Communal Ratings
 

All this talk of no interesting strategic threads or no threads in relation to backing winners has prompted me to put forward this idea and see who is legitimate about helping each other to find profitable strategy(s) or who is just throwing hot air about.

I propose that we put together a communal ratings spreadsheet much like the one Shaun has provided with the following ideas:

1) We can use this thread to go through each form angle bit by bit, have a discussion on the best way to score and/or include that form element into the ratings and then move onto the next form element.

2) I can code a modified version of the spreadsheet I use to take into account the approach we arrive at as a group. Note my spreadsheet brings in form from SkyForm, Betfair Form (R&S) and Tatts Race page. Can basically come up with equations, ideas, theories as a group and I can try to put this into a logical equation in the spreadsheet to build a rating.

3) I'll only email the final version and/or versions along the way to those who actively contribute to the discussion. That way no pesky guests can just get along for the ride without contributing.

Thats the basic idea at the moment. Like I said in a thread in the general area I almost guarantee a very small portion of those who are actually seeking decent discussion get onboard with this idea. Or if you think this has no merit or have a better idea either post it in here or start another thread.

Would be interesting to see what we come up with, who knows it could be crap. But it could also help people think different about their own ratings or about how to approach certain form elements.

Good idea Josh. My 2 cents worth is this:

1/Just run a bot and collect data of the field at an agreed time (official start perhaps?)

2/ Make use of the ratings that you scrape to find a flaw in the algorithm, which all ratings incorporate.

3/ After collecting price, price rank, volume, volume rank, rating, rating rank for several thousand races, you start to look at what combinations beat the inferred probability and one's that do. A scatter plot usually reveals this quite quickly.

4/ You can also rank or rate track conditions, class of race, distance, number of runners blah, blah.

At the end of the day you've created a monster that requires some number crunching.

I think fellow participants are best using a bot to collect the data themselves and paste into excel. After that, be they backer, layer or anything in between, they're on their own? OR you subscribe to a proprietory program to do all this for you, which this forum is well serviced for.

Nothing new really, just dedication to be patient and see it through. If you're prepared to put in the time you will reap the benefits.

I've already got my own spreadsheet that I collect data from each night when I get home from work. Save some details into a spreadsheet for the appropriate races and build up my collection of data moving forward.

I'm more thinking we can set it up so people can tweak the allocation of points to each form area themselves if they like similar to how Shaun's works. However its more how the form factors are assessed that we can contribute to and discuss as a group.

Basic example:

Say the first point we all wish to discuss is Days Last Start - Do we want to look at this in isolation of when the last start was, or do we want to look at it as a collective for fitness based on when the last 2, 3 or 5 starts were? Do we want to allocate more points towards a horse that started 14 days ago because typically they win more often (strike rate) or do we want to allocate more points to a different range because 14 days is overbet?

There's a lot of discussion to be had around each form factor that possibly as a consensus we can bring together everyone's good points, put it into practice and it formulates part of a rating and move onto the next form factor.

Once we've formulated as many form factors etc as we deem necessary people can then use the spreadsheet to back, lay, record data or do whatever else they like with it. They could find niche's using the ratings on group races only. They could find a niche using just 1 form factor in metro races only. They could find a different combination of scoring the form factors that makes it more profitable based on forward testing it etc.

So many possibilities with the final 'ratings' product, but many good minds here that could help contribute to discussion on each form factor.

I threw one up re an ADEL/METRO method I bet on a few days ago.

Provided data, time frames, filters, the selection, the race criteria, filters to build strike/rates and,
Did not get "ONE" single response.

May have been different it was a ADELAIDE METRO LAY PLAN (L.O.L).

The only people who benefit from this are the Guests & non contributors.

I also asked if an area could be set aside for exactly what you propose.

Restricted access to members with a certain no's of posts,
Or those who wish to join but must contribute .

Again no answer.

Good Luck EVAJ an admirable approach but like I found out
Think we are flogging a dead horse, you can't make people join,
Or contribute it is their right & the owners of the forum to set terms.

What you can have is the idea I threw up,
To those who do want to help.

Much of the important stuff I do just goes to members here I converse,
With via email.

