27th June 2006, 05:34 PM
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Member
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Join Date: Jan 1970
Posts: 1,096
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by KennyVictor
I studied various factors when putting together my computer based handicapping system and one of those was the break between races. Not taking into account any specifics like distance of the races, age of the horses, etc it was hard to draw any conclusions which was the "best" break between races. When averaged out even long breaks of several weeks didn't seem to produce any great advantage or disadvantage - with one exception.
If a horse had run within the last 7 days ON AVERAGE it had a slight advantage over other horses.
KV
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Hi KV!
I do have Mr Blakemores books (Fitness etc.) and incorporated his ideas into my rating programme, about days between runs (as have others) and came to the conclusion that it was just that, "AN IDEA", and I have noticed since, that others think the same way about it.
Theoretically speaking it's a sound idea, horses, athletes need time to recuperate, and again theoretically, this time supposed to depend on the distance of the race ran. Unfortunatelly life does not always follow theory, short races are not always run flat out, as they are supposed be, according to the author, neither are mid or long distance races always slow paced middling affairs, and different training methods also throw a spanner in the works. In other words, some races of the same distance will take more out of horses then others.
I now have this feature in my rating programme as an option only. Sure, sometime if I run the programme solely on fitness alone, it will pick up winners but so would sticking a pin on a newspaper page!!
Now, as far as I am concerned, days to last start etc. are of little import, (within reason of course)
Good luck.
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