Speed Handicapping

[mr forecast]

gerald

my money was on love and devotion,

but i did watch queens start to drop,i was going to trade but started at 160/1 and it went right down to 70/1

the aim was to trade out but it all happened so quick………..its a total fluke…….but as i said if you spot figures like these its worth chucking a quid at, wished it was a full point,it would of been a few grand

[SareTa]

Hello everyone
Please suggest some methods/tweaks for getting maximum speed from the internet on linux platform.
Thanks in advance

[Withnail]

Just concentrate on maximum speed – Silver Machine’s a good starting point.

[KevinTHFC]

Hello everyone
Please suggest some methods/tweaks for getting maximum speed from the internet on linux platform.
Thanks in advance

You couldn’t make it up

[mr forecast]

linux……………..do people use this……………..why,…….
mmmmm

back to the thread………only doing races below 1.mile 3 f now and it is making a huge difference,

still only using the racing post speed figures and finding these very effective

i know you hate my course ratings but they are proving profitable…..bonnie prince blue and allison de witt to mention a few

5:20 – Racing Again On Friday 4th September Handicap
» Full result
6f, Class 5, £2,914.20

1 Bonnie Prince Blue 8/1
2 Mr Wolf 10/1
3 Timber Treasure 14/1

i use this race as it was the last, could not decide between bonnie and mr wolf as both had figures of over 98 with mr wolfs topping 104,but the favourite was well handicapped,
Realt Na Mara (IRE) 13/8F

the fav waas top betting with 3000 bets,bonnie had 110 and mr wolf was off the board.
my point being that i find the speed stats the best way of deciding a horse ,which can be hard in this situation,

[mr forecast]

i am having trouble picking a horse out of a selection of two speedsters per race

i have tried going with the lower odds horse only to find i keep getting caught out with the other higher odds horse winning

i have two systems running at the mo………placing the top two only at certian tracks which is in profit……and doing the win only at certian tracks

now both systems are in profit but betting on two per race is always going to leave me with a loss on the other horse

so now i have started trading on the top two………………..dont green up……….leave the traded amount on each horse……………and if it wins then great……….and if it dont then it costs me nothing

i have been using 200.00 per trade and only doing 1 tick trades on the ladder…………the results have improved my profits

it is time consumming but so far so good

both leicester and newton are place tracks today,so placing the top two only

ripon is a bad performing track so will leave

now i would like to ask if anyone is fractional timing,this to is a very time consuming adventure but when you add the fractional times to a horse it does give you a better picture of the horses ability,im looking for a horse which has even times or has its fastest times in the last part of the race,

by doing this you can see when a horse weakens and when it is at its fastest,this is not something i can do for every race but if i see a race with lowest odds of 5/1 then ill get on and do me homework

[Kopwas]

Mr. Forecast. Like you I was playing around with a system using RP speed figures. It was going well until I went away in the summer for a month. Since then it seems to me that there are many more qualifiers and that the figures seem inflated compared to pre-August. Has there been a change in the figures or is my thinking in need of a revision?
Thanks

[mr forecast]

are you speed handicapping………..private handicapping……or just using the plain old speed figure

i have a database with every variation of speed you can think of and i am noticing a slight change but nothing major…..

i use top speed as well as speed ran to as well as distance speed figures

i dont bet much this time of year myself as i know what its like, i move over to the forex and trade on there……..not helping that racing traders is down ……i was using thier new evolution trading software but now both are not working…..nightmare

[Kopwas]

Nothing too professional on my part. I was reading some work of Nick Mordin from a few years ago and playing at using topseed (on suitable going) in comparison to handicap marks. I used it to highlight a few winners in July especially nurseries. But now there seem to be many many more qualifiers and bigger ratings all round. I just wondered if I’d missed something while I was away. Maybe it works best in mid summer when the going is usually more reliable as well.
Thanks and good luck

[Gerald]

Actuary left the Forum after someone complained about him posting figures for races on the Main Forum. (I suppose he was also getting hacked off that there wasn’t a proper discussion, apart from with Mr Forecast, and sometimes me.)

The relevant thread was called Projection Figures, or something like that.[actually, UK All Weather etc]

I was wondering what these were. I know that when you adjust a slowly-run race based upon earlier figures, that that is called projection, but Actuary was doing it before the race, so it was something different.

I am wondering whether it is something like this. Page 121, Betting Maidens & 2 Year Olds, Dan Illman:-

Okay, its not that as Bold Thingy had had lots of runs. Maybe he was doing things such as adding points for interference, or slow starts.

[mr forecast]

i wondered why it had gone quite………..whats wrong with his speed figures, if any one bothered to follow him they might of realised he had a very good strike rate by producing his own figures as i do,…

i beleive he was following the books of mordin and beyer ,

and then firing different questions about these theorys on this thread…

from adding points for weight….ect

its alot to explain ….well about two books worth….lol

should we change the figures for ,wieght,going ect or do we keep them the same was the main arguement

you need to have your pars for the class race……then check the par against the or…….then choice the horse with the fastest true speed figure……..it takes afew minutes before the race and there are many different versions of this so i suggest you read these two books mentioned , they are based on american racing but with slight adaption to the uk market and you have yr self a powerfull tool

[mr forecast]

For those interested here is Nick Mordins reply to my question regarding figs for beaten horses.

Shouldn’t the lengths beaten by formula be relative to the time the race was run opposed to the distance of the race?

For some reason beyond my comprehension there appears to be an unwritten rule that dictates we conform to the lbs per length applied by the official handicapper or a closely linked permutation.

