Hong Kong Racing Questions

[trying2win]

I've got the live video on for the late night/early morning racing card for Hong Kong.

Got a few questions about Hong Kong racing.

1. How come North American tracks haven't got the classy race order bar of the horses, at the bottom of a video screen that Hong Kong does? It appears to change automatically during the running of a Hong Kong race for about the first 6 to 8 horses. In North America, one has to wait awhile until someone figures out the order of the first 4 horses shortly after the start, then there are other delays till someone keys in the order later in the race.

2. How come Hong Kong race information is so skimpy in the past performance programs they sell in North America?

3. I'm not betting the Hong Kong races on this late night/early morning card...just watching some races on the live video. Does anyone at Pace Advantage bet the Hong Kong races through their ADW? Just curious.

3. Is that turf on the Hong Kong race surface at the Sha Tin Racecourse really artificial like someone mentioned here at Pace Advantage awhile ago, or was the poster just kidding?

4. How come I couldn't get the Hong Kong races on using Windows Explorer? I
changed the track code from another track running a late night/early schedule to the Hong Kong code which is 'hong_kong' in the WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER (actually the quotation marks are left off while changing the track code) Once I changed to the Firefox browser, it was easy to get the live video on for the Hong Kong races.

[Gallop58]

Sorry no answers for you, but I thought I'd tag on another HK question....

They publish horse weight 2 days out and race day weight. Has anyone seen any studies or handicapping tools that utilize this information?

Regarding your Q1: I would guess they are using transponder technology similar to Trakus so you get auto updates. I seem to recall hk and Aus using a system with multiple racecourse sensors/detectors. most NA tracks still use the live person race charter....

[robert99]

http://www.hkjc.com/english/hrc/hindex.asp

has more info for free than any I know. Horse body weights, track conditions, penetrometer readings, standard times, speed maps, full horse and race form etc etc.

Hong Kong is far richer as regards racing than most and they push the product quality hard. Elsewhere it is more a case of take it or leave it.

Sha Tin has an outer turf track and an inner AW track

http://www.sha-tin.com/courses.html

I have studied the effect of varying horse body weights and can understand why HK handicappers won't bet without them.

[juanepstein]

sha-tin has an all weather training course and a strathayr turf course.

http://www.strathayr.com.au/html/turf/race.htm


and i believe only canadians can bet on hong kong in north america.

[46zilzal]

They no longer publish it, but their charts USED to be great for anyone putting in the time to accurately evaluate the horse's relative positions at the 4 calls (their past performances to not do this). They used to publish a photograph at each call so that you could work out the pace and the beaten lengths. A few hardworking enterprising fellows used this to big advantage until they stopped publishing the results that way.

[juanepstein]

They no longer publish it, but their charts USED to be great for anyone putting in the time to accurately evaluate the horse's relative positions at the 4 calls (their past performances to not do this). They used to publish a photograph at each call so that you could work out the pace and the beaten lengths. A few hardworking enterprising fellows used this to big advantage until they stopped publishing the results that way.

belive this is what your talking about. looks like its still up.

HK racing is top notch. always loved how they camera in on a horse in the post parade for about 2 minutes and talk about that horse.

http://www.hkjc.com/english/racing/Results.asp

[alhattab]

Much of the reason PPs are so scant there, and in Europe, is because there is much less racing. Thus the people that want the info. can either read the charts or can watch the races and construct pps in their minds relatively easily, and remember them. Plus nobody ships in so there are no "foreigners". We need the info here because it is a full-time job to review charts and replays given all the racing, shippers, etc. The casual players have the info. they need in the pps and through the analysis that is provided in the popular press.

[46zilzal]

Much of the reason PPs are so scant there, and in Europe, is because there is much less racing. .
LESS racing? I was just in Europe and not only were several large steeplechase meets going, but point to points, novice meets. The charts in the Racing Post weekend edition went on for about 25 pages. Less racing?

Many had fields of 20-25 horses too.

[BombsAway Bob]

sha-tin has an all weather training course and a strathayr turf course.

http://www.strathayr.com.au/html/turf/race.htm


and i believe only canadians can bet on hong kong in north america.
I'm not positive, Juan, but I think FOXWOODS Racebook just started carrying the Hong Kong races...

[Gallop58]

Rober99 Re: "I have studied the effect of varying horse body weights and can understand why HK handicappers won't bet without them."

Could you please expand upon that? I have instinctively felt that horse weight would be a significant factor to catch impending form reversals, but haven't studied it in detail.

[robert99]

Rober99 Re: "I have studied the effect of varying horse body weights and can understand why HK handicappers won't bet without them."

Could you please expand upon that? I have instinctively felt that horse weight would be a significant factor to catch impending form reversals, but haven't studied it in detail.

Gallop58,

Extra body weight can mean excess fat; growth providing more power or no growth but fat has been replaced by muscle. Less weight can mean the opposite but also a condition when the horse goes off its feed and loses interest. In a handicap or stakes race the horse as mechanical power production unit travels in accord with its total useful body weight plus its imposed weight. Past performance of horses of that class and age tell you what is what. However, official handicap weight is set by past performance not by change in body weight so a penalised horse may not effectively have a penalty at all if it has lost excess fat and gained muscle etc.
If you don't know specifically how fit the horse is then one third of the 3 vital data factors (fitness, competition strength, and race conditions) are missing.

[robert99]

LESS racing? I was just in Europe and not only were several large steeplechase meets going, but point to points, novice meets. The charts in the Racing Post weekend edition went on for about 25 pages. Less racing?

Many had fields of 20-25 horses too.

You are quite right about this and the PPs are very much more detailed in Europe. We have shippers from Ireland, France, Germany, Belgium, Dubai, Japan and Italy - not just from other States. Full time I can only cover one specialist area to any real depth.
Where do these strange ideas come from?