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Hi,
Yesterday I bought Nick Mordins + Andrew Beyers books,with the intention of compiling my own speed ratings for the coming flat season.
Does anybody here compile there own?<br>Is it a worth the time and effort?<br>Is there any other books that are worth having?
D.
It all depends on yourself! If you end up being good at it, it’s worth it. If not save yourself the effort and the time ‘cos it takes a helluva lot of both.
It’s definitely worth the time and effort. I do my own timeratings for the turf Flat season and I wouldn’t be without them despite the time and effort involved. I’ve read Mordin’s book and I’m not a fan of his method of calculation. I’ve developed my own method over many years adapted from the Split Second/Stop Watch approach. In my view it’s important to be able to compare the timeratings with the official handicap marks as in my experience the best bets identified by these figures involve horses going into handicaps for the first time on favourable marks.
hi guskenedy, is there anyway you could give us an insight to the way you do your ratings ?
I use my own adaption of speed figures but now it takes me no more than 20 mins everyday running my program, but that said it took me nearly 4 years to write and test my program so a hell of a lot of time was put into it in the early days.
I used to compile my own but I am a lazy so & so, so I learnt how to write computer programs to do all the calculations for me then later subscribed to a daily form data dase and adapted my program to read from this.
Well worth the effort but you have to have spare time!
Dl would you be interested in selling a copy of your program? and would it be able to read flatstats?
In my opinion calculating your own speed ratings is well worth the effort, provided you have the time to spend making them as accurate as possible. It’s probably true to say that the shorter the race distance, the more useful they are. Like DL I have written my own program for calculating speed ratings. The method I use is a combination of the methodology of Andy Beyer and Len Ragozin. As well as the books you have already purchased, I would seriously recommend that you purchase "The Odds Must Be Crazy" by Len Ragozin, published by Little, Brown and co.
All the best to you<br>Nick :cool:
Paul it’s not for sale as nobody else would understand it as if there is ever an error (about one in every three races usually) I have to debug it which most people would not know how to do as there are hundreds of lines of text which only I would know where to look. Sorry mate. After 4 years if it is still being de-bugged as new niggly problems are found on a daily basis, usually it’s nothing major but it would however crash the program on a users PC or just give out false ratings.
Guys,
I find speed ratings an invaluable aid for aw racing, although the edge the had seems to decline over time.
I do however receive these from a friend, who updates his track/ distance averages several times per season.
I have found the Racing Post standard times not too good to say the least. This guy dosn’t want to part with the figures he uses, so I still rely on his fugures, which are bloomin good. They are simply speed figures, not weight adjusted or anything, which for me is the way I want them.
Do you guys who calculate your own figures use stanard times from Racing Post/ Raceform etc, or use and adjust your own standard times?
Regards & Good Luck<br>Jake<br>
Jake ………
I use my own standard times and wouldn’t dream of using any that are commercially available. Your mate is on the right lines in my opinion. :biggrin:
Chantili,<br>i would recommend Alan Potts’ "The Inside Track" it has a chapter or two on the subject and is a good read.Here’s a link to the ratings i produce  for Southwell & Wolverhampton hope it’s of interest.Look in the horse’s to follow section.<br>http://www.xsorbit1.com/users/Steve/index.cgi<br>
hi everyone
I find speed ratings very useful for jumps & flat racing.<br>Any horse that has acheived a 20+ StopWatch figure is<br>enter into my database. Then I use this data to generate<br>my own computerised speed rating, based on the Solidus<br>method.
In my opinion speed ratings have to be viewed in the<br>context they were acheived.  For example
160  20fur ascot soft(+0.90) hcpB145  £18K  +5Len easily etc.
Speed is only one part of the puzzle though, you need a<br>rounded approach to probability………..timeconsuming!!!
I will post some speed ratings if anyone is interested.
from "not the finished article"<br>carlisle<br>
(Edited by carlisle at 10:09 am on Feb. 18, 2002)
To paul101…here goes. Calculating a "raw" timerating is relatively simple. You need a set of standard times and a weight-for-age scale in addition to a calculator. Standard times appear in the Post, Weekender and Raceform Update. Each set of times is different. In my view, the thing to do is to choose one set and stick to it. There is an official wfa scale which came in a few years back. I don’t use it. I use the one that preceded it. It’s up to you.
When I say a "raw" rating, I mean one before any adjustment is made for the prevailing conditions on the day. Assume for calculation purposes that a fully mature horse carrying eight stone and equalling the standard time would record a rating of 100. Multiply the amount by which the time is faster or slower than the standard time x (1000 divided by the relevant standard time expressed in seconds) which converts the amount by which the time is fast or slow into pounds rather than seconds. Adjust this figure to reflect the actual weight carried (i.e. whether the horse in fact carried more or less than eight stone) and, in the case of a two or three year old, add on the appropriate figure from the wfa scale. The figure you are left with is the basic timerating.
By way of an example, take a look at the spectacular win of Queen’s Logic in the Cheveley Park last October. Her time for the six furlongs was 1m12.34secs. My standard time for the Newmarket six furlongs is 1m11.7secs. She was therefore 0.64secs "slow". To convert this into pounds multiply by 1000 and divide by 71.7 (the standard time expressed in seconds) giving a figure of 8.9 lbs "slow". Round it up to 9 lbs. Deduct this from the 100 she would have achieved if she’d exactly matched the standard making 91. She carried 11 lbs more than eight stone. Add this to the 91, making 102. The wfa scale I use says that a two-year-old running over 6f in October is 21 lbs from full maturity. Add this to the 102 giving a final figure of 123.
