Hi all,

Just joined this forum today.

I'm a computer programmer by trade and over the past week have developed a program that will: -

Download all info on races, race results, previous horse wins, etc from the tabonline site and store it in a local database.

The program will then scan throw all races for a given day, track, or a individual race, and attempt to rate all the runners by:-

Barrier draw, weight, form, previous starts, aap rating, odds, late tips, radio tab tip, etc.

Anyway to cut a long story short it get's it very right on some entire track's on a particular day (3-4 or more winners, and as many places in a 9 race meeting) but very badly on other's (sometimes only a few places for the complete event).

Obviously it's only early day's but I feel the program is showing some promise and I want to take it to the next step (need to add filtering, etc).

By the way I've got a partial analysis module working, so that you can put in various “virtual” bet's (win, place, quinella, and any 2 currently) and it will cycle through past results and tell you what you would have won/lost for a given day/track/race.

It's come a long way in a short time!!

I am looking for any help from anyone to: -

1. Assist with suggestions on what the program should be using to pick winners (needs to be scientific as “gut feels”, and other stuff like that is very hard for the computer to understand!).
2. Find data (freely available) for other things. For example I have the last 3 start's for each horse, but a complete history of all start's would be very useful.What about some form of jockey ratings? Is there a list available.
3. Give me some useful suggestions on what should be in the program.
4. Offer any other advice.
5. Data - I have all the data from tabonline, but if you have access to other stat's trainer info, jockey rankings, stuff more than 3 years old, I'd appreciate looking at it.

I'm not planning to sell this program, and I would be happy to give people copies of it free of charge if they contribute toward's it's development.

If there is enough interest I'll knock up a website and post the program on there for people to download. It's not ready for prime time yet as it does not have an interface at all and it's using my local database, etc.

You know I think it would be a great system if we all added our bit of wisdom on what we do to pick winners. We could all benefit from this.

Is there any interest from others looking to work together to create a “community” horse tipping system that works with our knowledge and has only the stuff in it we need?

As an aside, I work from home full time, but still need to pay a mortgage, so if you have any idea's on a niche racing product that needs to be developed please let me know. Again I'm not wanting to sell the horse tipping system (I'm not a good saleman) but some other useful program that “sell's itself” could be the way to go and would allow me to work on this stuff full time!

Please post here or drop me a line to journich@gmail.com. I'm happy to keep your information confidential if you prefer (e.g. Your secret formula's for picking winners, etc).

Cheers










Tim

Welcome to the madhouse Journich. It's a pretty good bunch here.

There are quite a few here who will be able to [genuinely] help you with your program. Just watch out you don't get 'milked' for your own programing ideas [and see what was basically your effort being used for profitable gain by selling to the public it's selections by someone else]. In other words, don't be too free and easy passing on your programing efforts so far, as I'm sure your are going to have a heap of [private] em's.

Personally I'm an old fashioned punter and form student and until a computer program can filter in a horse's advantage who just had a 2kg.dump [effectively, a sudden 2kg. weight drop] before going into the starting barrier, or a thousand other incalculable things that can effect winning outcome, I'll stick to what I do and enjoy best 8-)

Good luck with all your efforts to turn computer digits into gold :-).

Thanks crash

Well I haven't exactly been swamped yet, yours is the only response to date!. Is no one interested is this?

I've got some other idea so I'll go off and work on those.

Thanks for the response.

Cheers

I wish you luck with your projects, but I am not surprised by the lack of response.
If it only took programming skills to win at the races, quite a few of us would have retired in luxury long ago.
As I mentioned here before, I know someone who wouldn't know what to do with a computer if he fell over one, but he is winning constantly.
And he is not telling!!!
Regards

Ummm really? That's why I was asking for help from others, because I don't know much about horse racing.

Thanks for stating the bleeding obvious! ha ha just kidding.

I know I am on to something though picked first 3 winners at BR,SR, and NR today, still analysing the other results. Maybe it's just pure luck.

Cheers

Mate, you don't need to know much about horse racing IMHO. I started doing what you're doing about 18 months ago and finished my first year's punting with 9% POT over about a thousand bets. There is no substitute for having a lot of data. I collect any and all data I can get my hands on if it's free. I find my results stabilise after about 5 years races have gone through but my method is rating each race and each horse using weights and margins (not sure if it's the same as you're trying to do). Don't let anyone tell you it doesn't work, cause it does.

KV

Hi!
My irony must have been too subtle?
Why would anyone give me, you, or anyone else their secrets re. racing, if it works?

You can download daily racing data free from aapracingandsports.com in csv format, it's what they use for their neural algorithms. Also you can get some very good jockey stats from racenet.com.au

Try these for other data:

tabform.thewest.com.au/
********************.com
australianracing.com

CheersThe Weaver

Journich,

Your idea is an interesting one and if I had the programming skills I would probably be trying to do it myself.

I use lots of sources of data, the only one of which I pay for is the downloadable sportsman (specialised form guide).

I find ******************** the best of the rest but also use the QTAB (tabonline.com.auwebsite) , the aapracing website and a set of par times for various tracks (can't remember the address but will email you).

As far as variables go, I spent a bit of time retrospectively assessing data (about 18months worth) and the ones that seemed to be useful to me were, in no particular order:
1. first 4 in the betting
2. first 4 in order of average winnings
3. proven at distance
4. Placed in first four in last 2 starts
5. Place percentage >60% (this has been mentioned elsewhere in this forum).

I rely on horses placing to make a profit and have been going along steadily (albeit slowly) for about 7 months.

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