Don Scott
 

Well I've got a couple of questions that a few might be able to help me with....

Assuming a punter were to rate the races a horse ran in and assign them a kg rating, what do you do with those ratings to achieve a final rating?

Did Scott take an average of ALL starts, use the last start, take the last three starts, take the peak rating or compare the peak with the last run or perhaps something else?

How did he rate a first up horse?

Valid questions, as I don't have his books :(

I'm asking because I'm toying with ratings which aren't weight based and would like to follow the same calculation method to see how it compares with weight ratings.

Chrome,

Don Scott used his own Class and Weight rating tables successfully for
20 odd years but then something changed or went awry with them, and
that seemed to knock Don for six and from which he did not recover.

Many modern day analyzers think his class\weight ratings formula became
outdated because they didn't allow for speed.
Don believed times - final or sectional, to be unimportant and even misleading.

I think it should be considered one way or another because the top jockeys all seem to use it re. the pace of the race and when they make their run.
Don knew that times at different tracks varied greatly because of their shape and layout and he didn't want a bar of it.

( In another Thread here at OZ. the lads are discussing the different jockeys
and their ability to do very well at certain tracks, while not so good at others -could that be due to them not being able to do their count\strategy so well on a saucer shaped track as on a elliptical ? Then the movable rail ?
Head wind - Tail wind - Cross wind ?)

Don was exasperated by the times\computer people, he believed the computers were as baffled by times as their programmers.
Most of all he believed relative weight to be the only reliable guide to the way a horse will perform - Weight is right - Weight is always right.

But then take a race last Saturday R5 Doomben, had you backed Messiaen
you surely would have been getting ready to collect, but Mike Pelling came
and changed that in a second (He's still got it). I would love to have the Stats. re. how many times over 15 years G.Colless and so so many others has been beaten less than a neck by,
Dittman,Shoemaker,Greg Hall,Jimmy Byrne,Mike Pelling,Beadman,Dye,Oliver,Paul Harvey.

These jockeys appear to have an X tra which has to be weighed up seperately from weight\speed etc. - is it the count\strategy, or in the final metre of a race the pure aggressive will to win ?- it's one of the few things that keeps me interested - Lester Piggott had it -George Moore-Kev.Langby-Roy Higgins -Harry White, and this Paul Harvey seems to have it in spades.
I've noticed this lad Nick.Ryan maybe has it too.

Racings variables are a hell of a mountain to climb, and the luckiest people are those who have a regular job.

Regards.

Thats very profound Racer.

Racing is so variable that to lose focus on the real things such as a good job and home etc is too high a price to pay for chasing the variables of racing for a living.

its good fun and feels good to turn a longshot now and again.
but no nerves to get too stuck in.

Thanks Racer,

Yes Don was very successful, but it did indeed fall over somewhat. That is why I'm trying to find out how he arrived at his starting point, and then go from there. If I remember correctly, I think a video accompanied his last book, but it was mainly to do with track layout etc.

I find it somewhat amazing that nowhere on the net, is his approach detailed.

I don't mean the figures he used or his "scale", but his actual approach.

I think that Mark Read uses something comparable with his Read Ratings, and I have great respect for them, just wish they were available on the net.

I did have a copy of his book "winning in the 90s" not any more worse luck....from what i can remember he use to look at the horse last few runs and find one that was similar in class as todays run.....i don't really know what happend to Don Scott in his punting life....would love to read a book on it...did anyone ever write one.....using logic i would say that after using the same method for 20 years he was convinced they were perfect and yes failed to change with the times.....no i won't say it had to do with not adapting race times in to his form because i have never used them but have done ok....can anyone that uses them in Australia honestly say they are doing a lot better than others because they use times.....i am not saying they don't work...but many different styles work for different people.....Andrew Byer one of the United States best punters came here armed with his race times ideas and thought he would make a fortune from the bookies because he thought he had an advantage we didn't use.....he got smashed big time....now we have adapted times here but using ideas they we have developed suited to our tracks

Direct quotes from one of Scott's books:

"The base run rating is a very important figure. It is the foundation on which you build all your future ratings calculations.