But as I met them here I try to give something back,
To the forum.

People who want to post to everyone can continue, those who want to give out ideas but not for the masses can ask the thread be restricted.

OR IN THIS DAY & AGE IS THIS CALLED DISCRIMINATION (L.O.L)

Cheers.

Further to Josh. Anyone can say weight the ranking more for this and less for that. That's all it is, an opinion! Without the data to back it up, how can you know? That's where RACE CENSUS and RTW have it all down pat. If don't want to pay for the historical data, then it leaves you no choice but to collect the data yourself. I favour this method as most people will probably use a bot to place their bets. A betting bot needs to trigger at a specified time, so any data you collect must be at the same specified time.

I was looking today at building a VBA dashboard to just punch in a set of ranks like say 1, 4, 3, 6, 1 (each being a weight for a particular rank, price, factor) and it spits out profitability or otherwise for the duration of your database. I think something like that would be a useful tool to assist forumites. I know I've saved many hours using Shaun's scraper.

So maybe developing tools to aid forumites find profitable outcomes, rather than spelling out what keys to the kingdom win?

Member Restricted forum section would be I think a good idea.

[QUOTE=Rinconpaul]Further to Josh. Anyone can say weight the ranking more for this and less for that. That's all it is, an opinion! Without the data to back it up, how can you know? That's where RACE CENSUS and RTW have it all down pat. If don't want to pay for the historical data, then it leaves you no choice but to collect the data yourself. I favour this method QUOTE]

You are now where I was 20 years ago.

What you are attempting is admirable but will take you forever,
To get it right in analysing this way.

I can tell you now if I had to do it again no way.

Unfortunately R/P is 100% correct.

R.2.W & Race Census have it there for you.

Whether it is right for you I cannot know.

I learnt early, you have to spend money to make money

Subscribing to rating services, subs to racing magazines,(PPM)
Buying racing books, Punters Choice systems, racing seminars racing two horses (syndicate).
While getting "GELDED" along the way I was learning.

One thing for the guests & non-subscribers to read.

OPEN BM-60 RACES (NO-AGE RELATED).

ALL HORSES MIN OF 3 STARTS (BEFORE SCR).

SKY-1 (6G)

02/02/2014-05/06/2015.

OUT-3,400 (4W) (11.7%).

RET- 1440.(B/O/3 -S/P).

-1960.(L.O.T 57.6%).

AV-DIV-$3.6.
BIGGEST DIV $5.0.

Last winner 02/09/2014 R6-5 TAMWORTH..

Since then 18 consecutive losses.

I have hundreds of these & worse,
Regarding wizard panels opening favourites,
At certain tracks (MORNINGTON MY GOD),
1st opening fav in some race types.

As a bookie open your bag & let the punters throw,
Their money in it will not be coming back out.

But they are lay plans & who gives a F--- about them.

The point here is how can you analyse things like the above,
Into a ratings plan & make it profitable by analysing factors.

Do not want to put you off but that's the challenge you face.

So what can we learn with this post.

Review a certain Race-Type.
Look at the exact age & sex of the horse(s),
That win them

What selection(s) in your ratings compliments it.

THEN.

starts.
price
distance.
track condition(not to mention bias on the day to be recorded)
state.
country-provincial on & on it goes.

That's my 2 bobs worth.

Good luck with the thread & the ratings challenge.

Cheers.

Cheers.

Yes members only would be good.

Here is my 2c worth.
Punters all regard win and place % highly.
I use the opposite in conjunction with the two I mentioned above .

Hope it's not too cryptic?

Hi Gary,
If you can come up with these type of LAY plans, then you know where not to bet and you bet around those horses using your own strategies.
So for those that don't give a flying potato about laying, you're actually finding value around those layable horses.

My small contribution to the discussion for backing methods and ratings is this....

In 1974 an American called Fred Davis produced a book titled "Percentages and Probabilities". In the book he displayed tables, which included a new statistical technique for analysing horse racing information: the Impact Value.

