Preparing to Dive into Figure Making

[CBedo]

I think I'm going to take the leap and begin to make some of my own figures. As I prepare to take this journey, I was hoping that those of you who are already doing it, might be able to give me some tips and ideas, or warn me of potential pitfalls, that I might not have thought or read about here at PA or in other popular literature about figure making.

Thanks for everything,

CBedo

[njcurveball]

I try not to answer these questions with specific software, but I cannot get around it in this case.

HDW data with the HTR program offers you figures for every horses race at $120 a month. If you spend 12 hours doing figs for just one track a month you are basically paying yourself $10 an hour for a very tedious and complicated job.

There are many other figures, past performances, etc. in the program. Just the Cramer Speed figures alone would be worth it to me to save the time. You also are competing against many companies with processes already in place to accurately adjust for track variant, track to track, distance, class, etc.

I use to make figures for just ONE harness track "back in the day". It took me at least an hour per card and with 20 to 25 cards per month, I would have gladly paid someone $5 per hour to do it.


Jim

[sjk]

Many here will tell you that you cannot make good figures using an automated process. I have had good luck doing so through the years.

One downside is that once you get started you have to keep it up or your time investment is lost. Unless you have figures for all of the races it is not especially useful to have figures for some of the races.

[Greyfox]

Make your own figures.
Yes it takes time. Time to build the program that will make them.
In the long run it's worth it. Hundreds of people have access to the commercial programs. The only way to get an edge is to develop your own figures. Of course you can develop your own figures from commercial programs too. However, you do it, your own figures will give YOU the edge, that others don't have.
Once, you've developed the program, it doesn't take that long to put them in and analyze a card.

[john del riccio]

Make your own figures.
Yes it takes time. Time to build the program that will make them.
In the long run it's worth it. Hundreds of people have access to the commercial programs. The only way to get an edge is to develop your own figures. Of course you can develop your own figures from commercial programs too. However, you do it, your own figures will give YOU the edge, that others don't have.
Once, you've developed the program, it doesn't take that long to put them in and analyze a card.

I will gladly talk to you privately about this if you are interested, PM or email me & I will share what I have learned from my time doing this. One thing I will say openly is that I WISH I could clone me. This way the guy making the figs
can be seperated from the guy handicapping when using them. It can sometimes be a challenge to get the 2nd wind to focus on handicapping once the figure making process is complete.

John

[njcurveball]

However, you do it, your own figures will give YOU the edge, that others don't have.
Once, you've developed the program, it doesn't take that long to put them in and analyze a card.

That is certainly the "shiny" side of the coin. I recently had a wonderfully profitable Atlantic City meet (6 days of turf racing). Making my own figures, I would have had to spend countless hours preparing for it with at least 5 tracks, but really many many more.

I could never see myself making a time investment on this for a minimal return playing multiple tracks. I could see someone doing it at a year round circuit like Mountaineer or Penn National and handling shippers more from experience than figures.

You do make a rather LARGE assumption that the figures will be key in making profits. Even if they are not as good as the ones already out there.

Someone like Jim Cramer has been doing this for many many years. I am getting his services for something like $5 an hour, plus much more (past performances, charts, sartin style figures, pedigree stats, trainer stats, etc.). It's a bargain even for someone who doesn't play every day.

Jim

[GameTheory]

Make your own figures.
Yes it takes time. Time to build the program that will make them.
In the long run it's worth it. Hundreds of people have access to the commercial programs. The only way to get an edge is to develop your own figures.This last sentence is absolutely not true. What you do with the figures is vastly more important than where they come from.

Of course you can develop your own figures from commercial programs too. However, you do it, your own figures will give YOU the edge, that others don't have.Or, maybe they won't. Making figures doesn't automatically give you any edge at all -- your figures could suck, or be too similar to others, etc. In my opinion, the path of making figures from scratch to help you become a winner in this day & age is *the* steepest and toughest way to go. That doesn't mean it is not possible, but boy there sure are easier ways. If you insist on being a pace & speed figure guy, I'd take one of the better programs like HTR and spend your time learning how to USE those figures (once you make your own, you've still got to learn how to capitalize on them) or take those existing figures and tweak them to make them your own -- isn't that how the legendary CJ pace figures are made?