What I feel most uncomfortable about with this formula is the results appear to be upside down. e.g. the penalty applied to a horse beaten 1 length in a sprint is greater than the penalty applied to the horse beaten 1 length in a middle distance race but from a speed perspective the horse in the sprint is obviously travelling faster than the middle distance horse.

Dear Mark,

You are of course right. But actually in Britain this is exactly what happens nowadays because lengths are now measured by time rather than distance. The photo finish drum spins at a set speed, so it’s easy to tell exactly how far behind the winner a horse finished. On the flat a length is now counted as a fifth of a second (as measured off on the photo finish drum). Over jumps 0.25 of a second is used. What this means is that in a mile race run in 1m 40 a length is longer than it is in a mile race run in 1m 35.

Beaten lengths are a vexing issue though. I am still wrestling with how to cope with the massive increase in beaten lengths caused by a very slow surface compared to a very fast one. For example times on Germany’s sand track at Neuss are only about 10% slower than they are on Lingfield’s Polytrack. But the average beaten lengths are three times as much.
The trouble is if you adjust your speed ratings to take account of this you can end up giving a bigger speed rating to a horse that gets beat ten lengths in a mile race run in 1.40 (and therefore runs around 1m 42) than you do to a horse that won another mile race on the same card in 1m 41.

I plan on doing some research on this. I once took part in a discussion with a couple of Aussie handicappers and they called this phenomena ‘drag’ but I can’t find any reference to this on the internet. However it’s clearly real. For example, the only way I could make sense of the beaten lengths on Irish 1000 Guineas day at the Curragh was to count them as double what they should have been. The going was really slow that day and seemed to massively amplify the beaten lengths. Perhaps it also amplifies the difference in times between races. I need to look at this to try and understand it. It’s not easy. It’s probably related to pace more than final time. Sectional times show that jockeys go off pretty much the same speed in the early stages whatever the going. So if it’s really slow and testing the horses tire more and the beaten lengths get amplified. That’s my best current theory.

Regards

Nick

Although Nick’s reply is less than conclusive after posting a length explanation of my theory to racing forums I am yet to find anyone who can argue their case for why they apply their variations on the example I posted. In fact I received several more variation along the same lines with a length in a 5f sprint given a numerical value of 2.5 at the lowest to a high of 4.2.

Paul Mostert Ph.D. of Equix Biomechanics found in extensive research that the approximate length of a mature thoroughbred is 9ft

1) There are 660ft in a furlong or 73.33 lengths (660 divided by 9)
In a 5 furlong race run in 60 seconds 1 length therefore equals 0.1636
60 seconds divided by 366.67 (number of lengths in 5f) = 0.1636

2) There are 660ft in a furlong or 73.33 lengths (660 divided by 9)
In a 1 mile race run in 1minute 40 seconds 1 length therefore equals 0.1705
100 seconds divided by 586.67 (number of lengths in 1 mile) = 0.1705

The above two examples are as close to fact as you can get! There is no personal interpretation or corruption. Purely based on time, IMO isn’t this what speed figures should be based upon?

Referring back to Nick’s reply it is interesting to note that even with his years of experience he is looking to adjust and improve his ratings and I am mindful of the fact that as I strive for perfection with my speed figures it is a labour of love which is never likely to reach a definitive conclusion.

i have only just spotted this and feel this is mainly what this thread is about and feel i should bring his subject back up for discussion

i have messed around with the figures adding and subtracting certian pars from the books mentioned……

i also had a stab at fractional timings with speed figures,and nick is correct in his staement about most horses having the same fractional times in the early stages……fractional timings are a great way of backing up a horses speed figure but i must warn you that fractional timings has alot to do with the jockey as well and this needs to be considered in all figures…..

some good jockeys are excellent at fractional timing a horse by holding it back and pushing it forward at different stages of a race, the poor horse has no idea how far it is going to race and will sometimes just go for it and a amatuer jockey will push it….were a expeirenced jockey will hold it back trying to achieve the same fractional times through out the race…..its this jockey which will get the best performance from a horse and will have a better chance of winning……

you will find that its alot for just one person to achieve …..and you would not be able to fractional time every horse in every race

it can take several hours sometimes to do just one race

i have experimented with the following

speed figures vs each individual track both backing and laying

adjusting figures the beyer method(using his figures)

using fractional timings

adjusting officail ratings against race pars

using mathmatical formulars to average a speed rating

and my conclusion is that its not an exact science, you get close but i feel it will never be 100% accurate but does have the best strike rates from all the wacky ideas ive tried

i would like to see some geek link some sort of database of speed figures with a virtual horse racing type software so you could enter several horses to race each other and you may get a slight edge on how the race should be run…….see another wacky idea

[mr forecast]

well its a shame that actuary is no longer here with his figures, more shame on you than me as i still use his web site

i have watched him for sometime and his experience and imput will be surely missed

his first race at wolverhampton produced a nice tricast and i believe he had a forecast as well (yesterday)

i use his figures against my figures and even thou we do differ slightly as we are both doing different things but i find it very easy picking a winner from both figures

why should it matter were he puts his figures

[gymcrack]

hi mr forecast,is there anyway you could give me his web address ??

[mr forecast]

http://horse–racing–tips.blogspot.com/

this was taken from this site under actuarys profile

[gymcrack]

thanks mr forecast.why don’t you carry on the thread with your ratings.I’m sure it will be just as interesting.

[mr forecast]

this is not my thread and i dont want to tread on any ones toes………..visit his site

[Author]

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