Positional Pace

[Tom]

Anyone incorporate a horse's position in the field?
Joe Colville wrote some things a while ago about positional handciapping, and the "Hat" actually used position in the match up. The idea was a horse likes to be in a certain place to run his best.
I think we talked about this a year or two ago, but with so many new posters here, I thought I would bring it up again to maybe get som enew thoughts.
BTW...Anyone know where I can get Colville's essays?

[so.cal.fan]

Sounds a lot like Jim Cramer's Running Style/Position method.
He has a formula for judging a horses running style and you take the early fractional times to place them together.

[TonyK@HSH]

Originally posted by Tom
Anyone incorporate a horse's position in the field?
Joe Colville wrote some things a while ago about positional handciapping, and the "Hat" actually used position in the match up. The idea was a horse likes to be in a certain place to run his best.
I think we talked about this a year or two ago, but with so many new posters here, I thought I would bring it up again to maybe get som enew thoughts.
BTW...Anyone know where I can get Colville's essays?

Tom,

I feel that position is more important than 'pace numbers' in determining who will get to the front. The Quirin style speed points work well for me. I find them more reliable than velocity or pace numbers.

Oh yea, there is one more spot where position is important. The finish line!

Tony

[DJofSD]

If I'm having difficfulty ferritting out the true contenders or I'm looking deeper into a race, I'll look at the position numbers.

I do this from this perspective. Most horses like to be in the middle of the herd. It's safer there. Some just like to be in front while others are more comfortable at the back of the pack.

I look at the running position to get my own estimation of 'visual running style'.

I then compare the visual style to what the energy distribution of both the horse and the race.

If the race looks to be early but his running style and/or energy distribution doesn't synch up, he's out as a contender for the win.

DJofSD

[RXB]

My feeling is: use times and position both. If they contradict each other... well, there'll be another race in just a few minutes.

Here's one trap that I fell into that I hope no one else does-- believing that second call position/times are far more useful than the first call. It's not true. Horses establish their running positions in the FIRST TWO FURLONGS (and that's as true for routes as it is for sprints). Now, it's important to know beforehand when a horse figures to make a dominating advance (or a hasty retreat) between the 2f marker and the pace call, but most of the runners will stay fairly close to their first call position. So you'd better have a good idea as to how the race will shake out in the opening quarter.

[cj]

I use pace position in conjunction with a pace number. I like to combine pace and speed numbers, ala Quirin, but the farther back in the field a horse is at the first call, the less the weighting of the pace number. (I also use field size, so leading a 10 horse field is better than leading a 5 horse field.)

[andicap]

I don't think Tom is referring to "running styles" as much as
where the horse is physically located compared to other horses around him.
Colville's ideas, which he wrote about for the C&O newsletter a few years back, are based on the theory that horses run better when they are in the clear rather then between horses.
How many times have we seen a horse on the rail seem to be intimidated by the horse running outside him in deep stretch?

I have not studied Colville's ideas, but I believe THAT is the subject of this thread, not Brohamer-type running style handicapping.

[cj]

Andi,

I've heard that theory about the inside horses before, but in reality, it just isn't true. For the life of me I can't remember where I read a pretty in depth study on this, but the inside horse in a duel faired better over the long run than the outside horse in a duel more times than not. Probably more to do with saving ground than anything.

I'm sure there are some horses who get intimidated when inside, but its not something I'd want to try to track. Also, when these horses are in the preferred outside position, they are now losing ground. Top it off with the difficulty of predicting where a jock can/will position a horse, and I'm just not sure where the value will be.

[levinmpa]

I'm sure many of you have read the books by William Scott. He came up with a PCR number that added up horse's position at the 2nd call and final call in all races, adjusted by class and then the total field size would be divided by this number. If a horse had numbers like:

Horse A: 21 38 63
Horse B: 56 27 71

in the the example of horse A it meant that the 2nd call position in all races added up to 21, the final call positions added up to 38 and the field size of all races added up to 63. When all entrants are compared, it's easy to see who likes to run early and who is more likely to run late. In the example above horse A is more of an early type while horse B is more of a late type. There are other nuances to it, but it's really helpful in getting a positional picture of the pace. Michael Pizzola has this feature in Master Magician.

[mountainman]

read an item once by mike watchmaker that concurred with a previous post in this thread. watchmaker recommended using strictly the first 2 furlongs of both routes and sprints to construct track profiles and to detect temporary(running style) bias.

in reference to the issue that engendered this thread , brohammer himself allows that pace analysis is more predictive than pace figures. assume he was stressing the need to forecast the race flow through a low tech look at running styles .several services attempt to meld running style and pace figures by affixing a ranking to the horses adjudged running style..such as f1...(frontrunner with fastest fractional ranking in field) s3(sustained closer with third fastest fractional times in race). i think the idea was that when a horse's ranking(fractions) projects him closer to the front than normal(ie a kicker sitting third or a stalker on the lead),the horse has a great chance.

[Tom]

I am talking about a horse who say, in 10 races, he has 5 good ones, and in those 5 races, his first call postions are"
3,3,4,4,3

Today, F-1 speed, velcoity, whatever, put him in no better than fifth postion early, farther back than he wants to be. He can be eliminated on postional match up. I have seen this phenominon before-I bet a horse who likes to run 3rd and close late, but today his is further back and never makes a stretch run. Next week he comes back, breaks third, and runs another good race.

Abd the reverse, a horse runs 5 by 1.75 lengths at the FCP. Which better defines his running style- a closer becasue he is 5th out of 7, or an early presser becase he is withing two lengths early?
I think this postional stuff maybe the key to when the velocity parts of the pace equation mean the most. The Hat used postion as an integral part of the match up, but alas, I was never able to comprehend it.