The base run rating depends on ... the number of runs from a spell (and) the expected peak rating.

If the horse is racing for the 1st time this preparation, the base run rating is the expected peak rating.

If the horse is racing for the 2nd time this preparation, the base run rating is the ratings for its 1st run this preparation.

If the horse is racing for the 3rd time this preparation, the base run rating is the better of its two previous runs.

From the 4th run onwards, the base run rating is usually the best of the horse's last three runs."

Don Scott
 

Chrome,

If you still want Don's approach even though, as you say it, "did indeed fall over somewhat", then all I have to do is understand what part\parts you need.

I mean his first breakthrough came when 50 years ago he realized that;

Instead of comparing one horse against another, he would simply compare it
with an imaginary average horse carrying the limit weight in an average race -
and provided that he knew the class of that race, and the difference between that class and the class of every other race, he was on his way.

Using the handicapper's theoretical weights as a basis he worked out the weight difference between (in those days) a maiden - novice - encourage - graduation -welter - open. Once he had established these diffs. he found there was a simple method of rating every horse and used it successfully for 23 years in conjunction with his pricing for profit using his ratings.

You must say if that's all you need Chrome, or if you need his method of rating the performance of a horse in a race ?
I don't want to be typing away unless you want more.

Regards.

Thanks guys that's exactly what I was after.

I could argue against his method somewhat, as he is assessing potential in a lot of areas, and how often does a horse live up to his potential? This has to be factored in as well. I have also just read G.R.'s method and can argue against his second and third up from a spell bias.

I guess it's the information I was after, not the argument ;)

Thanks again, that gives me a starting point to apply my own ideas and bias or non bias.

Who's GR?

Just as an aside, there was Don who did not like the Times\Ratings method
at all while here I have just dug out the late Alex Bird.

'He outwitted the bookies and made 70 million pounds Sterling' - err excuse me, should that not be turned over 70 mill.
Alex was good but I don't think even he was that good.

Anyway here he is fishing about in a boat on his moat surrounding his mansion while quietly contemplating his day ahead.
First thing to do is mobile a maid in the mansion 30 yards away - get her to ask cook to knock up a smoked salmon lunch box, and ice up a couple of bottles of
Dom Perignon - get the butler to put the lot in the boot of the roller.

While thousands of punters were working out their bets with their eye on some mystical fortune, the most successful backer in the history of the turf
had no intention of outlaying any money on the horses, not this day anyway.
He was off to TIME the runners with his stopwatch.
I spend months watching a horse, he said,seeing how it performs in all types of going- I study every racecourse,take notice of TIME,weights, and the barrier draw - then I compute what the odds should be and if the bookies are not offering my odds then I don't bet.
I never chase losses - I'm terrified of losing.

Regards.

Alex Bird was legendary for being a Professional punter he led a champagne lifestyle for over 40 years at the bookmakers expense! One of the things the great man realized was that the huge difference in bookmaker's odds could lead to the backer having a "no-lose" situation. This was called an "Arbitrage". Alex Bird, with his network of contracts both in the UK and in the US famously bet huge sums on the outcome of events when he knew he had all the possible outcomes covered. He never relied on "contacts" from stables or other such madness to determine whether a gamble was going to take place! Bird knew the only way to guarantee his millionaire lifestyle was by getting his sums right every time he placed a bet. Every punter will tell you that the problem has always been trying to obtain information on forthcoming events & a full list of bookmakers odds. Then being able to move quick enough to take advantage of the discrepancies. The day betting tax was introduced into law Alex bird never struck another major gamble. The role of the "Arbitrage" in betting had become almost impossible to exploit!

That was until the explosion of the Internet and tax free betting. With the ever increasing number of bookmakers now operating from tax-free sites & with tax-free betting those exciting days have returned, not just for the likes of Alex Bird but for the average punter who's sick of giving their hard earned cash away to hungry bookies.


If this is the same guy then it would seam he had different types of betting activity.....i have always belived that the winner of this game will be the people that can look beyond the form and find the solution in maths.

