Don Scott class rating figures
 

Are Don Scotts' class figures still relevent for this eras racing even after 25 years since last published , and is there anyone still using his figures instead of the ones put out by VRC or AJC ( i dont know if AJC have finished there updated figures yet !) , I would be interested to know if there any other class rating figures around or formulas to arrive at a class fig . Can anybody enlighten me on this .

Regards ,
Ingust

Why would you want to invent the wheel when there are now class figures available both from Racing Victoria, Racing NSW & the WATC that are an excellent base from where to start. These class ratings are provided and updated by professional handicappers and are as good as they get.

Hi, La Mer,

Would you be abel to point me and others that are interested toward the source of this information?
By that I mean where I could get these ratings?

Thank you
Michal

Go to: http://www.racingvictoria.net.au/in...d=114&Itemid=16

and:

http://www.racingnsw.com.au/page.asp?parm=han.main

or:

http://www.waturf.org.au/html/racing/race_news.asp

look for rating based handicapping & the various policy documents which are similar but different according to local racing conditions.

Either one is a very good base to formulate personal ratings.

I think La Mer misunderstood your question ['where could I get these ratings'?]. You won't get 'ratings' from any of those sites.

A good class guide is prize money contested [in most cases]. A horse that has won a $40k race is useually a better horse than one who's best effort is a $20k race etc. For the average punter who doesn't realize that a horse winning a C3 dosn't nessasarily mean that it is a classer horse than one that has only won a C1, as that would depend on where those races where won. Recent race prizemoney contested and won [in a race I mean, not a horses whole carreer] is always a pretty good class guide. Class ratings in Aust. are a massive road accident. 'Average earnings' arn't a bad class guide either.

Crash, you might be right I may have misunderstood, but in fact, as well as the handicapping policies & class tables, the actual handicappers ratings are available from all these sites.

La Mer,

Thank you, I have found what I needed.

Michal

scotts fig
 

Thanks to everyone who took interest in the topic , i still havent found what iam after , which is a shortcut to the class figure , i have looked at the VRC figs which i suppose i will use , must be getting lazy in my old age , i like everything easy ,

Regard good punting to you all

Ingust

I use the Wizard Form Guides class indicator (Cls) eg. eq or dn and; the field strength (FS) as a guide. The FS "measures the difference between the quality of the field against which the horse raced last start and will confront in the forethcoming race." eg FS -2.0 means the upcoming race is 2.0 kg weaker for that horse than last start.

In combination with the Wrat and Impact Form, I have found it a good way to narrow down the chances.

Ingust,if you want to make things easier for yourself, just use the past ratings provided for free on the tasmanian tab website www.thetote.com.au and go to the form link on the left hand menu and then interactive form. I've found these to be as accurate as any and best of all they are free. To reduce the figures to kilos just divide by 13.3 and round to the nearest half kilo, and then adjust for the current weights and any other bonuses or penalties you feel are necessary.

Why 13.3? I read on the forum somewhere that 20 ratings points was equal to a length on the ratings, so based on 1 length = 1.5 kilos which seems to be the norm with most methods i just divided 20 by 1.5

Might not be everybodys cup of tea, but I find them pretty good, of course it all comes down to which run you wish to choose as your base run. some would use the last run , others best of the last 3 ( which from memory was what Scott used) some may use an average, or the best rating at the distance of the current race. Hope this has been some help and the best of luck with it.

Hi Dr Ron


You will find with the thetote ratings are already in kg's. All you need to do is put the dot after the first 2 digits...eg....if the rating is 480...its actually 48.0....then you just need to subtract the horse's weight above the minimum limit weight that it is to carry today.

I tested that they were actually weight ratings in kgs and that 1.5 kg = 1 length by comparing two horses that were in the same past race and working out what there rating difference should of been.

Joe

Thanks for that info joelance, i'm sure i checked the same thing out previously but couldn't find any consistency using the 1 length = 1.5 kgs . I would have assumed that they would have put the dot in anyway if that is the case. Either way it still comes up with the same order but just a slight difference when pricing them.

Dr Ron!
This is from the VATC site, may explain the anomaly re. 1 len = 1.5 KG

" The following scale is a guide for assessment of a horse’s performance in a particular race, where the winning distance is two lengths or less:

1200Metres & Under - 1.5kg per length

1400 – 1800Metres - 1.0kg per length

2000 – 2600Metres - 1.0 to 0.5kg per length

2800Metres & Over - 0.5kg per length

This scale assumes a good to firm surface and diminishes as the surface becomes slower. Distances between placed horses may be under expressed."