Soon after other books started to display Impact Value figures such as the excellent "Winning At The Races" by Bill Quirin. Over the next few decades nearly all US handicapping experts mentioned impact values somewhere in their books.

punter reading the form - the same info read by a million punters each day

The past ten years has seen impact values really take off in the US. Their importance is now worth more than speed figures in 'Handicapping' software packages.

Here in the UK impact values are mostly ignored. It seems we are too obsessed with form figures, top trainers and jockeys, 'hyped' horses, newspaper naps and tipsters.

Only Nick Mordin promotes the use of impact values. You can read his excellent work in the Sporting Life / Racing Post Weekender, and in his own books.
What Exactly Is An Impact Value?

An impact value is a statistical technique, which produces an index derived from the percentage of winners having a characteristic divided by the percentage of starters having the characteristic. Lets look at some examples.
Last Time Out Winners

Examining 69234 runners in 6678 races on the all weather we find that 5548 were last time out winners. Of those last time winners 1107 went on to win this race.
IV = % of winners that were LTO winners / % of runners that were LTO winners

IV = (1107 / 6678) / (5548 / 69234)

Impact Value = 2.07

This means that, on the all weather, a last time out winner is twice as likely to win than a horse who did not win lto.
First Run On All Weather

22208 horses ran in 1896 3yo+ Handicaps. 2513 of those horses were having their first run on the all weather. 144 of these 'first timers' won the race.

IV = (144 / 1896) / (2513 / 22208)

Impact Value = 0.67

In 3yo+ Handicaps a horse having his first run on the all weather is 0.67 times less likely to win than a horse who has run on the surface before.
2nd LTO in 2yo Maiden Stakes

33476 horses ran in 3127 2yo maiden stakes on the turf. 2264 of them were 2nd on their last race. Of this group 636 won the race.

IV = (636 / 3127) / (2264 / 33476)

Impact Value = 3.01

In 2yo Maiden stakes a horse that finished 2nd last time out is 3 times more likely to win than a horse that did not.

An impact value of 1.00 means that horses have won no more or no less than their fair share of the races. Below 1.00 means they are performing below expectation, above 1.00 means they are performing above expectation.

How Can Impact Values Find Winners?

There are two ways to use impact values. You can either look for positive features to determine if a horse is worth backing, or negative features when trying to eliminate horses.

But you should not look at the impact value figure in isolation. You should examine both the impact value and the ROI% figure.

A strong positive value for both of them is what you need to find as this indicates a group of horses who are winning more races than they should, and are going of at prices higer than they should.

Looking again at the 2yo maidens who were 2nd last time, they may have an impact value of 3.00 but a level stake bet on all of them would have made a 10% loss.

In 4yo+ long distance (12f or more) Handicaps on the all weather, Colts have an impact value of 1.84 and have also returned a profit of 32%. These are the kind of positive stats you should be looking out for.

This is courtesy of flatstats, but explains it well.
I consider Impact Values important, along with prices, they are not the road to riches alone!

CP we all know of PPM and a lot of the rubbish they produce at times but the released a set of Impact values about 20 years back, these were very successful for me back then as mentioned on another post i wrote my first programs in Qbasic based around these figures, it is possible i still have an excel sheet somewhere with the original figures, i will see what i can find unless someone has the article from back then.

Well put C/P.

I guess this is what people do not understand,
As to why we do not lay horses.

Simply put it makes more money & is,
Percentage wise better for me to back 2-3 horses against,
The Favourite when it is poor statistically than it is to Lay it.

However I never bet in races where a horse is odds-on.

Good point with the I/V'S particularly when you get a positive set,
Many times they goes nowhere a profit by themselves but find a group,
Of them together & you are on your way.

Just another piece in the jigsaw puzzle I guess.

You probably know of the author who lives way down south who has written many books on just this subject with graphs & explanations.

Think I have purchased all but one of them.

Hope some more people can contribute here on this thread,
I look forward to reading other peoples thoughts on how to,
Make something manual for EVAJ to assemble using filters.

Positive Impact Values are a great start "BUT" that involves,
Buying a book(s)" OR DATA BASES" which contains them, that leads to spending,
MONEY which the majority will not do.

Post = 11 below me may come to fruition.

Cheers.
Garyf.

