Layoff Query for dB users

[andicap]

Not sure if you can query this, but anyone with a database:

1. Do horses coming off of layoffs (45 days? 90 days? 6 month periods?) win or lose more than their fair share of races?

2. Does it differ by age?My theory is that 3 yr olds win more often (on an IV basis) than older horses off of layoffs. Perhaps this could be studied be breaking out maiden races, claimers restricted to 3 yr olds and NW1 from all other races.

I would presume that horses off decent layoffs (3 months or 6 months, definitely a year) would fare worse than horses who have raced recently. But in looking at trainer stats I see a lot of OK results for trainers in the layoff categories.

[Tom]

andycap,

Here is the first part of the query-willdo the breakdown by age, sex, etc over the weekend. Thjis is from 41,000+ races at all tracks over the last year.

NH NW IV
<30 254,018 73.1% 31,067 74.4% 1.02
30-44 41,029 11.8% 5,206 12.5% 1.06
45-59 13,345 3.8% 1,629 3.9% 1.02
60-119 14,989 4.3% 1,659 4.0% 0.92
>120 24,019 6.9% 2,193 5.3% 0.76
Total 347,400 100.0% 41,754 100.0% 1.00

Looks like up to 60 days, layoffs aren't a factor, and even up to 120 days, it's no big negative.

[hdcper]

Tom,

Would you mind extending that test to include ROI, I believe you will find that the long time layoff win percentage might be compensated by the average payoff.

At least that is what I found several years ago,

Hdcper

[hurrikane]

I believe it is also compounded by the trainer, distance and surface.
Don't work to hard Tom. :D

[Jaguar]

Andicap,

for many years 80% of all winners had raced within 15 days.

Since around 1997, and the flood of chemical enhancements,
that layoff statistic was blown to hell along with old-fashioned form-cycle charts- which are now only useful as tinder for lighting camp fires.

Layoffs are now irrelevant, and we have to have owner-trainer-jockey stats to divine the trainer's intentions.

Since money rules racing, and since the better tracks(and even lesser tracks such as Delaware Park- which has fat purses now that the slots revenue is pouring in from the ladies who love those lousy machines) are offering frequent $30 and $40 thousand dollar purses, the trainers are really focused on grabbing a piece of those purses any way they can.

That's just racing today. If we can figure out the trainer's next move, we can get the money. Happily, sometimes those patterns jump right off the computer screen. Otherwise, I'd have to go back to the hog farm in North Carolina, where it's about 100 degrees fahrenheit, this time of year- and I never did like hot weather.

All the best,

Jaguar

[andicap]

Originally posted by Tom
andycap,

Here is the first part of the query-willdo the breakdown by age, sex, etc over the weekend. Thjis is from 41,000+ races at all tracks over the last year.

NH NW IV
<30 254,018 73.1% 31,067 74.4% 1.02
30-44 41,029 11.8% 5,206 12.5% 1.06
45-59 13,345 3.8% 1,629 3.9% 1.02
60-119 14,989 4.3% 1,659 4.0% 0.92
>120 24,019 6.9% 2,193 5.3% 0.76
Total 347,400 100.0% 41,754 100.0% 1.00

Looks like up to 60 days, layoffs aren't a factor, and even up to 120 days, it's no big negative.

Tom, I'm curious about going six months out, more than 180 days. Thanks!
I'm presuming that 3 and 4 yr olds coming back from winter layoffs run better than older horses coming back from injuries.

[BillW]

Andi,

Here's the every damn thing I got report :)
It's just a report I have handy, it may or may not help. It represents all classes, all tracks, dry dirt only.




Couple notes:

1) ROI is net based on $2.00 bet
2) each category is exclusive of the previous (i.e. <120 is 90 thru 119)
3) this represents 14436 races
4) Place and show ROI is cumulative i.e. a winner contributes to win, place, and show ROI
5) Days since == 0 represent first time starters.
6) The ave ROI seems a little light (-$0.501) I know there are 13 $0.00 win mutuels in the database, possibly some other inaccuracies in the data exist so caveat emptor :)


Wins Place Show
Strt # IV ROI # IV ROI # IV ROI
Days Since Last
0 6335 468 0.63 -0.53 441 0.59 -0.72 527 0.71 -0.78
<6 405 41 0.86 -0.84 36 0.75 -0.63 54 1.13 -0.65
<11 9333 1113 1.01 -0.51 1152 1.05 -0.55 1162 1.06 -0.52
<15 21258 2637 1.05 -0.52 2711 1.08 -0.48 2759 1.10 -0.48
<22 31102 3835 1.04 -0.52 3907 1.07 -0.50 3891 1.06 -0.49
<31 22949 2883 1.06 -0.47 2811 1.04 -0.50 2744 1.01 -0.52
<45 13447 1721 1.08 -0.40 1614 1.02 -0.44 1586 1.00 -0.45
<90 8820 1009 0.97 -0.33 976 0.94 -0.47 958 0.92 -0.51
<120 1914 179 0.79 -0.57 171 0.76 -0.51 174 0.77 -0.63
<150 1235 104 0.71 -0.79 111 0.76 -0.68 123 0.85 -0.61
<=180 1069 86 0.68 -0.79 108 0.86 -0.52 80 0.64 -0.72
>180 4248 358 0.71 -0.76 357 0.71 -0.79 329 0.66 -0.87

Bill

[Tom]

Originally posted by hurrikane
I believe it is also compounded by the trainer, distance and surface.
Don't work to hard Tom. :D

Not to worry. <G>
I will try to do some refinig today, age, sex, more "days" catagories......

[Tom]

Here is my contribution, for all races, surfaces, etc.
I'll break it down more this week.
27,000 races.