Or, just take the road-less traveled -- spend all your time studying trainer handicapping or some other specialty and the path to becoming a winning is a whole lot shorter...

[rrbauer]

Understand the basis for figures and how they're made. Understand the difference between pace-determined figures and those based on final time only. Beyond that just buy and learn to use what's already available on the marketplace. Going beyond the figures (as is suggested by many posts on this thread) is where the money is made.

[CBedo]

Thanks for all the replies. Honestly, I'm not dis-satisfied with the figures that I use now, and I don't expect to gain a bigger edge just by making a "better" number. I think (hope) that by making them myself, I'll gain a more thorough understanding of some of the nuances of how I use the figuers now, which could give me a bigger edge. Also, I've been thinking quite a bit about distributions of fractional and final times, and was thinking that having a better feel for the daily variant and track speed might help me unmuddle some of the mess in my head (I guess I could just use some of the methods espoused here on PA to back into a daily variant, but that's a backup plan for now).

Thanks again.

[highnote]

Before I started making my own figures I read every book I could find about figure making. Beyer, Quirin, Quinn and Carroll were my favorites. Then I borrowed a little from each of them -- especially Carroll -- and made my own.

I can still remember 2 good plays that I went out of my way to make based on my figures. One was a good allowance horse on the Southern California circuit and the other was L'Carriere who ran second to Cigar in the Breeders' Cup Classic at Belmont.

I spotted the SoCal horse one late Sunday afternoon and drove 20+ miles to an OTB and got the bet down at the last second and won at 3-1.

I bet L'Carriere in the BC Classic in the exacta with Cigar. L'Carriere was something like 50-1 and had a huge pace number.

So it's definately worth it to make your own and then cherry pick your spots and crush the bet. But it is time consuming. It should be easier now. I used to parse chart files that were in text format and hand enter the data into some speed figure software and database I wrote. Now you can buy comma-delimited data for a reasonable price. However, when you make figures for lots of circuits it's possible your quality will go down, but you may make it up in volume of plays.

I only made 2 circuits -- New York and Southern California -- but I got to know those circuits really well to the point where it was easy to spot when my figures were wrong and when they were right and pointing to a big overlay.

Once I started raising a family there was not enough time to pursue racing and make figures by hand. So I use other people's figures now and am happy that there are alternatives.

Good luck.

[pandy]

I think I'm going to take the leap and begin to make some of my own figures. As I prepare to take this journey, I was hoping that those of you who are already doing it, might be able to give me some tips and ideas, or warn me of potential pitfalls, that I might not have thought or read about here at PA or in other popular literature about figure making.

Thanks for everything,

CBedo

I did figures that were published in Racing Action for 5 years, and then on my own publications for another few years, and they also ran in the NYRA track program for a while before Equibase came up with figures. To me, the key is the parallel time charts, they take a while to create but the more accurate they are, the better. I used Horse St Pars and they were excellent.

[Greyfox]

This last sentence is absolutely not true. ..

The above sentence is absolutely true. There are many paths.
Oh! ye'll take the high road and
I'll take the low road,
And I'll be in Scotland afore ye; ;)

[njcurveball]

I used Horse St Pars and they were excellent.


I would tend to agree with here, but aren't you simply cutting the cake with a different knife? If everyone is using the same PARS how will their figures be different? This game doesn't pay you for your sweat and tears.

Frankly, I would just buy the HSH program and downloads and use the pars with the creator, rather than try to do out do his work. And actually I did use it for a while and it is a great program. Well worth the price and monthly download fees, especially compared to spending countless hours and dollars trying to outdo the creator.

[Greyfox]

I And actually I did use it for a while and it is a great program. Well worth the price and monthly download fees, especially compared to spending countless hours and dollars trying to outdo the creator.

A good program that you used for a while.
The underlying message is that you've found something even better.
Care to share the epiphany with us?

