new math

[karlskorner]

Ranchwest;

This "new math" still confuses me. I don't know how you got 9 out of 12 races. Actually it was 7 out of 12. As I said I liked the card for yesterday (next to last day for CRC before GP). On a normal 10 race card I "average" 4-6 wins a day, so I guess 7 out of 12 falls in there somewhere.

Let me give you something to think about, as you mentioned that all handicapping is historical.

Your looking at a particular horse in the 8th race at a track you intend to wager at. The 10 lines of his PP's shows you what this horse has done, BUT, you have no idea who he raced against in those 10 lines of PP's, the jockeys, trainers, conditions of the race, surface etc. So you have no way to justify how he ran each of those last 10 races. Today he faces 8 other horses, each with the same historical background. So like most handicappers you start with the last race and maybe work down (Henry Knuck wrote he started from the bottom and worked up) and through whatever means you use to handicap, you settle on a particular horse to wager on. All based on incomplete historical information, and once this race is run it becomes history, never to run again.

Somebody named Goodwin once wrote that horses are not motorcycles (mechanical) and therefore will not run a race the same way twice (last time out 6f in 113.2, before that 112.2 etc).That 8th race your looking at is a "new" race and what happend in the past is just that, history.

Karl

[FortuneHunter]

karlskorner,

Did you just state the case that we are all nuts to handicap with the PP's?

Are we better off to go with intuition, intangibles, than speed figures and turntimes?

[ranchwest]

Karl,

My apologies for miscalculating your number of winners.

I did not say "all handicapping is historical".

What I said was, "Isn't all sound handicapping based significantly on historical statistics?" Maybe it would help to clarify if I stated that tendancies are the foundation of sound handicapping.

I certainly was not trying to imply that we should only statistically analyze a horse's past performances to come up with a winner.

You are absolutely right that each race is a new puzzle, with myriads of factors. We have to consider which factors are most significant for the race at hand.

You have stated that you use key races. You know that key races are a tendancy that can be relied upon as a piece to the race puzzle.

You are also absolutely right that we cannot expect a horse to be guaranteed to run according to his prior performances. For one thing, I've given about 20 reasons why a particular running time might be phoney, especially if someone thinks it is accurate to hundredths of a second. And, yes, yesterday was yesterday.

I look at tendancies for a variety of things and then try to piece the analyses of those tendancies together for a picture of the race at hand. I also consider anything else that might be available.

Shoot, sometimes some of the things that seem most ridiculous are the most useful. I've had success before studying jockey's mannerisms. That's certainly not in the past performances, but it is an historical tendancy. I don't usually go this sort of route, but if it works, hey, I'll use it.

I don't think I'm disagreeing with you, am I? If so, please explain.

[karlskorner]

Fortunehunter;

I did not mean to start this thread, I was trying to answer Ranchwest on another thread and pushed the wrong button.

However

I am not advocating you abandon the PP's, as they are basically all we have to work with, unfortunately the PP's do not answer 2 basic questions. How and Why (how did the horse get here and why is he in this race).

On other sections of this Board we discuss books and programs and not one of them is writen by a Breeder, Owner, Trainer or Vet. The books, programs, systems and information services we have discussed have one basic subliiminal sub title "I can make you rich". The authors, programers etc. are not sharing with the general public because they have a brotherly love for John Q Hanciapper.

It's the Breeders, Owners, Trainers and Vets, that put the horse on the track that you are about to wager on tomorrow. They are the backbone of this business and yet the general public ignores what they have done and what they are doing in tomorrow's race.

The How's and Why's are held in the tight grasp of the Breeders, Owners, Trainers and Vets. Those of us who believe that we are the core of Thoroughbred racing fail to realize that horse racing, Breeders, Owners, Trainers, Vets and Bookmakers where here long before the Frenchman came up with the idea of Pari-Mutual.

Karl

[FortuneHunter]

Thanks for your response Karlskorner.

It would be great to be part of the backstretch crowd on a major circuit. It would be great (I think) to go to the track in the morning when the work is being done, go to the track in the afternoon and watch the paddock, and watch replays and trip handicap in the evening. I think knowing each horse and trainer on the circuit would be invaluable.

I am beginning to believe the next best thing is race replays on DVD. I hope this might be available in the future. We have had a lot of discussion here lately on using internal fractions, pace/speed figs, lengths, etc. to handicap. Trip handicapping with state of the art video may be the best way to “see” trainer intent and form cycle. This would take several hours daily.

And finally, the most expedient way to help us figure out trainer intent and form cycle would be Full Chart comments in the PP’s. These comments are more detailed, usually a sentence, than the PP’s where the comments are a word or two. It would be great to have a professional trackman develop a comment sentence oriented toward trainer intent, form cycle that could be used in conjunction with the PP’s.

[smf]

karlscorner,

There IS a book that was written by someone who spent years on the backside and was a professional player for many years. His wife was a trainer. Steve Collison is his name, the book is 'Inside the Claiming Game.'

The book deals with racing (and wagering) as a business, not as a math quiz. Obviously most cappers like to think of racing as a math challenge of sorts, which opens the door for people who approach it as it is-- a business.

FH,

I'm not sure what part of NY you live but if the NYRA race replays are shown in your hometown, you're home free. Tape the races; You'll be able to nail down far better trip notes than a caller can, and soon get a grip on the efforts the runners gave. The fractions of the races w/become meaningless.

[Tom]

I believe Kelso Sturgeon was a jockey agent and he has written at least one book I know of - but I haven't read it.
I read one by Steve Collison and it was pretty good. I think Steve Davidowitz's book has a lot of insights lacking in other author's books.
But trainers I have talked to in real life truly amaze me - that they find the track every day. If I owned a horse, I would hire a box of rocks over some I know of at Finger Lakes. But then again, at Penn especially, there are some trainers that you just have to ignore the horse's recent form and bet on faith.

I think numerical analysis of races is probably the most valid generally, but the data we get to work with is just plain flawed and based on fiction too often. I have to laugh when people are clamouring for races timed in hundredths - what advantage is it to have such a precise time for the winner and a guess within 10-20 feet for the place horse's time? In another thread, we can't even agree on a beaten length.

I continued on with my trainer angle experiment after an 0-for-22 start and ended up with 3 for 50, with payoffs of $3.20, $7.80, and $9.40. Everyone of these tariners had shown at least a 20% win percentage on dirt or turf for over 100 races, and no negative stats to dilute the win%. Furthermore, each trainer showed a positive ROI. So why a measely 6% result?

Or, you can go to Yahoo and rent a system for $50,000 that is guarenteed to make you money ~G~


Tom

[GameTheory]

Tom --

I don't know what your experiment entails, but some trainers gear up for particular meets and are mediocre the rest of the year. If you are looking at overall stats that might be a factor.

Even more likely is that these trainers don't like to win at short odds because they're bettors too. If a trainer shows a positive ROI overall (not just for a particular sub-pattern), then it is probably a bad idea to bet his horses when they look their best and are going off at less than 3-1. That is just about the time they will usually run a "mysteriously" terrible race, so they can come back next time and win at 6-1 or greater. If you make a list of a trainer's starts and their final odds, and you notice the short price horses don't do as well as they should, and the longer priced ones do better than they should, that is a good indicator that you can't trust the PPs in the way you would normally expect. Merely by looking at the ROI data next to the trainer's record in the more comprehesive PPs (like the BRIS Ultimate PPs), you can easily compute the average odds of their winning horses.

Big-time trainers like D. Wayne Lukas or Jerry Hollendorfer, on the other hand, could care less what odds they win at, because they don't get any of their income from betting.