Time to move on

[bigwaz]

Hi all,

I've spent the last 4 years following the horses seriously, spending countless amounts of hours on the computer and filling about 30 excercise books full of systems. Althogh it was fun i just dont have the time to do it anymore. Over the years i've come up with a few systems that have been quite successful so i'm going to put them on this thread. Here goes.

SYSTEM 1

Grab the morning paper and circle all favs for any race/meeting. From these selections only consider the horses that have a jockey or trainer that has made the top 100 list on racenet.com.au. With the selections you have now you need to compare their barrier postion they had in their last race to the barrier they have in today's race(i use ozeform.com.au). You now need to do the same thing with their weight. Add the two differences together then add the position of their last race.

For eg.

Barrier weight Last position
Last race- 2/11/2005 4 56.5 2/10

Todays race 5 56.5

Difference 1 + 0 + 2 = 3


Your selection will be the horse that has the lowest score under 5

This system works well with place selections. I followed it for about 10 weeks and from 60 selections there was 51 place getters. Ave div was between
$1.5 - $2.

SYSTEM 2

I followed Mark Reids hot tips for about 3 months and although they weren't very consistant he did have a bit of success with horses that were first race back from a spell. The above Barrier, weight, position system works very well with his selections. In 3 months their was only 7 selections but all 7 came in winners so it's worth a look at.

SYSTEM 3

This system works well with midweek races. Big juicy odd's are quite common with this one.

The rules are simple, Only consider horses that have raced in a Group 1,2 or 3
in at least one of it's last four races and is the only horse in the field to have done so. With the right filters it could work a lot better but odd's up to $15 are common.

These systems do need a bit of patience but can be rewarding. Best of luck

Cheers, Bigwaz

[bigwaz]

Sorry that barrier weight position bit didn't work well. I'll try it again


Last race 2/11/2005 Barrier(4) Weight(56.5) L/pos(2/10)

Todays race Barrier(5) Weight(56.5)

[Chrome Prince]

Sorry to hear, it seems like your giving the game away.

4 years is nothing my friend.

I've been searching, researching, learning, testing and analyzing for 24 years, with the last 5 years almost fulltime.

I've finally got to a point where it's all falling into place, and can now be compensated for all the time and effort for the next 24 years.

There are no miracles in this game, and to find even a 10% edge is getting harder and harder as time goes on.

But it can be extremely financially rewarding and satisfying to prove to yourself and to "others" that it can be done.

Had I been a little smarter and not been steered by the so-called professionals in the wrong direction, I could have cut this time ten fold to arrive where I am.

The best piece of advice I can give, which I wish I had years ago....

"It's not just about picking winners, the most obvious horse will most probably be the least value. There is value in every race, you just have to look for it. The most favoured in the tipsters poll, the most popular jockey, the best stable, the highest strike rate, the best form, the highest class, the shortest price, will all lead you to a high strike rate, but a loss - UNLESS you find within all of that something that the public is generally not aware of - AN EDGE."

Best of luck.

[Shaun]

I have only been at it for 15 years but it has only been in the last 3 years my attitude has changed toward what i should be looking for to find a winning formula.....i have decided that form is not the best thing to look at because thats what everyone else is doing i now concentrate on numbers and percentages and with all the new betting types that are being offered i am sure that one day i will find the answer in these figures

[DR RON]

"It's not just about picking winners, the most obvious horse will most probably be the least value. There is value in every race, you just have to look for it. The most favoured in the tipsters poll, the most popular jockey, the best stable, the highest strike rate, the best form, the highest class, the shortest price, will all lead you to a high strike rate, but a loss - UNLESS you find within all of that something that the public is generally not aware of - AN EDGE."

certainly agree there Chrome, after my 25 yearsof punting having tried every method available I've yet to find one particular method that standouts from the rest, so now I concentrate most of my time on getting the best prices on offer.

For example, just backing number 1 on the tote will lose you about 12 cents in the dollar. Getting the best of the three totes would reduce that to about 7 or 8 cents as a guess. So if you can gain an extra 10 per cent from an exchange then youre about breaking even, and thats just using one criteria only. Not suggesting that its that easy but I am saying for me its now more about getting the best price rather than spending oodles of time with form.