(The creator? You're conceding that you can't improve on another man's genius. I'm not willing to believe that, yet.)

[njcurveball]

A good program that you used for a while.
The underlying message is that you've found something even better.


Better is a very relative term, which is better a Chevy or a Ford? For my individual style, HTR fits very well. They have very good support and probably the deciding factor was the core group of users of HTR are very supportive of each other, respond with class and consideration on their forum, and the mutual goal of the group is success.

Certainly not an epiphany as I have covered many bases from writing my own Energy! program to reproduce Sartin's calculations, variant programs, track model programs, race simulator programs, etc. etc. It gets tiring after a while spending valuable time on doing all of the figures and then trying not to fall in love with your own numbers when your instincts know the horse is dead on the board and will run up the track.

Perhaps the most liberating thing about purchasing from others is that you do not have to fall in love with their numbers and justify why they are right, even when the tote board and results show they are stone wrong.

One of the great things about HTR is that the automatic pace-line selection is the best I have seen and that frees me from spending 20 to 40 minutes per card selecting pace-lines. It also allows me to disagree with the program's choice for pace-line and not fall in love with a horse ranked high in figures who has no shot.

The game is not about having the best numbers (horrors, the crowd throws tomatoes and eggs! :rolleyes: ). The game is about a consistent approach that has proven to win over time and does not vary with the emotion of winning or losing.

If you are like me, after a losing day you do not even want to look back on the races, let alone try to make figures and not give "extra credit" to the horses you bet and lost big money on.

What a time liberating thing it is to have a monthly download where you can skip a week, rebuild all of your models and processes, and handicap the next day as if you didn't miss a race. :ThmbUp:

Jim

[Greyfox]

If you are like me, after a losing day you do not even want to look back on the races, let alone try to make figures and not give "extra credit" to the horses you bet and lost big money on.


Jim


Thank you for your well thought out response. I'm glad you are getting rewarded for your investments.
The only part that gave me pause for concern was above.
If I have a losing day, I want to know why. I redo my figures, and try and find out what I missed. Of course, there is more to making a profit at this game than blindly following numbers. In my experience, in sports, and horse racing, I can learn more from a loss than I can from a win.
If I have any advice for the man that is diving into his own figure making, it is find out why the figs don't always work. Then, recognize situations where other factors will take precedence.

[proximity]

Many here will tell you that you cannot make good figures using an automated process. I have had good luck doing so through the years.

One downside is that once you get started you have to keep it up or your time investment is lost. Unless you have figures for all of the races it is not especially useful to have figures for some of the races.



sjk, obviously with your numbers, someone is "minding the store." i mean you're noticing stuff like sudden changes in the relationship between 5 and 5 1/2 furlong races at ind.

btw, if i remember correctly from your posts, you (too) were treating polytrack as dirt with good results right?

[Overlay]

Has the computerization of figures nullified Andy Beyer's comment about a fifth of Jack Daniels being a necessary ingredient in the figure-making process? ;)

[sjk]

sjk, obviously with your numbers, someone is "minding the store." i mean you're noticing stuff like sudden changes in the relationship between 5 and 5 1/2 furlong races at ind.

btw, if i remember correctly from your posts, you (too) were treating polytrack as dirt with good results right?


I had not noticed the change at Ind although I can see that you are correct that a change has taken place this year.

I have enough checks that I have picked up on similar changes at other tracks in the past. Some of my figure comes from race-specific data that would partially correct the problem. Over time my pars would update.

No question that if I were I betting Ind this would compromise my results.

I will admit to getting a bit slipshod as relates to tracks that I have no intention of playing (and perhaps otherwise) through the years.

If you make your own numbers it gets tedious dealing with issues such as (from yesterday) LNN did a poor job of recording fractional times; the 7 1/2f and 5 1/2f races at ASD appear to be out of whack with each other.

There is zero chance that I will ever bet either of these tracks but the issues have to be dealt with and this takes time.

Now I will need to decide whether to take the time to adjust the IND pars (I imagine I will) despite the fact that I am quite unlikely to play their races.

I continue to have good results mixing dirt and poly.