With a strike rate of 20%, if this was accurate, then its not double what it should be. You would expect some different weight sections to have a high strike rate. But for it too be profitable it all depends on the avg dividend received.

Given an average dividend of $6 this would be lucrative. If you take short odds like $2.80 then you would lose betting on heavily weighted horses over the long term.

I have figures of 1/6 certainly not 1/1000!!!

So you would need an avg dividend of more than $6 if you back every one of these starters with 59kgs or more.

This would suggest 2.5% of all starters have 59kgs or more (assumes 12 starts per race)

So it would look like this:

1000 races with 12 starters avg
12,000 starters in total
300 horses starting with 59kgs or more
50 of those horses winning





[ This Message was edited by: Rob on 2002-07-04 16:17 ]

the 1.9% figure is for all horses carrying 59.5kgs or more (>59) it is for all races run by thoroughbreds (as posted earlier).

Rob, no I am not going to post the winning percentages to match the runners % I posted earlier.

The challenge was for you to try to figure it out (provoke thought). I will offer some guidance as to if you are on the right track.
5% is significantly higher.

I just picked a random day Dec 1 2001 to illustrate my point. @ the metros B,S,M,A 366 horses went around in 32 races, 5 carried 59.5kg or more. This is 5/366 = 1.37% of these 0 won, 0/32 = 0%

For those who think 1.9% is too low consider this. On your average 8 race card say there are 100 runners (12.5/race) this means there should be 1.9 horses weighted to carry 59.5kgs or more. There is probably only going to be 1 horse per race weighted this highly so that's two races gone. Say a couple of set weights races another two gone and the other four races are just your average handicap with a top weight around 56-58kg.

A further point: the horses that win with big weights are often horses racing in the country that are significantly better than their opposition (eg Century Kid @ Wagga)

Ok,

Let's assume horses with 59kgs or more win 3% of races, but have a strike rate of 1/8.

Sample

1000 races with 12 starters on avg.
12,000 starters in total
3% of 1000 is 30 winners
Therefore 240 starters with 59kgs using a 1/8 strike rate.
240/12,000 = 2% of all starters have 59kgs+

Either way the % of races won is not the real issue, its the strike rate of heavily weighted horses when they start.

You probably need 2-3 years of data given that not many horses start with 59kgs all that often.

Avg dividend needed would be $8+.

[quote]
On 2002-07-04 15:54, Equine Investor wrote:
"But to say that a horse can carry the extra weight and still be able to win because of the amount of prizemoney it has won is like saying that Greg Norman is a good golfer so therefore he must be a good swimmer.
No logical correlation at all."

huh? Your sentence was not logical. Prizemoney won relates to golf not swimming!!!!! It says he was a damn fine golf player. I think you're comparing apples with bits of dirt.

Ok the answer is 2.4%. This means they win (2.4/1.9)/1.9= 26.3% more races than they should. This is what is important!

A stat that can stand alone as pointing out that all other things being equal, more horses that have this characteristic win, than should win.

If there were 1000 races run with 12000 runners the numbers would be this:

.019*12000= 228 runners
.024*1000=24 winners
SR= 24/228 = 10.5%
To break even you would need an average dividend of $9.52

At this stage it is worthwhile pointing out that if the 12 runners in each race had an equal chance the strike rate would be 8.5%

It should also be noted that there is no single factor which can be blindly bet on every race every day to show a profit. (at least none that I am aware of)

In fact I think you might find that if you only wish to consider one thing the strongest single factor (ie more winners than expected by random luck), is favourites. You'll have a good strike rate but lose about 12c in the $ year in year out but its reassuring to know that everyone else agrees with you - even if you are wrong 70% of the time.

Yes, perhaps badly worded on my part Rob,however my point was prizemoney says that a horse can run fast times and beat other horses when the pressure is on, even at times overcome bad luck to win a race and beat horses of a certain class. It says nothing about it's ability to carry weight....unless it has carried and won with the same weight previously!

As for my stats...and I stress it's a small sample:-

Of 224 metro races (Saturdays only) there were 46 runners who were handicapped above 58kgs. That is not to say they actually may have carried less with apprentice claims.

Of the 46 runners (some of which were in the same races) there were 8 winners.

Which gives a win % of 17.39%

The average dividend of the winners was $5.28

Very small sample but indicative of results.

With only 8 out of 42 being successful I think conclusions can be drawn even though this is a little higher than average.What one has to bear in mind, is that some of the winners were NOT the topweight in the race, they were actually second topweight and still carried more than 58kg.





Following on from that, would love to know what the stats are on favourites, which have the highest prizemoney in the race and carry the topweight. Could be an interesting exercise. Unfortunately I don't have the resources to filter out all three stats in the results.

[ This Message was edited by: Equine Investor on 2002-07-04 17:46 ]

The key is to weed out the 70% of favourites which are not successful. At this point in time I am able to get it down to 50% winning favourites by applying two simple filters. But then again ...that's a whole new thread.
:wink:

[ This Message was edited by: Equine Investor on 2002-07-04 17:53 ]

Question: which is the best horse in the race?

Answer: The horse with the most weight.
(this only applies to handicaps)

Does this mean it will win?
Sometimes.

Research Conclusions on weight:

The worst weighted horse in a handicap is very often the horse on the minimum. Why? Quite simply because the handicapper is not allowed to give it any less weight (due to restrictions placed on him by the rules of the race). So it is forced to carry more weight than it should carry were it to be given an equal chance of winning.

A prime example is this years Stradbroke Handicap. Falvelon and Show A Heart got 56kg.
The bottom weight in the final field was Princess Clang 48kg. On her best form she would have needed to only carry about 40kg if she was to be competitive (in theory) so was in fact carrying 8kg more than what the handicapper would have needed to give her to even up her chances of winning. She was therefore very poorly weighted despite having to carry the lightest impost.

For the reason outlined above horses who carry the minium weight are often the worstly weighted horse in the race.

You can not dismiss a horse simply because of the big weight it has. You can however dismiss a horse because of the small weight it has. NB. This does not mean that you should never back a horse on the minimum weight.

Any system that throws horses out because of their handicap is a joke.

Each horse must be considered individually and flaws in the handicapping sought after.





[ This Message was edited by: thekey on 2002-07-04 18:18 ]

is "worstly" even a word?