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I actually estimated the increased distance at Chester on Thursday and on Friday according to a rough bit of basic mathematics involving the fact that the course is virtually a circle of about a mile round and that the extent of the dolling out could itself be estimated pretty accurately. I don’t have my conclusions to hand at present, but I seem to recall that my estimated increase in race times on the Friday was between 14 and 24 lbs depending on what trip the races were run over. The difference between good going and soft is about 75 lb on average and 30 lb at its least. One thing about ascertaining the state of the going from early race times is that you don’t really need to land it on the head of a pin at that stage.
Pardon my ignorance, but could someone tell me what an "online stopwatch" is?
Online stopwatch here:-
It’s a bit surprising that this is in tenths rather than hundredths of a second.
I’m not clear how this would be preferable to a good hand-held stopwatch (other than the cost, which isn’t much anyway). Can it be superimposed on a screen, such as a screen showing live horseracing?
Steve
Im with you there..
As far as times go, i will use them very selectively. Maybe where an unexposed hyped runner has won a race in prefect conditions in a an ordinary or slow time might put me off. (2 years olds especially beacuse these races often seem to be run truer)
Frankly the weather, nature of course and the variation sin going which are so extreme in the UK confuse the whole picture. Most importantly the way the race is run of course, especially in small fields
And on the jumps…forget it
I don’t know what the boys at the Racing Post, Timeform, Raceform and the like are bothering for, EC clearly knows it all.
You’re not related to Mr. Davies are you?
:biggrin:
Mister Steve the humoutless one
Houmoutless? I can’t argue with that. I’ve never had a humout in my life.
A joke, by the way, there’s no-one that puts in more typos than me. Or at least, not since Cubone last posted here.
You said you could "give the going quiet easily" from the time of the race and the conditions (eg Newcastle, 7F, 0-80, 4yo+ hcap).
Now you say that actually watching the race is a part of it.
So, you’re really just saying what I was saying last week: that without watching the race, times aren’t enough?
In which case, what the ****
have we been talking about all this time?I wouldn’t have bothered if I had known what a humourless soul you are.
No worries. I wouldn’t have bothered contributing to the other thread if I had known you’d simply dodge any question that showed the superficiality of working out the going entirely from the time of the first race.
normally I love discussing this type of thing
Unless anyone actually questions the validity of your claims or points out a flaw in your approach.
Then you get VERY defensive.
you will know how they do that won’t you..being a smart chap?
Yes.
If you treat a length as being 0.2s rather than the length of a hypothetical horse, what’s the difference?
It only matters in speed figs where you have to have consistency between the times of the different races (where it’s more like 0.16 or 0.17s) and the beaten lengths in each race.
If you’re only rating a horse against the horses in it’s own race, this is unnecessary.
I thought that would be obvious.
hang on?..my error?..who says the time was wrong?..only one person has said that..
And it’s just coincidence that he said that before finding out from the course that the "official electric timing had broken down for this race and they had used a hand recorded time"?
Is that the sound of straws being clutched?
..at least 25% of going reports ARE incorrect.
There’s this mono-dimensionality that many speed fig compilers have which says that, when their going adjustments don’t match the going reports, the going reports are wrong.
Some going reports are wrong, that’s for sure. But so are some of the going assumptions of speed fig compilors.
However, one group has a tendency to think that their assumptions are the "truth".
let me get this right..you think I time races without actually watching the race..well stevey baby you will have to explain just how I manage that incredible feat.
A piece of p**s
, surely.If it’s a one mile handicap. You watch until they jump off. Then you read the paper for 90 seconds and turn back in time to stop the stopwatch when the winner crosses the line.
There. You’ve timed the race, but you haven’t watched it.
I love how you presume I don’t actually watch a race when timing it..good one
Again, you said you get the going from the time of the first race. There was no "and the way the race is run".
Until just now, of course, when you shifted the goalposts again.
I think the latest shift in your position simply supports my position that:
without watching the race and applying common sense, the times don’t tell you much.
So, thank you for that.
Steve
Underestimated importance:
1) Whether the horse is intended to win; wonderfully eliminated, or at least, drastically reduced, in the classics and group one races, but still a top group horse will usually use early races as part of the horse’s campaign build-up.
2) It’s taken me a long time to inwardly digest old Che VDW’s words of wisdom as regards avoiding handicaps. Those handicappers are some shrewdies. Well I still love them, but generally avoid putting much on them.
3) With older horses, I think it’s usually very helpful to look at their profiles in terms of their past performances over the seasons.
4) Absolutely question whether the favourite should be the favourite, as the bookies usually seem to work to a conventional template, to encourage punters with a very short memory span.
5) Unless you get a handicap snip, such as Iffraaj, small fields – if not obligatory, if the draw and price are right – rate for me as a very high priority.
6) Touched upon in 1), but good prize money helps to keep them "straight"!
1) Trainers’ and jockeys’ records at the track.
2) The intelligence (at least worldly) of people in this game. Even bewhiskered old comic cuts characters on tricycles don’t let us know more than a fraction of what they know. I cannot see how anyone could last long as a more or less successful trainer, without being pretty shrewd.
Some of these are still besetting failings of my own.
All I can think of at the moment.
I seem to post my views openly whilst others guard their methods
<br>And keep posting em EC,makes interesting reading and good debate
Personally,i like to read other punters methods and thoughts,even though i don’t always agree with em
Quote: from empty wallet on 11:52 pm on May 11, 2005[br]Robert or any Speedfreak :biggrin:
Hypothetical
Say if you had past race times between 73.0 and 77.5 (sample size say 12) on Good to Soft
would using  Standard Deviation of those racetimes give a more accurate Going assessment ?