One of our ratings in Axis is based on impact values, of about 6 factors if I remember correctly. They do well. As it was mentioned before, some investment is required to obtain these values in form of data acquisition. Whether you do this by yourself or use some tool to do it. The concept is a great idea. However at the end it is another statistical interpretation of data. Its up to the user to make it work.

I got interrupted, so here my post continues.

Most punters can calculate these values for anything rather simply. You need the data and a tool that will crunch that data.

Next you need to analyse a sample of data to get the over all figures of runners vs winners, or the general strike rate as that is what you are going to divide.
Once you have that then running a test over the same sample, using one form filter at a time will, via the results, give you the figures you need to calculate the impact value of that form/rating element.

Something to watch out for, is when running 2 filters at a time or more, 'to save time'. Because then you are going to get the impact value of that 'pair' of filters.

If your tool has analysis function, where you can breakdown the first test (the all figs) then you can simply obtain the strike rates from the analysis in one go rather having to run individual tests.

Another thing to be aware of, the initial ALL sample. In the sample of AWT in CP post, your ALL sample needs to be based on a filter that isolates only AWT tracks. So you need to be careful of what your starting point is and to make sure you are not using a wrong one.

Another good example would be to calculate the IV of jockeys, based on all jockeys performance % vs individual jockey performance %. Here you need to have that ALL sample and then using analysis of individual jockeys strike rate you can simply create these values in a spreadsheet if you can export.

No great mystery, and you don't even need a book! Where it does become interesting is when you start thinking about your IV. Running just blindly ALL as described before will produce IV that everyone else will produce. And that may be good enough. It is the ACADEMIC sample. You know math performed by people or programers that don't punt! However there are further ways that you can drill down to obtain more truer IV ratings, by removing the chaff or if you like horses that otherwise cloud the 'issue'.

A couple of gems of wisdom here from CP. And to add another, I think from Bill Benter (possibly the most successful gambler in history), "Find the horses that CAN'T win first!"....also known as Laying opportunities, for the backers in denial! So if you think in reverse, you might just do better at backing?

The second gem of CP's is about finding characteristics pertaining to a certain group, be they likely winners or losers. It's where I was coming from in an earlier post. Once you collect your data, you need to filter it to find those groups. Here's an example below where I query my database with 1,1,1,1 (as in ranks of a value/rating). When displayed on a scatter plot, the winners are shown in the left hand table and the losers with a price >=$5 Back in the right table. This group haven't won a race yet (duration of data collected). What does that tell you"
If a backer....don't waste your money on selections rated 1,1,1,1 >=$5
If a layer....look to lay the above.

None of it's rocket science and anyone with a bit of excel knowledge, heaps of patience and prepared to put in the time, can create opportunities for themselves.

One point to note is that the normal way to get impact values is to group different factors together as "all in". Take distance for instance, 1200M at one race track is vastly different to 1200M at another. The position of the first turn or the length of straight makes a different style of race.
Similarly a 7 horse race is vastly different to a 15 horse race.
So you must group like with like which may not give enough races to make a true sample.
If you put 15 pots of paint together, you will get absolute rubbish. However if you mix them by base colour in three groups, you may end up with three reasonable colours.

What Wally is saying is good advice, of course. However, I tend to place no limits on any race other than no hurdles, steeples or untested 2yos. That's it, come what may after that. You need to IMO, for AUS races through the week. There might only be 3 meetings on, by the time you eliminate soft tracks, synthetic tracks, maidens etc you might only end up with 3 or 4 qualifying races.

The data I grab, is one size fits all, pretty well, and the analysis is on that basis, so it should all average out in the end. The more filters you apply, the smaller the sample, the less reliable the analysis. Apart from the race types described earlier, I just use Price, Volume, and two free Ratings. Most, if not 90% of the variables, are taken care of in the consensus of those four factors.

So keep it simple to understand, work out and your punting life will be a lot easier. I'm sure the fastidious types will disagree, but each to their own.

