[quote]
On 2003-06-18 11:48, jfc wrote:
Now, I have only one issue with osulldj and La Mer and perhaps the rest of humankind, namely:

Typically it's wrong to make time comparisons from different meetings. And that's what averaging is, in a roundabout way. So averaging times is wrong.
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La Mer: I agree in principle with what you've written, in particular taking a speed rating from one meeting and comparing it with a speed rating taken at another meeting.

But that is not what is being discussed and IMO if you have sufficient data then by trimming the extremes then some conclusions can be drawn from what is left, i.e. the number of maiden races used in my example was 163 (excluding 21 2yo maidens which tend to run slower times) less ten percent at either end, so my standard times were based on 130 races, which ranged from 70.45s to 72.25s, a spread of 1.80s. Had all 163 races been used, then they would have ranged from 69.57s to 74.59s, a spread of 5.02s.

Over 1200m then a spread of that nature immediately indicates that something in not quite right - either the slower times were run on tracks other than good (the most probable cause), or the timing device was incorrect, or the race was run over a longer distance than 1200m.

Whatever, it really does not matter so long as such occurences are taken out of the equation - trimming does this - in fact I eliminated the 74.59s prior to the trimming, as the next slowest time was some 1.50 seconds faster.

Having done that, then I am reasonably confident that a useable standard time has been obtained - remembering of course that this is not an exact science for reasons already mentioned.
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JFC: Official track readings are notoriously untrustworthy so there could be even 1 second's difference between two allegedly good tracks. Penetrometers also appear fishy, perhaps because those readings are performed many hours before the races start.

Therefore I only make comparisons between races at the same meeting.

So in the earlier Kembla example, there were 43 Opens and 167 Maidens available, but I was only prepared to compare the 29 matches on identical days.
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La Mer: Agree totally re your track conditions/penetrometer comments.

However, I admit to being a little confused by your comments "comparisions between races at the same meeting".

Are you referring to 'same' day or 'identical' days, i.e. occurences where you consider the days to be identical, and if not then how can you have 29 'same' day occurences, unless of course you are referring to horses and not races?
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JFC: It's also fascinating that he finds that the superior Class 2's have inferior times to Class 1's. Confirming my earlier claim.
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La Mer: I've also found some blurring of the times further up the class ladder with race types like Rs1mw, Rs2mw, and I expect the replacement races classes SC1mw and SC0mw races will show similar blurring - Open Handicaps and Listed races are similar as well.

As mentioned, this has been a good disussion and my appreciation to both osulldj and JFC for participating - I trust that those that asked the original questions are getting something out of all of this.

My use of "identical" (with a number of different meanings) was misleading. Sorry. I blame my blunder on the after effects of insomnia from this debate.

Let's try again.

My data for 1200m races at Kembla has 29 days with both Maiden and Open handicaps. I used only those 29 comparisons to establish a relationship between the two classes.

Others would have averaged all the 43 Opens and 167 Maidens present.

But the more I think about this, the more comfortable I am that my method is more precise.

For this exercise the 138 unmatched Maidens are rubbish. Why allow them to contaminate the calculations?

Now even though either methods seems to work fine for Kembla, there are other situations where my method excels:

[*]Flemington 900m races (restricted to 2YOs) only occur in very early October. Comparing them with other times of the year is asking for trouble.


[*]75% of 2YO 1400m races occur in often rainy May, June, July.


[*]Very little data is available for new (extra) tracks like Randwick and Sandown.[/list]



These examples suggest that like for like comparisons (like mine) are far safer.


_________________
jfc
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[ This Message was edited by: jfc on 2003-06-19 08:37 ]

Everyone can argue all day long about who's method is more precise....it's pure semantics! How do you measure precise? And who says which "excels"?...we can all point to apparent weaknesses in someone elses thinking and of course each individual is going to believe that their own approach is better than others. It's an argument no one will ever win!

After re reading all the posts...my thinking is that this shouldn't be a debate about "mine is better than yours"....it shoul be an exchange of thoughts and ideas without judgement of what someone else does. It should be purely in the interest of broadening our scope of thinking, if not, at least some enjoyment from discussion with like minded inividuals. Of course individuals will sit there believing theirs is best...but that should really be kept to one's self.

While it is an extremely effective approach and one on which my income is based....i've got news for you all.....there is no such thing as "precise" when it comes to using speed data.

The science and detail behind how one's numbers are calculated is such a minor part of making a consistent profit. (As long as it is a solid approach with obvious problems catered for).

A frequent problem I see with many punters I talk to in my weekly activities is that they spend all their time focused on how to perfect some sort of measurement process...rather than spending their time on improving their ablity to make a profit...the two are entirely different.

Making a profit is about how to APPLY in practice the information one has. That does and will always have far greater impact on success than continual efforts to perfect the process to produce that information.

