That's an excellent spreadsheet Shaun, well done.
I know how much time it takes to get all that right.

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Funny you say that CP about getting it right, i found an error in it the other day before posting it here not sure how long it has been there.

As for the win and place ratings i am only rating as long as they have had 1 win or place if they have had 10 for 10 they still get the same, this sheet i have used for many ratings methods it is more of a template rather than a current method i am using but it helps to have things in place to explain it.

Looking at what you said about the distance and track options it might be better to use a percentage of starts of these conditions as the ratings method, i might make the change and see how i go.

When i have used different methods i keep records i am a bit of a lazy punter, i know the method listed here had a 30+% with the top selection and about 70+% with the place but as we all know it is price that counts and i have always used the top 4 selection and backing those above $4 but you can make your own changes.

Yes this is done with copy paste so i can see if i need to make adjustments for horses with less than 3 starts it only takes me about 2 minutes to process a race and i find this is ok as i only look at open and above races most of the time.

This will also export to a text file with the date as the file name so takes about 30 minutes to do all my selection and print on a sheet.

IMO it's better to do your form with pen and paper. That way you dont get bogged down in spreadsheets and you are focusing more on the horses then the formulas.

Print out your system and then work from that with pen and paper.

Scan the form to identify the top 5 chances then work out your ratings.

You can do it pretty quick after a bit of practice and in the process you learn more about the horses.

Hi all,

I just wanted to give something back to the Propun forums, albeit a token gesture. I have gleaned so much knowledge and information off here in the last 12 months, I figured I should offer my little contribution, a web query import/form splitter for Excel 2000-2007.

OK, what does it do? Well, I always wondered how screen scraping works. Then I discovered Web Queries.....they allow you get the form and DFS for free (this one is for UniTAB) rather than having to copy and paste it into the spreadsheet manually. Once your used to it, the process takes only a few seconds to load a whole race's information in including the most recent prices.

I've haven't investigated the other TABs but I imagine that with a little reformatting of the cells you can do it easily enough.

The real beauty is that as once you load a race, you can simply right click on the race and click 'Refresh Data!'...and it does....all the prices as they change right up until they jump.

I can tell you how to build the formula to work out what percent is on what horse as you refresh the race details, but that info is already on here...you just need to convert it to a formula....I have and it helps a lot with dutch betting.

Warning for UniTAB punters....the UniTAB site changes format once a race jump time gets within 5 minutes.....as a rule, remember to re-import the race information once the '5 mins to go' message pops up on the web page, or do what I do, and only load races running in the next five minutes.....If it does go pear-shaped, simply shut the spreadsheet down (WITHOUT SAVING) and re-open it.

Give it a crack and if you need any help, e-mail me on suntzu4@hotmail.com

Good luck,

Neurokahuna

Attached Files

web query for racing.xls (399.0 KB, 2076 views)

I'll be the first to say many thanks for this Neuro. I struggled getting web queries to work the way I wanted previously so will have a play and see how I get on. However my biggest "thank you" is reserved for the LEN() formula in your spreadsheet. I couldn't work out how to get round the problem of horses with less than four starts and now I've got the solution! Next time please don't wait 12 months to post the solution!


Cheers mate

Thanks Neurokahuna will have a look.

Shaun

Me thinks you changed your email address... hmm... was that to get away from questions?

I would appreciate a few minuyes of your time when you are free.

Cheers

Zlotti

Shaun


Once again mate, many thanks for sharing the excel file - I've spent a few late nights this week with Excel manual in hand getting to grips with things and your formulas will save me so much time its not funny.

One quick question for you. How do you import your data? I've done a copy and paste from VFG website and much of the data (except the race field info at the top) pastes into Excel as one column. I notice from your file (eg: rows 156 to 162) that you have evrything separated into columns which enables you to pick up info from cells such as D159 etc.

How do you achieve this? Is it using the text to columns function in Excel or do you import the data in some way that it automatically presents data in the way you want it?

Cheers

Mark

Yes i thought that might be a problem for you, it is a bit of a DIY approach but i will explain what i do.

I find the race i want to rate then i copy the race list from this point as shown in "Starters.doc" this is copied directly to the excel sheet after pressing field so it aligns correctly.

I then copy the form as shown in "race.txt" but this is pasted to a text document first then i use the "import data" feature in excel 2003
selecting "Delimited" i then check mark all the delimiters and on the next screen i just select finish and on the last screen i press ok.

As long as you have pressed the "form" button on the sheet before you start the import the data will go to where it needs to be.

The only problem you will have is where a runner has only two starts you will need to insert some data in the text document before you save it, because i only use the last two runs for most of my rating i just copy one of the last two runs and insert it in the correct place this will make it all work out in the end.


PS. i had to cut the form short to reduce the file size for upload)

Attached Files

	Starters.txt (1.2 KB, 2948 views)
	RACE.txt (16.7 KB, 2953 views)

Many thanks Shaun. Prior to seeing your post I went with the ultra simple option and cut and paste the data directly into Excel from the VFG website. I then ran the "text to columns" utility which treated the data as delimited text and broke the data into colums in an almost identical manner to your own columns . I've rated a few races now (using my own system which looks quite similar to yours) and it seems to work OK but I'll keep checking in case it comes unstuck. I've recorded a macro to run the formatting of the imported data and make a few other changes and I can be done in less than 2 mins. Again, this is all thanks to your formulas!

Cheers