Hey lads,

I'm after some inside info from anyone in the know (X, Mav, Sportz whoever else can help)
How do you go about constructing ratings and prices for each race? What rules and principles do you apply? Is it a long tiring task or piece of cake once you get started? I have just been doing the form of the morning and backing my selections each way (unless not ew odds), and steering clear of exotics such as tri's. I would love if you guys took me under your wing and taught me all i need to know about framing markets, and producing ratings etc.

Thanks in advanced

Betsy

Betsy,

I'll give you a nice simple basic example to start you off. Obviously, you can do things in a much more detailed way than this, but this is just to show you that you don't have to take a LONG time.

First, go to: http://www.tastab.com.au/racebet/fo...num/default.asp

I've found their ratings to be effective and simple to use. Click on each horse and it displays it's entire career and gives a rating for each run. That rating is in the form of a number like 645. To use them in our ratings, we need to slip a decimal point in there and make it 64.5 as in 64.5 kgs. Now simply take each horse's last race rating, then subtract the weight that they are going to carry over the minimum weight in today's race. You have to take apprentice claims into account when doing this, so if a horse is actually carrying LESS than the minimum weight, you'll have to add that amount to the rating, not subtract it. That's it. The total you're left with is the horse's rating for today's race. That is about as easy a rating method as you can get and you could do that in a couple of minutes. Here's Donald R5 today as an example:
1 63 - 4 = 59
2 60.5 - 1.5 = 59
3 50.5 - 2.5 = 48
4 45 - 1.5 = 43.5
5 35 - 0.5 = 34.5
6 53 - 0 = 53
8 46 - 0 = 46
9 45 - 0 = 45
10 54 - 0 = 54
11 31 - 0 = 31

So the top 4 rated horses in that race in order were:
1 59
2 59
10 54
6 53

The result was 1-10-6 and the trifecta was $286 up here, so that's one time when an EXTREMELY simple rating method worked beautifully. Don't expect it to be like that all the time. Most people go into much more detail than that with their ratings but sometimes simplicity works best.

By the way, you could have also got the first4 using that method too and it paid $3030 up here.

No, I wasn't smart enough to do that.

1st'4s can be very frustrating....poor strikerate but the divivdends more than make up for it...just have to be patient..i've been serious about them for 6 months or so and show a small profit .. even though i have collected on a couple of large payouts...

Some of the 1st4's you and X have been tipping lately would look nice in my betting account

Well, that one today was so easy and paid so well, I'm kicking myself for not putting one on.

Always tomorrow Sportz

__________________
Ta me go maith

Betsy,

Carrying on from my earlier post....

The thing about ratings is there is no right or wrong way to do it. If it works, then that's the important thing.

With the weight rating method that I showed you, the difficult part is finding the 'base' rating run that you use to work out the horse's rating in today's race. In the example I showed you, I just used the horses' last runs. That's by far the simplest method and it worked in the example I showed you, but there are many other ways of doing it. You could take the best rating from the horse's last 2 or 3 runs. Or an average of the best 2 ratings from the last 3 runs. Or the best rating recent run over this distance. Or the best rating the horse has achieved over this distance in the last 12 months. Or the best rating at this track and distance. There are any number of alternative runs that you could use as the 'base' rating.

Now, some people will then also add small bonuses and penalties to that base rating figure based on things like: Jockey, Barrier, Days since last start, Record at Track/Distance, Consistency etc etc. It's up to you if you want to do that or not. As I said before, whatever works is best. Anyway, once you have your base rating, then as I said in my earlier post, you simply subtract the weight the horse is going to carry over the minimum weight in today's race (remembering to take apprentice claims into account).

As far as pricing the runners go, I've actually gone into this a few times recently, but I'll mention it again if you wish. This is the method I use. I have a table which I use to convert each horse's rating to a score out of 100 based on how many kgs I have them behind the top rated horse. Here's the table I'm using:

Top rated horse = 100 points
0.5 kgs behind = 87 points
1.0 kgs behind = 75 points
1.5 kgs behind = 65 points
2.0 kgs behind = 57 points
2.5 kgs behind = 50 points
3.0 kgs behind = 45 points
3.5 kgs behind = 40 points
4.0 kgs behind = 36 points
4.5 kgs behind = 32 points
5.0 kgs behind = 28 points
5.5 kgs behind = 24 points
6.0 kgs behind = 20 points
6.5 kgs behind = 17 points
7.0 kgs behind = 14 points
7.5 kgs behind = 12 points
8.0 kgs behind = 10 points
8.5 kgs behind = 9 points
9.0 kgs behind = 8 points
9.5 kgs behind = 7 points
10+ kgs behind = 6 points
11+ kgs behind = 5 points
12+ kgs behind = 4 points
13+ kgs behind = 3 points
15+ kgs behind = 2 points
20+ kgs behind = 1 point

Now, using that example of Race 5 at Donald which I showed in my earlier post, here's what you'd do. First allot each horse points.

1 Rtg 59 = 0 kgs behind = 100 points
2 Rtg 59 = 0 kgs behind = 100 points
3 Rtg 48 = 11 kgs behind = 5 points
4 Rtg 43.5 = 15.5 kgs behind = 2 points
5 Rtg 34.5 = 24.5 kgs behind = 1 point
6 Rtg 53 = 6 kgs behind = 20 points
8 Rtg 46 = 13 kgs behind = 3 points
9 Rtg 45 = 14 kgs behind = 3 points
10 Rtg 54 = 5 kgs behind = 28 points
11 Rtg 31 = 28 kgs behind = 1 point

Now, you add up the points of all the runners and you get a total of 263. Next, divide 263 by each horse's score and do a bit of rounding up or down and you've got your price for each horse:

1 263/100 = $2.65
2 263/100 = $2.65
3 263/5 = $52.60
4 263/2 = $131.50
5 263/1 = $263.00
6 263/20 = $13.15
8 263/3 = $87.65
9 263/3 = $87.65
10 263/28 = $9.40
11 263/1 = $263.00

There you go. Hope all that helps in some small way.

That's great mate, cheers - the main point i'll take out of that is that there is no set way of doing it and we can adapt it to suit our own judgement

I'm still at school at the moment so probably won't be doing this all the time but its handy to know for later on down the track

Once again thanks mate

Happy Punting

Betsy