There are no fixed rules or magical formulas for applying information to make a profit. It's a skill you can only learn from experience. It's hard, that's why most prefer to stay in the realm of perfecting their information producing process and that's why most continue to lose at least a little.

There are plenty of smart people out there with great formulas and measurement processes...but few of them can make a profit. They don't nearly have the same intelligence or skill in how to apply those wonderful measurements.

To me, discussion on the application of speed information would be much more beneficial than a winless debate about which measurement process is better.

To start, would anyone care to talk about how they approach a race using their information?

osulldj,

You continue to raise many valid and pertinent points (so I believe) and do so in a clear and forthright manner. However I think the greatest piece of wisdom of all is present in you last post.

Knowing how to apply the information you have to make a profit.

This is IMO the hardest part of betting on race horses. Anybody with a reasonable level of intelligence can learn how to rate horses by any number of different methods to obtain reasonable results (It does take considerable effort).

BUT it is in the betting that comes the profits (losses).

I don't think this is something you can learn by reading about how to do it or by trawling over past results. You must do it to learn it. You must learn when to keep your money in your pocket and when to strike. This must come with experience because I don't have this yet but I keep trying to learn.

I have only been doing this a couple of years but I am quickly coming to this conclusion. From personal experience I have had days when I have looked over my ratings and seen all these winners near the top and wondered how I managed to lose and other times hardly any winners near the top but I win overall. I guess the trick is to keep working at it and trying to learn as you go what works and what doesn't and try not to make the same mistake twice.

I would be interested to know what others think regarding this.

Thanks key,

You are right, you can't learn how to apply information to make a profit through reading books or articles or through buying special software....it takes practice.

Some of the more practical abilities one needs to develop if they want to actually make money at the races are:


* Understanding what your information and analysis tells you about a race.

* Understanding what the market tells you about a race.

* Being able to identify races which present a profitable window of opportunity. This is so much more than thinking you have value because you ratings say $3 and the horse is $4.

* Having the smarts and discipline to play in those races which do offer that window and to leave the others

* Working hard to get the best price and betting appropriate amounts

* Riding out and dealing with the emotional highs and lows

* Maintaining good records

* Using post race review process across all aspects. Your analysis, your betting habits on the day, the conditions of various races, the performance of horse, what that all means for the future etc. etc.

This is most important and something that 99% of punters are too lazy to do. This is where most of your practical learning takes place, as opposed to theoretical learning. I find many future winners and make a lot of money through these processes alone.

I can say all these things but there is little you can learn without putting them into practice and most importantly, reflecting on your efforts and taking something away from each week to improve on next time.

My rating (or comparison) method uses (nearly) like for like comparisons as much as possible. I'm more than happy for others to provide evidence that they've found something which supercedes that technique.

Meanwhile I'd like to explore other interesting issues mentioned here:


"There are just as many races run at very fast pace which produce times that are rarely repeated as there are races at slow pace that don't provide and accurate indication of the fields ability."


Given my suspicion that contesting a very fast race is a terrific way of never winning again, I'd infer that there are far more slow races than fast ones. And so maybe osulldj's assertion was uncharacteristically intemperate.


But can anyone volunteer a percentage figure for such slow pace races which are useless for rating?

I don't have one, but just ran this experiment to try and collect my thoughts.


Consider 200 Rosehill 1200m races on officially GOOD tracks.

For this exercise define Pace as Final 600 time/ First 600 time, so that relatively fast early sectionals get the highest figure.

The fastest decile (here the 20th fastest sample) reads:

1.01 Pace Ratio
35.58 Final 600
35.08 1st 600
0.50 Final - 1st (Call this Diff)

If anything with a Diff <= -0.50 (i.e. over 1 second worse) is considered unsatisfactory then the failure rate is 66.5%.

And 29% for a pathetic over 2 seconds worse.


However the 66.5% sample, might mean the least-slow horses spent 6 seconds taking 9 strides 1 metre shorter than I'd like them to. That feels like a lot of energy being saved, aka loafing.



(Assuming ball park 18 meters/second, 12 meters/stride hence 3 strides/ 2 seconds).

http://www.equimost.com/stride-ocala-march02.html

Hi jfc,

Interesting point you make but when we talk about judging whether the pace is loafing or genuine, what do we measure it in reference to?

I don't think it's as straight forward as measuring the difference between sections, or taking the 10th percentile difference or ratio as the standard representing good speed.

The top 10% of any sample would most likely represent the extreme end of the scale and as such your ratio could in fact represent very fast early pace.

My conceptual view is that there is an element of "saved early, used late" when it comes to pace. So they can go a little slow early but then ALL the energy saved can be used late to result in what is still a time that represents the ability of the field. That is still genuine speed. It doesn't mean that all horses are suited, but the speed is quick enough for horses to exert their maximum energy and run their best time. To me thats the definition of genuine speed.

