? about Track Models

[headhawg]

Has anyone here attempted to do track models for harness? I thought about doing so but did not know if it is worth the effort. Do 1/2 milers tend to play the same? 5/8ths? 7/8ths/Milers? If they do then it wouldn't seem worth the effort to keep track of the tracks individually.

If I do attempt modeling, which classes would be the most reliable. I'm thinking that no races carded for 2/3 yo should be included, and maybe the same goes for high-end races (stakes and the like).

Or is this whole idea silly because s-bred races tend to be more of a function of trip, post, and pace.

[Sinner369]

I agree with everything you said including your last sentence (trip, post, pace)!

I believe you can model for certain tracks.........like the bigger harness tracks but smaller ones like 1/2, 5/8....forget it!

But like anything in racing......there's always limitations!


sinner:confused:

[LottaKash]

Has anyone here attempted to do track models for harness? I thought about doing so but did not know if it is worth the effort. Do 1/2 milers tend to play the same? 5/8ths? 7/8ths/Milers? If they do then it wouldn't seem worth the effort to keep track of the tracks individually.

If I do attempt modeling, which classes would be the most reliable. I'm thinking that no races carded for 2/3 yo should be included, and maybe the same goes for high-end races (stakes and the like).


Or is this whole idea silly because s-bred races tend to be more of a function of trip, post, and pace.

Hey Headhawg, marvelous idea.........I would bet that there would be startling and revealing statistics in the difference's of ALL tracks...Smaller vs. Bigger, and amazingly enough, I would also bet, that you would see a difference even in tracks of the same size.......

I say, if you had the engine to undertake such an endeavor, I would be patiently sitting and very curious to find what your models would reveal.......

best,

[Overcall]

The USTA (last year?) anounced that they would no longer compile speed ratings. The autor of the article noted using -2, -3 second from a mile to half,
5/8 mile should be sufficient in light of the dropped statistic. IMHO to assess
true speed of a track, the use of FFA class pacers/trotters in a STAKE situation on a fast track will produce useful speed ratings. London Ontario was my poster child of a slow 1/2 mile track. Every Spring FFA pacers contest the Molson pace and finish at best 153.0. This year that record was broken 151ish. Any thoughts?
I use the USTA speed rating to convert from one track to another.
Without regard to pp, variant etc Track(1/2) = USTA TRACK(1/2) / TRACK(5/8) * TRACK(5/8) time. Another word the raw speed is proportional to the ratio of the two USTA speed ratings.

[Overcall]

Back in the Eighties I used a post model based on the track winning percentages. Statistically over the years a pattern of difficulty emerges. We all
know post eight at YR is tough. The win% of that post (assuming 8 starters) demonstrate ratiometric, how tough. The old YR, 400' stretch, no passing lane,
post 4 was actually better than post3! Probably because over the long run, post 4 was the first over horse. Anyways...any numeric point assessment for a pony was multiplied by the above post factor and voila. But that was the eightys.... Today my most important post stat is moving to an inside post.