(Edited by empty wallet at 12:02 am on May 12, 2005)<br>
EW,
I would not start at Good-Soft, which is about the most unreliable going for race prediction, but using standard deviations about the mean is the way I go. I won’t give away exactly how many SDs from the mean is most accurate but you are well on the right track. I also agree a lot with your later posts on how inaccurate and basically worthless the standard racing data fodder is – and long may it remain so.
Robert
Quote: from robert99 on 1:05 am on May 13, 2005[br]but using standard deviations about the mean is the way I go. I won’t give away exactly how many SDs from the mean is most accurate but you are well on the right track.
<br>Thanks Robert
Just a question,if i may
How many outliners would you recommend to discard ?
<br>I also agree a lot with your later posts on how inaccurate and basically worthless the standard racing data fodder is – and long may it remain so.<br>
<br>I believe that was EC
<br>
(Edited by empty wallet at 2:33 am on May 13, 2005)
Ok I agree with EC and EW.<br>For outliers you have to decide, before discarding any in a small set, if there is any cause for the very fast or slow time and for Good-Soft this could be because the ground was firmer for fast times or softer for slower times or was the race run slower. (Those who crank out figures by computer miss all this kind of important detail). Often you will not know this too precisely but may suspect some figures – if so discard them. The median time method, which I do not like, has the advantage of taking the average of the 6th and 7th ranked times in your set of 12 and completely avoids the outlier (as duff data) issue.<br>So you could use all data for the average calculation, compare this with the median value and see if any agreement – add some more data and see which way the figures are heading. You mentioned SDs so take all data but use the population SD formula not the sample SD one. A smaller SD will indicate the obvious that your outliers are not too serious, your mean is about right, and vice versa.
Robert
EC
YOU assumed i didn’t watch the race, of course I bloody watch it
Actually, YOU said you could determine the going from the TIME.
Now you seem to be suggesting that you also need to watch the race in order to make sure it is properly run ie the time is not enough.
That’s what I was saying. It seems strange that it took you so long to say that you agree with me.
It looks as though most people here including yourself have the going and racing totally cracked and just come on here to criticise anyone who thinks differently to them
This is laughable coming from the person who just last week said of those "who can’t be arsed to make figures":
"they don’t have a clue how anyone calculates them but they criticise it just the same.
then shove their head in the RP and see that GEEGEE loves fast ground because a bloke shoved a stick in the ground whilst having a fag 6 months ago..and confirmed it for them"
Firstly, you have the prejudice that people who don’t compile speed figures are simply too lazy to do so.
Then you are presumptious enough to declare they’re too ignorant to understand how figures are compiled.
Then you portay them as people who base their understanding of a horse’s record from a cursory look at the racing post.
And now you’re trying to portray yourself as someone who’s here to learn and share with an open mind?
Spare me.
You want people to agree with your prejudices but without having to deal with those pesky people who mention things like inaccurate data.
You have missed my point here as well..the FACT that ALL horses are rated using 0.2 seconds per length means the whole formbook is wrong..or not as accurate as someone who DEMANDS really exact measurements expect…as you appear to.
I certainly HAVE missed your point here.
What difference does it make to collateral methods whether 2 horses finishing 0.4 seconds apart are said to be "0.4s" apart or "2 lengths"?
Anyone want to take a crack at explaining this to me?
The only thing I can think of is if you calculate your weight adjustments bases on actual lengths rather than time-lengths.
But I don’t, so I don’t see where the problem is.
Steve
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Can’t see much wrong with good old fashioned form myself.<br>I  honestly cannot recall any trainer or jockey ever mentioning trends, speed figures, value prices, arbs, sectionals or standard deviations, but they seem to get by.<br>And, with so little emphasis on it nowadays, there could be fortunes to be made by those who have the edge of actually having read a form book?:biggrin:
the fact you think 2 lengths is 0.4 seconds is making me laugh
Can’t answer this question either?
You talk about how you know this and that, but haven’t answered a single one of my ever so simple questions.
What I do like is how those that know what i’m saying here…the respected knowledgeable ones..keep quiet.
How delusional.
Don’t try and tell me whay i post Steve either..you don’t know me from Adam
Though, strangely, so much of your personality shines through.
you are starting to look like a sad ass that has got a grudge against a name on a messageboard
I’ve no grudge. I was happy to leave the last thread with you failing to answer my questions.
It was you that brought my name up on this thread.
After you had a couple of cracks at me, I thought I had the right to reply.
But you don’t like that, do you?
Steve
There’s no need for anyone to get quite so confrontational (and I know that’s very rich coming from me), as this could be a really interesting discussion otherwise.
The business about time margins and distance margins was discussed on here a few months back.
The thing is that if you go back about 10 years form students might have regarded a length as being equivalent to, say, 4 lb under certain circumstances, e.g 5f and a race run in 60 sec overall. Fair enough.
Anyone regarding 5f run in 60 sec as worth exactly the same poundage now has to explain why it should be so when instead of a length being equivalent to 9 feet it is equivalent to (using average race speed as an indicator of finishing speed) 11 feet because a length "is" now 0.20 sec. Period. (220*5*9)/(3*60*5).
Assuming the "old" 4 lb per length was a correct conversion of a physical margin before (and that is a big assumption) it should surely now be 4.888 lb. (220*5*4)/(3*60*5).
I have assumed for ease of illustration that a horse length is 9 feet, or 3 yards, and that average race speed is a suitable indicator of finishing speed.
A length became something quite different to what it had been before around about 1997 (I think). Anyone doing form and/or time assessments should have taken this fundamental alteration into account.
(Edited by Prufrock at 9:28 pm on May 13, 2005)
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