Forum Replies Created
- Posts
In fairnesss, AP’s experience with Love Dreams seems to be an example of the changes achieving what they were intended to do:
“Prize-money distribution has always been a frustration for owners, whether it was the complexity of the system or the levels generally. The changes deliver what owners want: simplicity and fairness. Put simply, more owners can access a larger share of the prize-money now. This improves earnings across the sport and enhances funding to the middle and lower tiers.”
I think AP may have misconstrued the sentence from the above he quoted in the opening post. It seems more likely to me that all the CE of the ROA was opining was that by re-arranging the deckchairs more owners of run of the mill horses would get more back (though of course without an overall increase in prize money that necessarily means others get less).
“I was possibly a little too harsh with my chances on that horse.”
Given (a) his previous run was, as you say, his first run of the year (and most of the others had had several), (b) he was prominent in that race until headed 2f out and weakening a furlong out (and on Saturday was being dropped in trip), and (c) he was dropping into a less valuable race where the field was, on average, rated 9lb lower than that of his first race, I’d agree with you.
Hi,
“The form book is a record of the past and properly read is a guide to the future – very seldom does the result of a race so confound the form student that he tears his hair; he may be surprised by a result but he has only to get out his form books to find substantiation therein in 99 cases out of a 100.”
That was written by an accountant turned racing analyst in 1950, and although 99 is pitching it rather high, it is a view with which after years of assessing races I very much agree.
The reason for drawing it to your attention is that for me it bears on your question, “where to specialise?”.
On average, there is no doubt which type of horses have the most form, ie the most data from which we can evaluate their chances in a coming race – sprint handicaps. Personally I never analyse nurseries or 3yo only sprint handicaps for essentially the obverse of that – often not much form. But other sprint handicaps are a quite different matter.
Last night I was looking in detail at a seven runner handicap run at the end of August. Leaving aside the one 3yo runner (who before the race had run in just four handicaps), on average the others had run in over 30, the range being 25 to 37. My view is that with that amount of data for each horse it is more likely that one can work out the circumstances in which it is likely to win, or not than if one was focusing on races where the runners have much less form.
The one downside to sprint handicaps is that occasionally one’s selection will get caught flat-hooved at the start and five or six furlongs doesn’t give a lot of scope for recovering. On the other hand, sprint handicaps are seldom tactical affairs and pace, which can be an issue in longer flat races, is not an issue.
At Salisbury on Thursday Minnamoolka was 4-19 lb “wrong” with every other horse in the race with a handicap mark, so no surprise she started at long odds and finished well down the field. Even allowing for that, there was nothing in the run to suggest she will be more than a handicapper. Entered in a nursery on Monday, 81 is far from an impossible winning mark – about 13% of nursery winners won off that mark or higher over the last eight years or so.
Hierarchy looks a different kettle of fish. Presumably one doesn’t pay over 100,000 guineas thinking one is simply buying a handicapper, and connections will know more after tomorrow. If he can win, or go close, given the handicap marks of others in the field ….
With both horses, connections should soon have a much clearer picture of their horses’ potential and thus be able to make appropriate decisions.
“How many of these “trainers to follow” mentioned in this thread actually show a profit when backing every runner?
We all have our favourite trainers and those we dislike… but should also fight our own prejudices otherwise we’ll end up in the poor house.
Yes, study trainers to find out how they operate.”
Most unlikely to show a profit backing every runner of any specific trainer, at least in the medium/long term.
By way of example, just under 14,500 horses ran as 4yos in UK handicaps between 01/01/12 to 31/12/20, having just over 82,000 runs among them, a crude average of 5-6 runs.
5,744 won at least one of their handicap runs, about 40%.
2,305 won at least two, about 16%
795 won at least three, about 5%
and only about 1.5% won four or more.
So a trainer with say 10 4yos who run in handicaps in any given year, will have 50-60 such runs. Of his 10, four could well win, maybe one or two twice or more. To make a profit backing four to six winners and maybe fifty losers, one would need to be very fortunate with prices.
But most of the time the trainer isn’t expecting his horse to win. Rather the horse is running to get it ready to win in due course. By studying how a trainer operates, one can eliminate a great many of the losing races and, by focusing on those situations where the trainer is putting the horse in with a definite chance of winning, achieve a sufficient strike rate to be well in the black.
Taking Tinkler’s Citron Major as an example (not a 4yo of course but the profile of percentages is much the same for older horses), as a 3yo, 4yo and 5yo he needed several runs before winning, so one would naturally be cautious about his early runs this year.
In 2018 he won off 86 and 89, and in 2019 off 83, making no show in four later handicaps off 88, 88, 88 and 84. This suggests he was now not progressive, indeed had probably passed his peak as a handicapper.
So in 2021 one would logically be looking for him to be placed to win after a few runs and if indeed he was regressive from his 2018 peak (the win off 89), preferably when he was down to 83 or below.
It would have been an act of faith rather than reason to back CM in his first five runs this season. By his sixth he was down to 81, ie below his 2019 winning mark of 83, and running in a race of slightly lower class than the win in 2019, and was of potential interest. Depending how one evaluated the trip and having a 7lb claimer on board, there was a case for backing him then. But after that race, dropped a further 2lb and placed a mile down in class, and with his usual jockey back on board, he was of serious interest.
In short, given NT’s handling of the horse over previous years, there was really only any kind of rational case for backing him twice this year, when the 8/1 SP of the win on the latter run easily covered any loss if one had been tempted to back him as the outsider of ten on his 1 July run.