[Tom]

It says I did, but it dosen't show up.
Don't understand these boards.
It was a txt file and the message says it is there, but where?

[Tom]

"All Races, "

Days Away NH NW %H %W I.V. Return Bet Loss R.O.I
FTS 16455 1413 0.0703 0.0521 0.74 " $24,206.20 " " $32,910.00 " " $(8,703.80)" 0.74
2 8 1 0.0000 0.0000 1.08 $9.00 $16.00 $(7.00) 0.56
3 67 9 0.0003 0.0003 1.16 $97.20 $134.00 $(36.80) 0.73
4 192 28 0.0008 0.0010 1.26 $346.60 $384.00 $(37.40) 0.90
5 990 107 0.0042 0.0039 0.93 " $1,721.20 " " $1,980.00 " $(258.80) 0.87
6 2614 299 0.0112 0.0110 0.99 " $3,814.40 " " $5,228.00 " " $(1,413.60)" 0.73
7 6574 793 0.0281 0.0293 1.04 " $9,833.20 " " $13,148.00 " " $(3,314.80)" 0.75
8-14 52092 6247 0.2226 0.2305 1.04 " $76,305.00 " " $104,184.00 " " $(27,879.00)" 0.73
15-30 65535 7995 0.2801 0.2950 1.05 " $99,039.00 " " $131,070.00 " " $(32,031.00)" 0.76
31-60 50738 6399 0.2169 0.2361 1.09 " $79,529.60 " " $101,476.00 " " $(21,946.40)" 0.78
61-120 14654 1612 0.0626 0.0595 0.95 " $22,899.20 " " $29,308.00 " " $(6,408.80)" 0.78
121-180 8467 768 0.0362 0.0283 0.78 " $11,335.80 " " $16,934.00 " " $(5,598.20)" 0.67
181-240 7219 702 0.0309 0.0259 0.84 " $9,881.60 " " $14,438.00 " " $(4,556.40)" 0.68
241-365 6208 570 0.0265 0.0210 0.79 " $7,742.40 " " $12,416.00 " " $(4,673.60)" 0.62
>365 2162 158 0.0092 0.0058 0.63 " $1,901.00 " " $4,324.00 " " $(2,423.00)" 0.44
233975 27101 1.0000 1.0000 " $348,661.40 "


I give up.....email me if you want a copy. This isn't going to post no matter what I do.

[Rpd]

Tom,

I think that PA once said sometimes attachments are blocked (virus software?) and he has to manually do it.

Stephen

[Show Me the Wire]

Yes racing has changed with regards to injuries and 120 day layoffs may not be as big a negative as it use to be. Equine medical treatment has advanced at a rapid rate over the last ten or so years and I am not talking about illicit drug usage. Medical advances allow horses to recover quicker resulting in the horse being able to train more effectively for their comeback race and thus they are fitter the first time they run after an extended layoff.

In the past the horse needed more time to recuperate after its injury or setback and its training was limited resulting in a less fit horse participating in the first race back. Additionally, the first race was used as conditioning and to test the horse's soundness.

I guess what I am saying trainers now are able to utilize the layoff period time better resulting in fitter and sounder horses returning to racing. Since the returning horses are possibly fitter they may have an advantage over the recently raced horse.

Regards,
Show Me the Wire

Seek the simple in the complex.

[andicap]

Thanks Tom for all of your work here.


:D

[PaceAdvantage]

Attachment should be OK now...

[Tom]

Here is the data for Dirt Sprints - 23,200 Races.

[andicap]

Tom,
u da man!

Very very interesting. Can't wait to see the other results before making any tentative hypotheses.

Remember most "expert" literature on this subject says sprinters do better off a layoff than routers.

[Tom]

The attached is a list of all trainers I found in my db that won with a horse coming back after more than 300 days off, by trainer.
The "nwin" column is the payoff, rounded to the nearest dollar. Interesting that some trainers have done this more than once, and even more interesting the low prices many of these paid.
The data is for dirt sprints only.
Workin on dirt routes next. This is fun. After all those hours of misery feeding this damn thing, it is finally starting to pay off, research-wise anyways.

[Tom]

This is a list of FTS winners, by trainer, all distances/surfaces.
The nwin column is the dollar pay-out. The D/S column is the distance/surface 1=dirt sprint 2=dirt routes 3=turf sprint 4=turf route

Note Bob Baffert, normally associated with young horses, has 12 FTS winners, and 7 of them paid over $10.

[andicap]

Not to complain, Tom, but there was nothing attached.:confused:

[Tom]

Originally posted by andicap
Not to complain, Tom, but there was nothing attached.:confused:

I think PA has to put them up. The last ones I did wouldn't appear, then later on, there they were. If they don't go up later, I'll email them to you.

[Tom]

Here is a study of layoffs for Turf routes andicap asked about a while ago. No cash count today, so I did this.

[Foolish Pleasure]

Chalk coming off >180 days roughly lose twice the take, they are amongst the worst bet in modern racing.

If most of the queries in this thread use animals off at >7/2, the numbers will improve quite a bit.

[so.cal.fan]

I would be interested to know if layoffs win more often in the past 10 years than before.
Many horsemen I know, think that Clenbuterol has enabled trainers to train horses up to races much better, and they think they win off layoffs more. I tend to agree, but could be totally wrong.......as I have no stats.
I bet distance races, and in past years, I would never bet a layoff unless it was trained by a few certain trainers AND had 7f. or longer works leading up to return.
In the past several years......this NO LONGER APPLIES.
Most of the top trainers win with layoffs, especially on turf.
At least....that is what I believe to be the case.
I don't use computers for any type of handicapping, rely on my
somewhat "aging" memory and a few notes. I have paid attention to certain handicapping books that have used computer studies, but are they reliable?