AS a matter of interest chrome, the topweight and ranked 1 api in handicaps only?

The form is more or less done for us anyway with the prices on offer. True,some will be over priced or underpriced but the time it takes to work that out I think can be better spent investing more wisely. And toget value my weight ratings would need to be fairly accurate,and there are some factors you just cant build in.

[Chrome Prince]

Ron,

Ranked 1 by API
TAB 1
Handicaps Only

22.11% S/R
-18.75% Loss On Turnover

[sixgoalhero]

SYSTEM 1

Grab the morning paper and circle all favs for any race/meeting. From these selections only consider the horses that have a jockey or trainer that has made the top 100 list on racenet.com.au. With the selections you have now you need to compare their barrier postion they had in their last race to the barrier they have in today's race(i use ozeform.com.au). You now need to do the same thing with their weight. Add the two differences together then add the position of their last race.

For eg.

Barrier weight Last position
Last race- 2/11/2005 4 56.5 2/10

Todays race 5 56.5

Difference 1 + 0 + 2 = 3


Your selection will be the horse that has the lowest score under 5

This system works well with place selections. I followed it for about 10 weeks and from 60 selections there was 51 place getters. Ave div was between
$1.5 - $2.


If the system worked that well why did u give it up???

[DR RON]

Thanks chrome,strike rate not bad but loss on t/o not good. Would figure in a few systems no doubt.

[crash]

I must be the 'old man' of the forum with [getting close to it] 40yrs. at it [punting:-)]. What I have learned is forget looking for 'the winner', look for the right price for your selection. If you can't get it, ignore the race. You will come out on top in the long run.

Look at it this way: If you average SR is 1 out of 10 or 4 out of 10, you are looking for odds for your selections that leave you in profit. Backing winners is pretty useless otherwise.
Something else to think about if you are totally bamboozled by the game, consider the fact that 31.5% of favorites win [but you'll still be out of pocket backing them]. If you can spot just 5% of favorites you think will lose and back the rest, your ahead of the game. Increase that to 10% and your making very good money. It's as simple as that :-)

The only other thing of significance I've leaned over all these years punting is that 'women and horses will always make fools of men'.

I've succeeded very, very well in achieving my last point.

[DR RON]

Hi crash, the trouble with eliminating a few false favourites is that while the strike rate will improve, the odds of the remaiining winners will probably shrink because the ones you eliminate may be obvious to most others. Unless you can find favourites that fallover quite regulary at short odds that most others miss.

[crash]

Agreed, agreed Dr. Ron.
Like I said: 'I've succeeded very, very well in achieving my last point'.

[bigwaz]

Hi sixgoalhero

I never actually bet any money on that system because all the work needs to be done before i go to work. I leave pretty early in the morning so i didnt get much time. To come up with those results i would check the paper when i got home and work it out from there

[tailwag]

"It's not just about picking winners, the most obvious horse will most probably be the least value. There is value in every race, you just have to look for it. The most favoured in the tipsters poll, the most popular jockey, the best stable, the highest strike rate, the best form, the highest class, the shortest price, will all lead you to a high strike rate, but a loss - UNLESS you find within all of that something that the public is generally not aware of - AN EDGE."I almost agree with that except you missed a very important element. That is that factors are influenced by many things, and these factors ebb and flow with time. Some factors go out of existence and new ones come in to being, thus your system needs to be CONSTANTLY reviewed and tweaked to emulate the changing nature of the factors that govern it.

If you are really clever, you might even try to predict the course of some factors and beat others to the punch http://forums.ozmium.com.au/images/icons/icon7.gif

Cheers
Tailwag

[KennyVictor]

I know not what you mean. How about some examples of factors that change with time.

KV

[tailwag]

I know not what you mean. How about some examples of factors that change with time.

KVI'm referring to real world trends, like the influence of TV, Betting Exchanges and so forth. As these things come into being, they exert a certain influence on the existing state, thus changing it forever more :-)

Oh yeah, stop sucking me in, we/I know you know what I mean :-)

Tailwag http://forums.ozmium.com.au/images/icons/icon6.gif

[crash]

We now have the TAB in pubs, betting exchanges, PC's to download endless facts for handicapping and systems, you name it we have it. Agreed. But the racing ?