Chrome Prince
 

Just to add to La Mer's reply, the expected peak rating was the peak rating last preparation plus any expected age improvement.

When doing weight ratings for the ratings comp, I use the most recent rating over a similar distance to the current race. I am now starting to think along similar lines to woof43 and might start to use average figures along with standard deviations rather than just rely on one figure only.

Thanks for making that addition Dr. Ron - should have put that point in myself as it is important, particularly when dealing with young horses at ages 2, 3 & 4.

As an alternative to what Scott stated about selecting one single run, what I used to do when I was an active weight rater was to take a weighted average of a horse's three runs (this preparation) giving a weighting of 50%/30/20% preferably going back in time. i.e the latest run getting the 50%, or weight them according to performance during a horse's last three runs, with the 50% going to the best run, 30% to the second best run and 20% going to the third best run. So using the going back in time approach, if a horse had ratings of 65, 58, 61, then the weighted average would be 62.1.
While it does take some extra time to do it this way, I personally found the results far better than singling out one single base or qualifying run.

What I do is find what it CAN rate given today's circumstances, ie it's peak rating, first. I don't go back miles and miles for it, just this and last prep only, and if more than about 6 or 7 runs this prep, just this prep, unless there's excuses. Then, I adjust, given the likelihood of doing it. If it is very likely to do the rating (ie is consistent, has been doing it lately), I'll bonus it a little, if it very seldom does that figure, i'll penalise it. If there is a significant jockey change, slight bonus or penalty.

At least half the problem is getting your ratings RIGHT. If they're wrong, doesn't matter what method you use to handicap, you ain't gunna win. Then, the other half is punting them right. best way is still scott's old way, and bird's by the sound of it - price 'em, bet the overs.

Cheers to that, amen, testify!

Duritz

In Form or Out of Form
 

Most people who single out one past start or just the last few starts in a career normally have to deal with contradictions and its always about a runner being either In Form or Out of Form.

A Horse is only as good as his last race
or
Do not judge a Horse on ONE bad race!

I hope you see the contradiction there, right?
This is one of those things where people try to keep two opposing viewpoints in their head at one time?

Is the Horse in bad form, or was he just unlucky last race?

Is the Horse in good form, or was he just lucky last race?

He's in good form, and his bad performance last time was explained by "hidden" factors. They are hidden so well we don't know what they are.

He's in bad form, and his good performance last time was just a fluke.

The In Form form guys can explain away anything you want at any time on any Horse. That's why I love ya! Nothing better than a factor that can't be defined, analyzed, pointed out, trusted, or consistently identified. You just have to know it when you see it! But I have to admit, that certainly DOESN'T limit the IN Form guys in any way! Anything they can dream up can be justified. No numbers needed.

Garry Robinson

He seems to be a smart cookie, but some of his ideas, I strongly disagree with and can prove statistically.

Woof43 the thing is this - when handicapping, if betting to prices, you are essentially pitting your percentages against the rest of the public. You are obviously a very mathematical person, and need a straight, defined practice. You no doubt enjoy rules greatly in your punting. Like you said in another post, paraphrased - "If the tipsters have tipped 1,2,3 or those in any order, and they are the favourites, then you have struck gold!" Mysterious things like horses and their inconsistencies would no doubt annoy you greatly, which is why you punt on the psychology of punters rather than the abilities and likelihoods of horses. Doing the form the way I was describing is not some confusing, contradictory thing, it is a matter of using your BRAIN, and the experience gathered of doing the form over and over, to basically set a market. The market set is the important thing, and it is the expression of how you've done the form, which is compiled by somtimes estimating, but through experience trying to make those estimations as accurate as possible, and by avoiding (yes, avoiding) races where TOO MANY estimations are needed to make a good set of percentages.

You talk about refining a mechanical process so that it does the form and prices to an "acceptable" level of standard deviation, so that - for example - your $3.50 chances win 28% of races. That's one dimensional though, because how many of those 28% that won started at shorter, and how many losers at longer? You could have your $3.50 chances happily winning 28% of races and think to yourself "All I have to do is get $4.00 or more about these things, and I must win!" This is, of course, false.