Do the same arithmetic for all the races run at Newmarket that day. So, for example, High Pitched, a three-year-old carrying 8-13 recorded a time of 2m32.78secs for the 12f handicap against a standard, on my figures, of 2m31.00secs. Multiply the 1.78 "slow" by a thousand and divide by 151 to give a figure of 11.78 lbs "slow". Round it up to 12, deduct from 100 to give 88, add back the 13 lbs carried above 8st and add the 8lbs the wfa scale says a three-year-old should get over that trip at that time of year to give a final figure of 109.
My timeratings for the winners on that particular card were as follows: Bon Marche 74, Sir George Turner 95, Queen’s Logic 123, Kylkenny 60, Hathaal 94 and High Pitched 109. You then have to decide how the prevailing conditions (i.e. ground and wind, if any) affected the times. I’ll come on to how that’s calculated another time – I’m a bit pushed for time at the minute – but I’ve chosen that particular day at Newmarket on purpose because it was a day when in my opinion the ground and wind had no bearing on the racetimes and so the "going allowance" was nil, leaving the timeratings above to stand without further adjustment.
I find that the timeratings produced by my method differ from the official BHB handicap ratings by 14lbs. That is to say, a BHB rating of, say, 80 equates to a timerating of 94. Thus, if a horse with an official mark of 80 records a timerating of 100 he has run a time 6lbs faster than his handicap mark. Of the winners on Cheveley Park day, the following had handicap marks: Bon Marche was officially rated 67, Sir George Turner 93, Kylkenny 53 and High Pitched 94. It is easy to see, therefore, that of these four only the last-named put up a significant performance on the clock, recording a time just ahead of his official mark. As it turned out, this information proved of little benefit because the horse stepped up in class next time and won a Group Three and identifying him as an improving handicapper didn’t give me the confidence to back him there. The main significance of this particular day’s racetimes was to confirm that Queen’s Logic’s race was truly-run, that there was no fluke about her performance and that she’s a worthy challenger for next year’s One Thousand.
The next step – calculating the going allowance – is the tricky bit and I’ll go into it in more detail in a day or two when I’ve a bit more time.
I hope the above is of assistance.
My speed ratings are a little bit more basic and the backbone of the program although there are a hundred other things that have been added and disregarded over the years the main platform has never really changed much. It is my own design and one that has served me well over the last 3 seasons over distances 5 furlongs to a mile in competative handicaps:<br>
- <br>
- Expected Time in Seconds = (Standard Time + Going Allowance)
- Lbs in One second = ((30 / race distance) x (15 / race distance))
- Expected time in Lbs = (Expected Time in Seconds x Lbs in One second )
- Actual Winners Time in Lbs = (Winners time x Lbs in One second)
- Beaten by winner in Lbs = (distance beaten x (15 / race distance))
- Actual time in Lbs = (Actual Winners Time in Lbs + Beaten by winner in Lbs)
- Raw rating = ((Expected time in Lbs – Actual time in Lbs) + weight carried in Lbs)<br>
<br>That’s the calculation from what I can remember – it may look daunting and complicated but it isn’t really. This was all done from memory so don’t quote me on this as I may have put a wrong figure in somewhere along the lines, sorry can’t be more exact without searching my program for a few hours (which I haven’t got right now).<br>The going allowances I can’t remember but I think if it’s heavy going I add 11% of the standard time on.
To paul101…the following is an extract from something I wrote a few years ago explaining how I calculate a going allowance:
"How is the going allowance calculated for any particular day’s racing at any particular track? The first step is to sub-divide the returns into individual ‘courses’ at the track e.g. the straight course and the round course at Doncaster, the sprint course and the round course at Sandown etc. Don’t assume that the going allowance on each of these ‘courses’ will be the same on any given day. Next, carry out the calculations previously set out. This leaves you with a ‘raw’ timerating based on a theoretical ‘nil’ going allowance.
As an example on 16th July 1994 there were five races on the straight course at Newmarket ( July course). A ‘nil’ allowance would produce the following timeratings: Jawaal (official rating 73) 129, Lion’s Mane (no official rating) 100, Bintalshaati (official rating 88) 129, Princess Oberon (official rating 70) 96 and Loyalize (no official rating) 120. Remember that there is a 14lb difference between the two scales so normally Jawaal could be expected to produce in a truly-run race a timerating in the region of 87. A timerating of 129 would represent improvement of 42 lbs! Although Jawaal was certainly a lightly-raced and improving colt at that time that degree of improvement is just not feasible and so we can clearly see that conditions on that day were fast and a ‘minus’ going allowance is indicated but to what degree?
Esentially what is involved at this point is exercising a degree of judgement based on experience, looking at the timeratings which would be produced by various going allowances and reaching a ‘best fit’ decision i.e. which going allowance best fits what we know about the horses which raced on this particular day? Anyone who remembers slide-rules will understand what I mean when I say that I am in effect sliding a cursor along the range of possible options to come up with as accurate an allowance as possible."
[to be continued]
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