The % of favorites winning hasn't changed and although we have changed and the hype has changed and our perceptions [and expectations] of the game have changed, the horse is still a horse with a jockey on it's back. They are still racing against each other and the fastest one to the post wins. What's changed as far as the racing itself is concerned except the amount of it?

Metres have replaced furlongs ?

[tailwag]

We now have the TAB in pubs, betting exchanges, PC's to download endless facts for handicapping and systems, you name it we have it. Agreed. But the racing ?

The % of favourites winning hasn't changed and although we have changed and the hype has changed and our perceptions [and expectations] of the game have changed, the horse is still a horse with a jockey on it's back. They are still racing against each other and the fastest one to the post wins. What's changed as far as the racing itself is concerned except the amount of it?

Metres have replaced furlongs ?The basic essence of racing has changed. Let me explain, in the beginning there were hobby trainers who walked there horses to the track....blah, blah, blah, and today we have artificial insemination, etc. and thus I rest my case.

I don't have several hours right now to explain the many many ways in which basic horse racing has changed, but you are right that we measure it over an agreed distance, and the first to pass the end point is declared the winner. However that is a far cry from the essence of horse racing then to know.

Just to give you a quick example why your assertion is inaccurate. Have you ever heard a trainer put a stayer into a sprint race on returning from a spell, saying the horse may sprint well fresh, but we are really aiming him at a later race over more ground?

Well, of course, this statement is a declaration that we are not really interested in winning this race, we would take it if we could, but we are just using it as a stepping stone. In this instance, they are not cheating (per se) but they are not overly trying either are they?

You might argue that they did this in the past, and yes they may have, but it is a normal training pattern these days, where trainers map out years at a time for their charges, and work to that game plan barring injury.

The whole racing scene has changed, not in terms of the winner being declared given a set of circumstances that are met i.e. a race, but in a million other subtle ways which evolution has brought us to.

I really want to give a better answer than this, but I have to run. Cheers.

Tailwag

[Dale]

Off the top of me head a couple of things that have changed are...

The amount of racing,Crash you mentioned something on this forum about the amount of week class 3 type races now on metro cards.

I bet the introduction of those races have thrown a spanner in the works of a few systems.

One other thing i think has and is continuing to change is training styles,ever since Vintage Crop won the cup more and more trainers are waking up to the fact that all their horses arent the same and they need individual preperations,that could include racing a horse fresh every single time it races,a punter who blindly follows the 21 days since last start rule will be missing more winners.

[BJ]

Hi all,

I've spent the last 4 years following the horses seriously, spending countless amounts of hours on the computer and filling about 30 excercise books full of systems. Althogh it was fun i just dont have the time to do it anymore. Over the years i've come up with a few systems that have been quite successful so i'm going to put them on this thread. Here goes.

SYSTEM 1

Grab the morning paper and circle all favs for any race/meeting. From these selections only consider the horses that have a jockey or trainer that has made the top 100 list on racenet.com.au. With the selections you have now you need to compare their barrier postion they had in their last race to the barrier they have in today's race(i use ozeform.com.au). You now need to do the same thing with their weight. Add the two differences together then add the position of their last race.

For eg.

Barrier weight Last position
Last race- 2/11/2005 4 56.5 2/10

Todays race 5 56.5

Difference 1 + 0 + 2 = 3


Your selection will be the horse that has the lowest score under 5

This system works well with place selections. I followed it for about 10 weeks and from 60 selections there was 51 place getters. Ave div was between
$1.5 - $2.

SYSTEM 2

I followed Mark Reids hot tips for about 3 months and although they weren't very consistant he did have a bit of success with horses that were first race back from a spell. The above Barrier, weight, position system works very well with his selections. In 3 months their was only 7 selections but all 7 came in winners so it's worth a look at.

SYSTEM 3

This system works well with midweek races. Big juicy odd's are quite common with this one.