Cheers

Thanks for that lomacca, I guess that the people who supply the ratings to thetote website must use something along those lines. It would explain the anomoly.

So just as a matter of interest, which base run figure would some of you guys use? the most recent, best of last three, best at distance? an average of 2 runs

got a feeling ducky may be about to fly away.

just had a look then, quite interesting.

Hi again Dr Ron!
Averaging the performance_rating of a human athlete, or that of a horse IN MY OPINION is simply wrong.
Why would you include a run where the horse may have been off colour, or the connections did not try, or it was an unsuitable race?
I would say, select the best performance in the not too distant past, even go back to the previous prep.
This will tell you what the horse is capable of doing, and that is what we are after.
Good luck

That will get you inconsistent horses who don't hold ratings. You'll back a lot of losers.

By the way that theory that kilograms to lengths is different in the wet is a fallacy. Horse A beating Horse B by by 7 lengths, on a dry track they say it's 10.5 kgs, on a wet track say 5kgs. Not true, still need the 10kg turnaround to make it up.

Hi

Thank you all for the interesting discussion on the way to get a class fig (rating) it has given me plenty of food for thought ,

Regards
Ingust

But say they run true to form every fifth race or so you will also get a winner at much better odds - people hate to back inconsistent horses.

Although the difference is not double from wet to dry tracks there is definitely a difference between Good and Heavy. From number crunching 12 years races I got a steady rise in the equivalent distance a horse gets beaten by in worse and worse going.

KV

KV I have gotten same from more recent number crunching, however that doesn't mean the effect of weight is any different on wet tracks, it just means that margins are more spread on wet tracks. Reason? Less horses in a field handle it, not because weight means more.

I think you think I'm thinking the same way as you but I don't think I am. Note in my quote the word equivalent as opposed to something less meaningful like average. The figures I obtained were in a fairly intense setup which didn't just take the lengths from the winner against track going in isolation. It was a sort of best fit affair using many other variables with successful handicapping being the measuring stick. I know this all sounds very wishy washy but it's pretty hard to explain without producing a white paper on the whole event.
Bottom line, I believe there is some difference in margin from the winner between the same two horses running on a dry and a wet track disregarding other factors like track preference and the like.

KV

Hi ,

Paul Segar has a bit to say about wet track wgts he has a sliding wgt scale , the wgts averaging from 4kgs on the low wgt to 5kg onthe top wgts with the wgts in between adjusted accordingly ,
ie:- 47kg on a dry track goes out to 51kg on a heavy track ,

regards

ingust

Base
 

Hi Dr. Ron

Which Base figure would you use?.

Here is what I do to some extent

Before selecting a Base figure the raw data needs to be massaged somewhat before we put it through its paces.
The first step is to eliminate Outliers from the data.(the following is a simple method or one could use Grubb's method of identifying outliers.).

Using excel and its inbuilt functions will assit

Step 1
using the function Quartile in excel
@sum((quartile 3) - (quartile 1)) * 1.5

Step 2
@sum((quartile 1 )+ answer from Step1

Any score/time that is outside of the the above needs to be deleted from the data
Now find the Mean and Stdev of the data this will become the Base figure.

With the help of the Base figure we need to develop a Performance envelope.
Each performance line of each runner needs to be assigned a Z score.Using these Z scores one needs to find the Max and Min Z scores for a range of typical Variables using the individual runners performance lines or if there is not enough data for a runner then you need to use the whole Database figures in preference to the individual runners Max/Min Z scores.

X*Y/sqrt(Z)
X=Min Z score
Y=LTD Stdev
Z= number of starts for this variable or LTD number of Starts

Subtract this score from your Base figure this becomes your Lower Performance figure, now do the same but substitute the Min Z score with the Max and now you have the upper Performance figure.

Its important to find Max/Min Z scores from your database for a whole range of variables and then apply them when the data is thin and most should be Class specific.

Thanks for the detailed response woof, while I'm no excel guru, i think I've got the gist of what you're saying and will test it out and see what sort of figures it comes up with.

Don Scott
 

Hi ingust,

Scotts ratings have been updated to current race classes
in his "Winning in the 90's". I just go a copy from a second hand book store. I suppose they are the latest update on a system that will never be updated again.

Michal

winning in the 90s
 

thank you for your interest Michal , i have a copy of that book , But is anyone still using these figures with success ?

Regards
Ingust