Got my vote


What's I been toying around with is the old manual "horse racing programs", in DOS, yeah OK, some of us got a bit naive at the time, but hey, some of these programs have merit, it requires form none the less, and calculates a rating.
The recommended; "the top numbered rating is a Place bet, but in time you will identify the winners", they said so.
I combined all these program's so called "ratings", for the MC race when Saintly won, and got the Trifecta and some other good wins.
But it took time and quality family time. Automation just crept in back then.
My PC was a 486 Win 3.1, ( I thought I had "arrived" )
I have no idea about cracking into these programs to find the "magic key to Aladdin's cave formula" they used, but I tried. Not much help from Google either, or I don't understand what to look for.

Anyway,
It requires the Sportsman, a good set of reading glasses and good typing skills.
NOT that I am going to take it on as a new career path as in what is old is new again. What I can do is show here what these programs required for the input data fields, which is purely form, and why they used this info, which is much mentioned here.
A members only would suit this idea though.

Michal could you point me to some software that can do that kind of analysis?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Michal
Member Restricted forum section would be I think a good idea.

Got my vote as well.
Will try to get more involved in the forum discussions from here on in, as I have learnt a multitude of things from this forum and its many selfless contributors, so to give a little back isn't too much to ask I suppose. (Not that I am saying that I am some sort of genius by any stretch of the imagination).
Anyhow, keep up the good work fellas.
Cheers,
Jose.

Fred,
R2W Axis does this and the Historical Version is available. Link is in signature.

Just to ensure that it is understood what Im saying:

Do one test which will give you the ALL, then analyse this test and this will give you the strike rates of all the filters like distances, class, Horses age and so on (about 140+ of these at last count). From these you can then work out the IVs and see the profits and so on.

Im sure other forum members can give you other software. I know Bet Selector does it, it even calculates the IV's for you, however if you try to do a few years worth of testing (which you have to to get the ALL) it will take hours and the analysis will likely crash. It does NOT do well with large loads. Otherwise its a good program.

Thanks Michal I will check them out. I'm not a handicapper so steep learning curve for me.

I have a paper copy. Somebody may have one that they can copy and paste. Try try Again put these on a forum (PA) back in April 2008. There are the 1999 impact values and the Mighty Impact 2000.
Another thing to consider is that with the advent of computers not only is the punter getting it better, the handicapper is also improving. As the handicapper improves, the more even the field becomes.

How about we choose one track at one distance, to produce communal ratings for? That way no-one's giving up much of their commercially proprietary - or individually hard-won, hand-scraped - data. No "keys to the kingdom" are being handed out. If, by some fluky chance, we were to produce something functional, it would likely only work well for this specific application. (And if it did work, it might be a good advertisement for these commercial products; along with providing a workthrough - to potential clients - on how best to utilise them).

...it'd also be nice if the forum were invested/focussed on the same race. It'd be like a Melbourne Cup every week! ;)

What about Toowoomba? Racing is on synthetic every Saturday night. R&S claims that there are usually 2 1200's per meeting (but doesn't have data for races beyond 1300m). I'm not sure anywhere else would have more frequent, year-round racing.

I'm happy to give this a crack in whatever manner people are willing to do it and actively contribute. I guess the problem I'm seeing already, and its natural, is that so many people have different ways of doing things.

Some of the discussion in this thread has already been more centered on what i'd call 'system' style selections rather than creating ratings. What type of discussion is it exactly that those who wanted to 'attack the back' (discuss backing) expected to have in these kind of threads?

Did people want to discuss systems and unique filters for finding backing opportunities, do people want to create ratings together using statistical data, do people want to discuss how to use specific ratings (i.e. sky ratings) in a profitable manner?

I basically just created this thread to generate some discussion as there was some complaining happening about the lack of any. Seems I opened a can of worms a bit and some people have already given various angles on which all of the above can be approached.

I just think it would be kind of cool if we managed to get a propun community set of ratings together in a uniform manner. Maybe instead of concentrating on a single venue and distance we can simply concentrate on NSW Metro (since they have the required backing limits as well if this does eventually become a backable resource).

A lot of the replies here are saying you need data, you need data and they are correct. But who are there any people willing to contribute using their data and/or ideas to put together a ratings technique for NSW metro as a group? If not thats fine I can be on my merry way, but it could be a fun and educational exercise even if it amounts to nothing profitable. Not to mention could stimulate ideas and discussion for people to take away in their own betting.