I believe that the trimmed average early pace for most tracks represents this level. From a practical point of view it certainly has done so effectively for a number of years.

However, there is a fine line...if they go too slow early then it's impossible for all of that saved energy to be used late because a horse can only sprint at a maximum top speed. What happens here is that horses finish still with some top speed energy to expend.

These are the instances where I would say the pace is loafing.

In conceptual terms, my opinion is that loafing or slow pace is where the energy saved early cannot be completely used late, resulting is a slower time that characteristic of the runners ability.

In practical terms the judgement when assessing form is as simple as that. I look at the early pace and what it implied about the time in the race, the horses who competed, which were best suited, not suited etc. You can't write a computer process or rules for that interpretation, it's part of the 'art' as opposed to science of form analysis. The 'art' is where the profit is to be made.

The method you described makes me think that your approach is based on believing horses have to be going what we humans might call 3/4 pace for it to be considered genuine speed. Is that right?

Talking about the difference in sections I can offer the following thoughts:


Over 1200m, if the sections are anywhere close to level or even within half a second the horses would have used what I would say is a high amount of early energy.

The reasons are:

* The first 200m of any race is always the slowest because horses have to start and build up speed to the settling pace. This point alone means that the final 600m should always be quicker than the first 600m.

* Secondly, at least half or more of the final 600m is always run up the straight while a good part of the first 600m can be run around bends. Horses are capable of travelling faster in a straight line than they are around a bend.

These two points alone shift the balance towards my view that the first section will always be a fair bit slower than the final section. I also hold the view that anything close to level or even within 0.5 seconds means the field has overcome these two points therefore they must have used a lot of effort = fast pace.

Perhaps the exception is Moonee Valley where it's a short straight and up hill run to the line. The last section is commonly much slower than the first and that doesn't necessarily mean the horses have gone fast early.

Back to Rosehill, I believe your comparison to races run at that track attempts to overcome the points I make, but I think using the 20th time in a sample of 200 is towards the extreme end and would represent fast pace.

jfc, you obviously are well versed when it comes to this sort of topic, so, with your view that most races are run at slow speed, which makes times ineffective, how do you apply speed type information and use your knowledge to advantage?

A question for my learned time, speed, pace friends.

How do you deal with wet tracks.

Do you not bet them or do you have a method for rating them. I personally use time only as a minor factor and only on good/dead tracks. This suits me as I rarely bet in the wet anyway.

My time assessment is based on the horses ability to run fast over the distance and is a bonus factor in my ratings rather than the basis for the whole thing.

I would be interested to here your thoughts.

[quote]
On 2003-06-23 00:05, thekey wrote:
How do you deal with wet tracks.

Do you not bet them or do you have a method for rating them. I personally use time only as a minor factor and only on good/dead tracks. This suits me as I rarely bet in the wet anyway.

My time assessment is based on the horses ability to run fast over the distance and is a bonus factor in my ratings rather than the basis for the whole thing.
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La Mer: Personally I never bet on slow or heavy tracks for reasons such as the ability of horses to handle the conditions ‘on the day’, unpredictable track biases and other reasons.

This does not mean that performances can’t be compared and conclusions made, i.e. at the Rosehill 1200m there is a difference of approximately three seconds between a good and heavy track standard time.

However, there are some inherent issues that require addressing with the creation of standard times for wet tracks, such as the relative lack of data available and the variance in the spread of racetimes (from which it can be concluded that some wet tracks are far worse than others even if the official track condition are the same).

You mentioned that you use time only as a minor factor based on a horses ability to run fast over the distance, but IMO it goes beyond that – a horse not only has to have the inherent ability to run fast enough to win BUT also has to be in a position at the turn/400m to do so. Pace assessments will give you this added edge, time (speed) ratings won’t, but can assist in making the assessment more accurate.

A slow time might be due to
- slow track
- slow pace
- fast pace but crappy runners

so measuring pace accurately is challenging.

But after that, the application of such measurements should be straightforward.

You could start by contrasting the top-rated early speed selection versus the late speed one. Which pick has better win strike rates, and POTs.

But I'm not convinced measuring is that easy,

Consider the free data from

http://www.sportscolour.com.au/

It shows that the standing start section loses ~3 seconds, so that it's best to discard that time.

But for sprints it appears that:

- The 1st "running" section is most often the fastest
- Most runners then seem to run each section slower than the preceeding one.


this is a different perspective to osulldj's one.

And such figures seem to mock the concept of sustained pace. Consistently going slower hardly appears "sustained".

Further ironies are that 3/4 pace (early) is actually faster than full pace (late). And why do jockeys take horses "off the bit" (i.e. stop restraining them) so they'll accelerate, when instead they only go slower?