For all I know, CM may win again this season, but rationally it seems unlikely. Personally, I will now be content to wait and see if he stays in training for 2022 and, if so, hope again capitalise on him then, after he has had three or four runs and is back down to 79 or below.
“Nigel Tinkler, though I only analyse sprints so don’t have an opinion of him with milers and above.
Citron Major will hopefully be placed to win in the next few weeks.”Five weeks later, won at a handy price. Knows what he is doing, does Mr Tinkler.
Green
Thanks.
It is two or three years ago that my contact in Indonesia reformatted my results and database applications and the jockey was the one thing he couldn’t manage. I’ll ask him if, from his perspective, things have changed and he can now add jockey in.
If it is still not possible, I’ll ask him why (he did tell me those years ago but I’ve long forgotten the specifics) and post his response in the hope that you can explain where he is going wrong.
A problem for me with A Sure Welsome is that he has an unusual profile – not many 7yos win three handicaps in a calendar year and fewer still make it four. In the nine full years prior to 01/01/21, I can only find 166 who won three handicaps and 44 of them went on to win a fourth, and of the 44 only six did so off ASW’s current mark or higher.
Yes, it is certainly too complicated for me. I can write complex Excel formulas but the coding for scraping is quite another matter.
But when someone has done it for you, the result is easy to use. The race that interests me most today is the 7.35 Windsor, the card for which took me all of ten seconds to download into my application ready for analysis:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/edminw7juakajpy/7.35%20Windsor.xlsm?dl=1
“Another option would be to write an Excel macro that ‘scrapes’ the details from the race card web page directly into your ratings sheet.”
That’s what I do, and indeed that is how I get the results each day to put in my databases (pretty time-consuming at this time of the year with five six meetings a day, and not many cards with what used to be the traditional six races).
It is of course a matter of programming to scrape, manipulate where necessary and then place the data in the format from which one analyses races. For cards, I am content with thirteen data items:
horse name
date of race
course
VDW class rating*
average OR class rating*
distance
weight
OR
going
course type*
trainer
days since last run
claim, if anywhich go straight into the Excel application I use for analysis.
The three with * are not simply scraped but derived from data that is – for example if the course is Epsom, course type shows up as “speed”, if it is Carlisle, “power”.
Other data is possible, eg draw, but as I rarely worry about draw I handle that differently when I need to (sprints at Chester and Wolverhampton in particular).
The one data item my contact hasn’t managed to find a satisfactory way of downloading, because of the way it is presented and coded on the RP site, is jockey. But there again, I have never been put off backing a good thing because of who is riding and nor do I believe a horse becomes a good thing because of who is riding.
I haven’t sufficient programming skills myself, but found an Excel expert in Indonesia whose charges are very modest. Happy to give you his email address if of interest
Nigel Tinkler, though I only analyse sprints so don’t have an opinion of him with milers and above.
Citron Major will hopefully be placed to win in the next few weeks.
What has Elliott actually done? Showed disrespect to a dead horse. From some of the comments and suggestions for “punishment” one might think he was a serial horse mutilator or worse.
I’ve no idea whether the incident captured in the photo was a one-off crass insensitivity or reflects an aspect of the man’s character, but one should only be “tried” for one’s established words and/or actions and in the scale of human insensitivities or worse his was pretty small beer. Take away someone’s livelihood, for ever or 3-5 years for that? Absurd.
Did Elliott bring racing into disrepute? No. Only an idiot would judge racing on the basis of an incident of crass insensitivity by one individual, just as only an idiot would judge MPs conduct in respect of observing COVID rules by the action of the Scottish Nationalist MP who travelled by train knowing she had COVID.
Given the ORs of the other runners, how easily Cyrname beat them all, and the distances, I don’t see that the Official Handicapper had any option but to put C’s OR up at least 10lb.
I doubt we’ll see C in another handicap anytime soon, but if the Official Handicapper had merely put him up to 168 the trainers of others in such a handicap would have every reason to feel aggrieved.
“Read and then read some more”
I would like to offer an alternative to that seemingly excellent advice, namely “think and then think some more”.
It only makes sense to back race horses if one believes that in the main there is logic in how horses run, and the fact that on average the favourite is the most likely winner supports that view (though of course it is as important to realise that, crudely, two favourites get beaten for every one that wins).
So from a starting point of believing that in the main there is logic in the outcome of races it seems to me to follow that the task is essentially an intellectual one – understanding the logic, which means being able to articulate it in operational terms.
I’ve read quite a few books on race analysis and the single most important expression of the logic within horse racing I’ve found is just sixteen words long: “it is the balance between class, form and the other factors which shows the good things” (the author having already made it clear that by “other factors” he meant what I think of conditions issues – course type, distance, going and, for some flat races, draw).
Thinking of effective ways of operationalizing “class” and “form”, and understanding the relationship between them, and understanding how and when the various conditions issues impact, is in my view how one’s time is most profitably spent.
“I’ll be very disappointed if Zabeel Prince doesn’t prove a cut above these.
Zabeel Prince 5/1 and Lord Glitters the danger.”
I have reached exactly the same conclusions. I suspect that the Balmoral has long been ZP’s main target and whatever his winning margin lto he would have been off the same mark tomorrow, so his then jockey didn’t have artificially to reduce the distance by which he outclassed the others (if he wins the Balmoral we won’t see him in another handicap for a long while, if ever, so his OR becomes irrelevant). He will have to show considerable further improvement to win, much more so than Lord Glitters whose 2nd was in a much classier race, so not a racing certainty but in my view a very probable winner.