This is an interesting concept and could have some legs providing the ratings aren't based on the usual suspects (barrier, dist stats, track stats, etc, etc) and is based on other factors not widely used like speed ratings and such.

I'd be happy to consider offering some of my speed based ratings for the experiment if the overall idea looks like a goer.

I am happy to add. There needs more support from backers.
Are these impact values of any use? they are 15 years out of date and I will either have to write them out or see if scan and paste will work.

If you can consider this race, at this track, in these conditions, with this number of runners and then get the factors that produce winners. The track, the distance, the class, the number of runners, and the going are all common to this race and apply to all the runners. The barrier, the speed of the horse, the fitness, the jockey etc are not. The factors that produce winners in this particular race type may only be 2-4 in number. A 7 horse sprint race will require different winning factors than a 15 horse distance race.

Hence you may have a better result researching these winning factors for each race type, rather than trying to find the winning factors in all races.

I could not edit but wanted to add.

I remember playing golf with an accountant. He said that he had an appointment with his accountant. When I quizzed him, saying why did he need an accountant when he was an accountant. His reply was that he was an accountant, his accountant was a specialist tax accountant and the difference was paying some tax and paying next to no tax. IE winning which is what we are all trying to do.

We seem to have lost our way a bit in terms,
Of ratings strategies.

I have been asked several times off Pro-Pun,
What would be the best selections to use with,
The Free Skyform ratings.

The official ones that I buy only list,
Three chances for each panel not four,
Apart from the Best/Overall which can,
Officially contain up to 7-8 depending,
On how many different chances each panel contains.

As a starting point or adding trying to reduce the,
Amount of selections I would use these.

SKY-1-2
B/OVERALL & EQUALS 1-2.
B/FORM-1.
R/F-1.
DIST-1.
CLASS-1.
T/RAT-1.

The IN-WET selections have nothing to do with,
Everyrace who produce these.
I have no idea who-how-or where they come from.

This is only a starting point you will need to,
Do stacks more than this.

While this is one way for backing,
What about laying.

I am just about to load R5 at Gosford today,
So as I class this as SYD/PROV I will look there.

To me I do not want to lay 50/1 chances,
In case one got up so I will look at this.

Open on track =<$6.0.
All SYD-PROV races (fair-aver-good) sorry not every race,
This caters for well over 100 different types of races though.

DISTANCE-1 PANEL.(skyform)
RACE DISTANCE( 1200M)

1/1/2014-16/7/2015 the last lay.

OUT-3900 (3W) (7.7%).
RET-610.
L.O.T (84.4%).
AV-DIV (2.03)
BIG DIV(2.4)

SEQUENCE.

10 LOSERS.

8/7/2014 W K/GRANGE R3-4 $1.50. (1.60-1.90-1.65)

5 LOSERS.

25/10/2014 W K/GRANGE R8-4 $2.20 (2.40-2.25)

21 LOSERS.

16/7/2015 W R7-6 WYONG $2.40 (2.4-2.6-2.4)

TOTES ARE FOR B/O/3 brackets are on course prices.

That took me about 1 minute to find &,
10 MINUTES TO TYPE.

So here with these selections there are winning strategies,
Like the A/M-SKY-1 I posted on my thread & the losing one here.

I know it is small data but there are stacks of these,
And they never recover.

No challenge whatsoever to find things like,
This & lay them guess this is my problem.

Hope we can spark some interest in this thread,
For what it was intended.


Cheers.
Garyf.

Given the way this stalled and there were all the talk of how much data you need but little in the way of how we could approach it I propose the following which i've attempted myself and it has alluded me and I think is something that could be highly profitable and rewarding if we can bring it together as a group. I'm happy to attack this with others are interested and would appreciate if people who reply simply either state that they are interested / willing to help and/or offer a starting point, approach or angle in which we can get this going. Not really interested in more posts telling us how much data we need etc etc - Most of us have the data or some data to an extent - it's about offering ideas or angles in which we can use that data.