The rules are simple, Only consider horses that have raced in a Group 1,2 or 3
in at least one of it's last four races and is the only horse in the field to have done so. With the right filters it could work a lot better but odd's up to $15 are common.

These systems do need a bit of patience but can be rewarding. Best of luck

Cheers, Bigwaz


I take it you are not leaving to be a salesman. That is possibly the worst sales pitch I have ever heard.
Here are some winning systems. I do not need them anymore because I am quitting the punt.

Glad you are not asking for money.

[tailwag]

Originally Posted by bigwaz
Hi all,

I've spent the last 4 years following the horses seriously, spending countless amounts of hours on the computer and filling about 30 exercise books full of systems. Although it was fun I just don't have the time to do it anymore. Over the years I've come up with a few systems that have been quite successful so I'm going to put them on this thread. Here goes.

SYSTEM 1{snip}
SYSTEM 2{snip}
SYSTEM 3{snip}

These systems do need a bit of patience but can be rewarding. Best of luck

Cheers, Bigwaz

Firstly I respect the work (time) you have put in and thank you for sharing three of your systems with us. I can't help noticing that all three systems have a common element to them, and as I am a student of systems and have a belief that the ultimate system will only exist for a brief time due to the dynamic (changing) nature of the racing industry itself, which I have voiced several times on different threads, I am interested in pointing out to you the narrow scope of your systems.

The first and most obvious point that comes out of the (specifically the first two) is that you are using someone else's selections. Nothing wrong in that, I don't like reinventing the wheel any more than anyone else, and I am a big believer in reusable code. However the point is made that your system is dependant on selections and does not in itself create selections. Your third system does via criteria create selections if they exist.

What your three systems (I understand you have many more) do not do is step outside the narrow corridor you have set yourself up with. Is it because you don't have the time or the inclination that you don't create a system that evaluates every runner in every race? Their is value in every race, as has probably been said an infinite number of times, finding the winner is not the vital factor in that equation.

I have noticed since I arrived on this forum some two months ago that most published systems are dependant on a static state and a narrow set of conditions that must be met. By definition, if nothing else, what these systems do is reduce the possibility of value, and I am not so sure that wealth preservation is maintained abnormally highly to compensate for the skinny number of times most systems actually yield a betting proposition.

By way of an alternative I offer the dynamic state such as the volume of money being wagered at any given point prior to a race, to my mind this is almost obscene not to be taken into account in one's selection process. This of course implies that I factor a higher priority to dynamic influences than static (historical) influences. However saying that in track parlance, I would rather follow the money than trust the buggers tipping for the newspapers :-)

I recall another thread on this forum that discussed the difference between perceived 'smart' money and just money and to me, I believe that you can design filters that will match patterns that show the difference by and large.

Regardless of the 'quality' of the money, I can't understand why a system wouldn't want to incorporate that dynamic state into whatever other factors go into the system. To take that a little further, I can't fathom why when constructing a system, you wouldn't want to harness every single bit of information available to you. To my mind, it all goes into the mix to make up what racing is really all about, and might help.

I guess I am a chaos theorist rather than a simple devotee, in racing systems, keeping it simple might just equate to keeping you broke. These are just my thoughts in between races, as I sit at my desk :-)

Please don't flame me, I am a simple and fragile type!

Tailwag
(Woof)

[Dirk Gently]

Tailwag, I also recognise that the changing state of the punting market will render once profitable systems usless. My thoughts at the moment are concerned with the information you CAN'T get off a PC as I think there is a new legion on smarty pants punters who think if they download enough they will turn a profit at punting.

[moeee]

The most favoured in the tipsters poll, the most popular jockey, the best stable, the highest strike rate, the best form, the highest class, the shortest price, will all lead you to a high strike rate, but a loss - UNLESS you find within all of that something that the public is generally not aware of - AN EDGE."

Surely if a consensus was made of all these factors,with a method of converting the data into odds,BIG EDGE would be found?

[moeee]

Chrome Prince.
I have noticed there are some silly people on this forum.
And I have noticed some stupid people on this forum.
I can't recall if I put you in one of the above categories.
Well if I did,you're not.