The thing is this: As you well know, the market is the sum total opinion of the punters. It is pretty right. Punters psychology can be used to profit, knowing their patterns and how they bet (I do that for fun sometimes on quaddies - if there's a leg with a shorty, leave it out, the value is ENORMOUS, bigger than what it should be given their mathematical chances). HOWEVER, the market is most certainly NOT 100% right. They make mistakes. Certainly, they make patterned type of mistakes, ie the same kinds of mistakes over and over, (like overbetting last start winners), and knowing these things helps, but in the end doing the form in this manner, ie handicapping using your opinion, comes down to you being smarter than the sum total of the opinions out there. And that is not too hard. (Well, now I can say it's not too hard. It's taken a sh**load of work, research, training, trial, error and experience to get to the point where it's not too hard). THEN, your profit is limited only by HOW MUCH smarter, more astute than them you can be.

Believe it brother, it is true.

Duritz.

Hi Duritz,
I wasn't intentionally identifying the basis of your Handicapping, it was meant to throw up a different thought on selecting the base starting point.

I have not mentioned too much about my own methods of Handicapping, other then to say I use Times substantially but these are smoothed by an Age component.

Back to the original intention of my posting;

People assume Recent form will pave the way to riches an that they can see trends within those recent starts that points to a horse coming into form or out of form or holding steady.

You have to be careful with the "trends of 3-4 races" idea. It's very hard, statistically speaking, to determine whether a grouping is a "trend" (which implies a relationship between them, with performance changing in some direction) or just a random event. A person's bias is to see a "trend" where there is really only a random grouping. Again, the roulette example. If you look at a series of roulette spins, you would see "little trends" where the ball came down red three or four times in a row, or black three or four times in a row. These aren't trends. They are just a random grouping of similar outcomes.
Think about it like this. Let's say you've defined a Horse's performance envelope and divided it into thirds, with a good third, a middle third, and a poor third. We'll assume he has an equal chance on any given performance of falling into any of the three thirds. What kind of "trends" would you expect if, indeed, the Horse's performance is random? Let's say you look at a three-race series.

With totally RANDOM performance you would expect to see:

3 out of 27 where three performance are all in the same third.
12 out of 27 where two are in one third, and 1 is in an adjacent third.

That's 15 out of 27 possible combinations that would LOOK like a Horse was in some reasonably consistent form, whether good or bad. And that's with totally random performance! That's over 55% of all three-race combinations would suggest "form" to the statistically naive viewer. That's why you have to be so careful with what you call a "trend" or "form". Because that's not necessarily the correct description.

Here is a little portion of my Handicapping, Horses usually show a beginning pattern, and an ending pattern in their careers. With a big, steady-state chunk in the middle. I don't call these end-lines "form." They are a different pattern. "Form" implies that a group of races should have similar performance. The beginning/end times aren't similar lines, they ARE "trends." The lines change in a consistent direction. But a true "trend" isn't "form" either.
(Age Effect)
The early-career chunk screws up your "career" averages for quite a ways after the Horse levels out. If you don't remove those Starts from use, they will definitely bias you into thinking that form exists when it doesn't. Because near-term averages will be more predictive than full-career averages. The trick to accurate predictions is NOT to assume form is in play. Instead it is to study enough Horses to know WHEN the early-career pattern is likely to be over, and to take that into account when determining any sort of average/standard deviation for some performance statistic. Toss out those early-career lines, and "form" disappears and you also improve the accuracy of your predictions.

The end pattern is harder to deal with because the beginning of the end is much more difficult to identify. If an older Horse has a bad performance, is it just a randomly bad race, or is it the beginning of his tail-off? This is hard to judge because the age at which Horse's tail off varies hugely. There are all sorts of variables like number of races a Horse has run, frequency of running, genetic robustness, talent level, courses raced on, injury, and so on. Of course, a statistically astute player can look for signals. For example, let's say a Horse has three performances in a row where he is in the bottom third of his performance envelope. That would normally happen randomly about 1 time in 27. If it happens to a Horse that ALSO happens to be past a certain age, that might be taken as a good sign that the steady-state part of the career is over, and a new performance envelope is now in play for that Horse.

