worse, in which case it is 5 lengths per second.
Over the Jumps, 5 lengths per second, unless the going is Soft or worse in which case 4 lengths per second.
This is why we are getting so many people querying official distances – the Judge is not measuring distance between horses, but the time it takes for the horses to cross the finishing line.
Hopefully some knowitall will provide the correct info.

THE ART OF HANDICAPPING
Realistically, you have to make allowances for how much horses have in hand at the end of the race, or how much others were eased up by. This is why realistically people shouldn’t produce their own figures – you won’t get to see all the races to make an opinion. Of course, if you specialise in one type of race, such as group races, or sprints, or 2yos, or valuable h’caps you might be able to do this.
You also need to vary the pounds per length scale, depending upon how soft the going was. For instance, you might adjust a sprint on soft ground to 2lbs per length and on heavy to even 1.5 or 1 lb per length, depending upon how strung out the horses were. You do what it takes to make the figures seem sensible.

A PRACTICAL EXAMPLE

3.55 Wolverhampton yesterday, 5f

Haajes 8-11 Dale Gibson 85[/color:i93bgld4] 91[/color:i93bgld4] 92[/color:i93bgld4]
shd Canadian Danehill 8-4 Catherine Gannon 78[/color:i93bgld4] 84[/color:i93bgld4] 85[/color:i93bgld4]
shd Doubtful Sound 9-7 Chris Catlin 95[/color:i93bgld4] 101[/color:i93bgld4] 102
[/color:i93bgld4]1¼ Bo McGinty 8-2 Paul Hanagan 76[/color:i93bgld4] 78[/color:i93bgld4] 78[/color:i93bgld4]
1¼ Gwilym 7-9oh8 Matthew Lawson (7) 76 68[/color:i93bgld4] 74[/color:i93bgld4] 74[/color:i93bgld4]
¾ Pawan 9-0 Ann Stokell (5) 93[/color:i93bgld4] 89[/color:i93bgld4] 88[/color:i93bgld4]
2¼ Harry Up 8-8 Patrick Donaghy (5) 87[/color:i93bgld4] 76[/color:i93bgld4] 74[/color:i93bgld4]

The Official Ratings (coming into the race) are in blue. Weights are the actual weights carried, after Apprentice allowances, overweight etc. This was a race for older horses, so we don’t have to worry about the WFA scale. The convention is normally to ignore Apprentice allowances, as they supposedly counteract the inexperience of the jockey. So we will assume Harry Up carried the alloted 8-13, and not the actual 8-8. I believe that Topspeed in the past would treat Harry Up as carrying 8-8, but nowadays treats it as carrying 8-13.
Now personally, I think this was a good race, with lots of in-form or coming-into-form horses in it, and so I am going to use Bo McGinty as my benchmark, and give him +2, meaning that he ran to a rating of 78. I then work from there and dole out my ratings, which are in red. I haven’t made any allowances for horses being eased up, or for horses having any extra left at the end, or for Haajes being baulked and switched.

Edit: the actual RPR/Raceform ratings awarded after the race are in violet[/color:i93bgld4]

Now it may be that I have overrated this race by about 4lbs. So be it, I have used my judgment, it was wrong, and I am going to lose some money over the next few weeks because of it.

When you start coming across horses that you have h’capped before, you then use your own ratings as a reference point and try to produce some kind of best fit, or something that makes sense in terms of some horses improving and others declining, or not running up to their mark.

By the way, I have not handicapped horses for a long time, and I am not currently doing so.

The problem with h’capping is that it takes up so much time, and you end up not seeing the woods for the trees.

We won’t go into speed ratings, because first of all you have to produce par figures. To produce par figures, you have to lock yourself inside a room with a bottle of whisky. (Beyer.)

[Monster]

Afternnoon,

I’m still developing a spreadsheet that assists me with my selections I just wondered if anyone had come across any thing similar on the net?

How does the RP come up with RPR? How does ATR come up with their rating?

I’m just looking for some addional inspiration as I struggling with the allocation of points.

Sorry if this is confusing but thanks if anyone can help

Hi Onefurlonout

I have sent you a PM

Good Luck

Monster

[Gerald]

One thing I forgot to say is that the RPR that appears alongside the horse in the RP (Postmark), is the best figure achieved over the previous 365 days, I think irrespective of distance or going.

[Author]

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