[tailwag]

Tailwag, I also recognise that the changing state of the punting market will render once profitable systems useless. My thoughts at the moment are concerned with the information you CAN'T get off a PC as I think there is a new legion on smarty pants punters who think if they download enough they will turn a profit at punting.

Yes Dirk, I am with you there. I also believe that data obtained from non-internet sources are invaluable. I am not referring to newspapers or subscriptions to magazines or TV either. I am referring to other forms of information which is free providing you go where it exists i.e. the racetrack for one, a trainers complex for two and so on. Can't give up all my secrets, but you are certainly on the right track by incorporating data from non-traditional sources. These sources, in their own right, are as valid a part of the racing industry as any other aspect.

I know this is so corny to say, but the sum of all the parts is greater than the whole, meaning that ANY part is a valid part than can benefit the whole system. Even a sublime issue like trainer A differs from trainer B in certain aspects. These aspects can influence the result of a race and inturn, this directly impacts on you!!!

Now I hear a lot of groans out there saying you can't interview every trainer re every training aspect, what are you on about :-) Of course I agree with that, but there are certain constants that are adopted almost universally, knowing them is useful.

From a racetrack point of view, the heart and soul of any system because this is the domain of the industry you are trying to analyse, supplies an abundance of information. The local feel, transactions, colour, coat pullers, rumours, way they 'Vigorously' whipped the horse in the straight and a vast number of other factors can be gleaned on a regular basis by visiting the racetrack. Most of all you can see the real volume of money supporting horses, which is a better gauge than reading the starting price in the next days newspaper.

These factors can be quantified and entered into your algorithms and hey presto, its free and enhances your static, standard limited data collection from traditional sources i.e. Net, newspaper, etc. Any system is only as good as the data that goes into it. Here I go with another saying...sorry....'Garbage in - Garbage out'. This is true for a racing system or a cinema program, so if you have the most diverse forms of data, given that their is relevance, you can filter for a better result.

I sound like I know everything and can tell you I don't, I am only trying to share what I believe. I believe that a racing system should follow best system practices, just like any other system, coin collecting, video cataloguing, weather prediction. The system output should be clearly defined, and I doubt that many are. I read what other listers write and they have a collection of constraints that need to be met to yield a profit. For example, no 2 year olds and so forth, this to my mind is not a system, but a method of culling a large list into a smaller list.

My ideal system would evaluate every runner and compare them against each other and against a predefined ideal which would take into account every possible variable, such as weather, track condition, time of year, class of race, weight and so on. There are literally hundreds of possible variables from the numerous sources. Some of which would be static (known in advance or sourced from a historical standpoint) and dynamic sourced from a live stream of data either electronically or in human form on a track.

With very powerful computing power today in ever decreasing size, you can setup a virtual office anywhere and have real processing clout for a very small capital outlay. Most people (well some people) bet more in a single bet than the price of a good laptop :-)

So, the very first question to ask is, what do I want my system to provide (output), then what data do I need to supply (input), to get my desired result. The desired result is usually the grey area, most people seem to want a short list of horses at backable odds so they can have a bet. I however want my system to rate every horse and show me where the value lies, and in this day and age, it might not be in finding a winner, or placegetter, in fact there could be more value in knowing a horse that is legless and simply can't win.

I feel that in the future the best value might come from correctly identifying the 4th, 5th and 6th best horse in any given race. I can't go into why I believe that, but switched on people will probably agree that, that is where the greatest value may lie.

Okay, I'm off to chew my masters slippers (woof)...

Tailwag

[tailwag]

Off the top of me head a couple of things that have changed are...

The amount of racing,Crash you mentioned something on this forum about the amount of week class 3 type races now on metro cards.

I bet the introduction of those races have thrown a spanner in the works of a few systems.

One other thing i think has and is continuing to change is training styles,ever since Vintage Crop won the cup more and more trainers are waking up to the fact that all their horses arent the same and they need individual preperations,that could include racing a horse fresh every single time it races,a punter who blindly follows the 21 days since last start rule will be missing more winners.I agree with your points Dale http://forums.ozmium.com.au/images/icons/icon6.gif

Tailwag