midnight
11-13-2004, 09:02 PM
These two pencil and paper methods are sold by Jon Worth (aka John Farnsworth). While my phone conversations with the man do lead me to believe that he's sincere in his beliefs, and he certainly didn't try to hard-sell me anything, the results with each were not impressive.
I tested each of these with a database of the entire 2002 year of all United States tracks with an average daily handle of $500,000 or more, except the Canadian tracks.. To give you an idea of where the line is drawn, that includes such as Prairie Meadows and Great Lakes, and excludes such as Sunland, Portland Meadows, and Fairmount.
I had Ken Massa program some of the factors that are needed for these methods into my own copy of HTR.
I can't outline what criteria the methods use since that would be copyright infringement, but they sound like ideas and concepts that were popular in the 60's and 70's.
Show a Profit had the following results for maiden non 2yo (as specified by the method:
Plays: 4807
Show%: 59.6%
ROI: 0.88 (12% loss on a dollar)
Similar results for 2yo races and for non maidens.
Place to Win had the following results when played as recommended:
Plays: 2623
Place%: 51.4
ROI: 0.91
Plays: 2623
Show%: 65.5
ROI: 0.90
For perspective, here's what happened if you played every post time favorite in every race to show:
Plays: 50332
Show%: 67.4%
ROI: 0.89
Oddly, playing the same post time favorites to win only had an ROI of 0.82.
I paid about $80 for both methods, which included some newsletters and shipping and handling. I'm not unhappy with the purchase, because I learn something from every handicapping book or method, and one of the new ratings has other uses. But they're a far cry from making money, although I was able to tweak them a little with other HTR factors and get the ROI's up to close to even money.
There just aren't any black boxes that use information that is easily available to the public, imo.
I tested each of these with a database of the entire 2002 year of all United States tracks with an average daily handle of $500,000 or more, except the Canadian tracks.. To give you an idea of where the line is drawn, that includes such as Prairie Meadows and Great Lakes, and excludes such as Sunland, Portland Meadows, and Fairmount.
I had Ken Massa program some of the factors that are needed for these methods into my own copy of HTR.
I can't outline what criteria the methods use since that would be copyright infringement, but they sound like ideas and concepts that were popular in the 60's and 70's.
Show a Profit had the following results for maiden non 2yo (as specified by the method:
Plays: 4807
Show%: 59.6%
ROI: 0.88 (12% loss on a dollar)
Similar results for 2yo races and for non maidens.
Place to Win had the following results when played as recommended:
Plays: 2623
Place%: 51.4
ROI: 0.91
Plays: 2623
Show%: 65.5
ROI: 0.90
For perspective, here's what happened if you played every post time favorite in every race to show:
Plays: 50332
Show%: 67.4%
ROI: 0.89
Oddly, playing the same post time favorites to win only had an ROI of 0.82.
I paid about $80 for both methods, which included some newsletters and shipping and handling. I'm not unhappy with the purchase, because I learn something from every handicapping book or method, and one of the new ratings has other uses. But they're a far cry from making money, although I was able to tweak them a little with other HTR factors and get the ROI's up to close to even money.
There just aren't any black boxes that use information that is easily available to the public, imo.