Some time ago CP created a thread which looked at in-running positioning in why speedyben chipped in saying he'd been backing leaders in-running at particular tracks/distance for some time. CP did some study on what tracks/distances provided the best POT and I was always under the impression (maybe false?) that it was possible to predict the front runners and back them to win at certain tracks/distances etc etc.

Essentially this is speed mapping and most would agree that finding a freely available speedmap online that is consistently accurate basically doesn't happen. Are there people interested in taking a mechanical approach to this and determining leaders/front runners to win at certain tracks/distances.

Could be a hefty task but lucrative as well if we get the right people and ideas onboard? If nobody has interest or thinks its too difficult i'll let it go but was just a thought of mine.

WOW Garyf,

Potent results indeed!!

'Please explain' what it's like to be sitting on a Goldmine!! :)

You're a legend!!

Hi Evajb01,

I believe Mattio has this sussed. I recall in one of his posts he advised he knows the cruising speed of all of the horses he backs.

Next level stuff.

************ HARD WORK.

A basic starting point it appears is most,
Peoples problem can't help here anymore,
As what is being proposed will be out most peoples reach.

What is being attempted an admirable notion,
Took me 15 years to learn.

Cheers.

Hi Garyf,

Apologies if you took my post the wrong way, I was just having a bit of fun bud.

I know you've put in the hard yards and your contribution to the forum has been immense!!

NAH appreciate it had a laugh as well.

Keep em coming.

Cheers.

Don't make ratings the be all and end all in your life. Why? Coz too many people take notice of them and put their money on them. What does that do....it doesn't make it worthwhile doing the same as you've lost value. Any quest for the ultimate rating needs to balance it with value.

Here's an example: Take a category of horses with a record of 100% achieving a place, at the current distance, in every past race! Awesome, a million punters think? "I'll put some money on that."

I looked at a months results. These horse won 21.4% of their races, BUT at SP, you had a LOT of 34%.

Now let's look at horses that have never placed at the current distance in every past race. They only won 11.6% of their races but the LOT was only 0.09%. Now that's an edge you can work on?

That's because their prices were greater, and no one was backing them. On paper they didn't look so hot. Pursuing ratings the age old way, you'll always miss these horses. It's a conundrum of epic proportions, how to find value but also an undiscovered chance of winning?

All I can say in your quest for the perfect rating, is you need to be using a method not used by the computer crunching tipsters and ratings people. I said in an earlier thread/post that from a lay point of view the higher the past strike rate % of horses, the more Lay profit until you get back to 4th - 6th. Maybe that's where you should be looking as they're under the radar?

Correct it all boils down to HOW YOU INTERPRET DATA.,
And where the real advantage is.

Be it statistical rating form or whatever as evident,
In my lay posting(32)

Here simply is a distance rating that at a certain distance,
In SYD-PROV when first or second favourite are lays.

How many people would be doing form-stats & say,
This has the best statistics at todays race & distance,
Based on starts wins places etc.

But if you look at in it another way ???.(post-32)

I have stacks of these that statistically look good with ratings,
But in certain places have little chance when looked at from different angles.

Ratings are only "ONE" part of the puzzle but are never to be disregarded.

Cheers.
Garyf.

Hi RP,

Wise words!! I certainly don't prescribe to the theory that ratings are the be all and end all.

In the case of Shaun's ratings, they appear to be able to isolate a tasty commodity, indicated by his $9.50 winner in race 5 today and a $16 winner on top on Sunday.

Agree that winning % might suffer a little to focus on the value runners.

The other angle is to be super selective with races and only play when the ratings indicate you have an advantage.

Hate to be the party pooper, but you need to do the maths with Lay prices before you buy the Ferrari. It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that a big loss on the Back side translates to a big win on the Lay side. For example, I've grabbed a couple of months results (232 selections) for laying the #1 Price rank, #1 Vol rank, #1 SKY rank, # 1 Neural rank. It showed a -10.6 liability loss for the Layer.

However using Back prices less commission , a -1.68 liability loss for the Backers. See, the ************s still get their cut!

I got sucked in once, subscribing to a Ratings service that uses Betfair WAP to calculate profit/loss on strategies. Looked good, until you find out that WAP and SP can vary as much as 40%. Please be sure to back test with the right price, is all I'm saying :)