I really don't take Handicapping lightly, as I said before, you measure Handicapping by accuracy and wagering by ROI.

Yeah those things - as you alluded - come with doing enough horses to gain a sense of it.

I agree entirely with what you say about early career stuff versus now etc. A horse who is now, say, a 4yo and had good 2yo form, I completely ignore the 2yo form. It's 3yo form I ONLY use if it is EARLY in it's FIRST prep back being a 4yo, ie if there is no other data. A lot of things happen to horses after they've finished their first or second prep, things which can mean they in no way resemble the horse they were as a juvenile when an adult. Racing is very tiring stuff, especially when you're overaced by greedy owners and over compensated by pain killers from your trainer. They can stuff you up, then the horse gets to the paddock, the injuries set in, they come back sore and as a result also do not WANT to race. Never assume early form translates.

Will post more another time, things to do.

Cheers.
Duritz

quite right.

ref horses that win at 2 year old not having the same rating as a it would at 4 years old.

in my methods a horse that qualifies in listed or group company at 2 year old but has not qualified again by the time it is 4 years old in comparison of listed horses
wins 5 percent of races won by listed horses as against 33% by horses qualifying in the previous 8 weeks.

the deterioration faction is considerable.

please note these statistics is based on listed/group placed horses only.

the rating does not carry through the longer the period since its peak rating.

it is funny what you will see if you look at a horses total starts if they are say a 4yo+ i have seen some horses that always win 2 in a row.....they have done all thier life......other take 4 starts to fire so as soon as they have hit 4 starts thats when you start putting money on.....others win about the same time every year.....i don't use this method myself but it will work if you have the time to follow up on it.....i just use the last 3 starts plus other bits of form to find the winners....sure it does not work every race or even every day...but thats not what we are trying to do are we....if you are then you are not really using a professional approach.....we just have to win enough races to make a nice profit and that all that counts.

Just out of curiosity, which of the Don Scott books has a more in depth on form analysis ?

Winning More published in 1985 is the best as it captures all of his earlier analysis/techniques of Winning and The Winning Way and overall is more extensive than the other two books.

He did publish another book Winning In The 90's, but that was his most disappointing effort, light on detail, concentrating more on exotic types of betting, but there are better books around than his that covers such topics.

He did publish another book Winning In The 90's, but that was his most disappointing effort, light on detail, concentrating more on exotic types of betting, but there are better books around than his that covers such topics.[/QUOTE]


Can anyone point me to some of those books? I am starting to get interested in exotics a bit. Any help appreciated.

Duritz

Thanks La Mer.

I keep an eye out for that book.

I have been following Peter Bent's method for some time and from what i read on this thread, many of his thoeries are adapted from Don's methods.

Duritz,

You might be interest in Peter Bent's methods as he's specialise in exotic bets. He has a book based on his exotic betting methods.

I think one of the reasons Scott was so successful was that he got the jump on the bookieswith his analysis and as a consequence was able to secure many overlays in the one race, so it was not unheard of for him to back 6 or 7 winners at one meeting. I think he may have even backed every winner on the card a couple of times.Nowadays with the bookies analysis far more advanced , there are less genuine value bets left. There is nothing more frustrating than to spend time analysing a race only to come up with the same prices as the bookies. I think this why many people prefer mechanical systems. While they might not be as reliable, because they use different methods, they might be able to find value that normal ratings cant.

Too true DR RON!

The bookies cannot control mechanical systems per se, but they can incorporate class weight speed time ratings, I'm sure they have the best of them. They then adjust their prices to the public bets. I'm currently operating on a 10% POT with one of my systems which picked Bipolar yesterday, the bookies cannot get wise and suddenly offer 10% less on my selections, as the weight of money and market price has to be included. If they did, they'd get stung every time my selection failed (about 1/3 of the time.

This is where mechanical systems have it over ratings, but if someone comes up with a better ratings system that's not been done to death, then they may have a chance.