Sartin's Phase III Pace Program

[BETKING]

Does anyone, besides me, still use the old Sartin Phase III pace program. This is an old DOS program that you manualy enter the data into and it give you a great read out. I still get more winners with this method than any other. To give you an idea of what I am talking about here are the last two days figures. I played Delaware Park. I found 11 races that I liked:
11 total races
5 top line winners
4 places
2 out

I bet $20.00 per race
Total amount bet: $220.00
Total return on winners $418.00
Net Profit $198.00
Win % = 45 %
Place % = 36 %

This is only the last 2 days but with good pace line selection and picking your races carefully something near this can be maintained.
I don't know where this progam can be obtained anymore but maybe some one else does.

BETKING

[Fastracehorse]

Your results would be much less impressive.

Prove me wrong - post your picks, I mean post Sartin's picks.

BTW,

He's not a doc.

fffastt

[Speed Figure]

BETKING, What happen to you using Snap Capper?

[Dick Schmidt]

Phase III on the PC was written for "Doc" by Bob Purdy. When Bob got busy with Synergism, I took over maintaining the program, including making a few changes and producing both experimental and custom programs. Most of the changes I did for Tom Brohamer and involved changing the value of beaten lengths or playing with the variant program.

Anyway, I have a copy of the program as described tucked away in a remote part of my hard disk, and as offered before I will e-mail it to anyone who asks. I would suggest that anyone who is even contemplating using a Feet-Per-Second pace program read Tom Brohamer's book "Modern Pace Handicapping" before you do anything else. There are two real keys to using Phase III: picking pacelines and keeping models. Both are well covered in Tom's book. Most of the numbers in Tom's book were generated by this program.

Dick

[midnight]

Dick: isn't picking pacelines a key to almost ANY handicapping?

[Dick Schmidt]

Midnight,

Pace and speed handicapping, yes. The class guys, the trainer guys, the jockey followers don't bother. The west coast edition of the Form didn't even have pacelines (times) in it until about 30 years ago, but guys still picked horses.

For Phase III (or any pace program) it is the quintessential skill, but not everyone does it. As my grandfather used to say: "That's what makes horseraces."

Dick

[andicap]

This story about Cynthia Publishing and Dick Mitchell sums up the paceline conundrum

In 1990 or 91 when I first got hooked on computer handicapping (what a miracle I thought naively), I got all the Cynpub mailings promising me instant riches if I used its programs, and couldn't wait for my Allinone to arrive. I signed up for the LA seminar and went there for the weekend (ah, to be single again) with all due enthusiasm.

I fooled around with Allinone, but figured the seminar would explain it all to me.

That weekend, Mitchell's first words were, "Those who win with the program are the ones who don't need it."
Then he explained how paceline selection was so important to picking winners. And to pick good pacelines, you had to be a pretty good handicapper.

Moral: there a ton of good programs out there that will spit out perfectly good figures and odds lines if you are an ace at picking pacelines, have the patience to keep careful records on your selections and how you are doing with the overlays spotted by the program and willing to go over the pacelines when you lose to see if you made a dumb mistake.

In other words, it's like handicapping.

[BETKING]

speed figure

I still use SanpCapper as a check on my handicapping. SnapCapper is the best automatic program that I have tried and I have tried a few. It still want hold up to Phase III and my own handicapping. There is still is nothing as good as your personnal handicapping. My 35 years experience dosen't hurt anything either.

BETKING

[robbierobb]

BET KING,

I STILL USE IT DICK,S EMAILED A COPY TO ME A YEAR TO THIS DAY
I READ TOMS BOOK WHICH MADE ME A BETTER PACE LINE PICKER
AND THE RESULTS ARE FABULOUS .
I JUST WISH I HAD THE MONEY TO BUY THE PROGRAM THATS NOT MANUEL.I JUST HAD A BABY SO MONEY TIGHT AND TIME IS LIMITED.GOOD LUCK WITH IT I HAD SOME REALLY BIG HITS WITH IT.

[BETKING]

robbierobb,

Save your money, there is no automatic that can produce the results that you get with your own handicapping. I wish that they were, it would make life easier.

BETKING

[formula_2002]

Originally posted by andicap

Moral: there a ton of good programs out there that will spit out perfectly good figures and odds lines if you are an ace at picking pacelines, have the patience to keep careful records on your selections and how you are doing with the overlays spotted by the program and willing to go over the pacelines when you lose to see if you made a dumb mistake.

In other words, it's like handicapping.

Andy
Just thinking about pace lines / odds line in line with my current thinking.

Take an 8 horse field, 1 pace line per horse = 1 oddsline.
Say I want to find the value of 2 pace lines per horse.

Thats 2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2 or 256 odds lines.

Now say you want to get at least 1000 plays in the incremental odds range of 2.5 -1 to 3.4-1 (the most re-occuring odds range)
But it only occurs .72 times per race.
So you will have to look at about 1388 races PER odds line.

To come upwith an ESTIMATE of how valuable each odds line is,
you will have to look at 355,328 sample plays.

It's a fun game huh ?

PS. dont even think about performing the above for the various combinations of RACE TYPE, DISTANCE, SURFACE,CONDITION etc.,
my head is spinning already.

[Dick Schmidt]

Robbie and Betking,

You can indeed save your money, as there is no Phase III program with a download. If you want the classic Sartin/Brohamer feet-per-second numbers, you gotta type, type, type. Synergism will get you close with the rankings for EP, SP and FW, but no numbers are accessible.

Formula,

The only reason I can think of in trying to “prove" that no one can win at racing is to justify years of losing. At every good sized track in the country there are a few guys making a living betting. It may not be as much as they could earn other ways, but they are profitable and happy. I know at least half a dozen of them, and a couple have been doing it for 20+ years. I would think that falls outside the boundary of "lucky."

Dick

P.S. If you do prove it can't be done, do I have to give back all the money I've won?????

[formula_2002]

Dick, "..Years of losing" is being kind. It's actually decades.

I think that long term losing is true for a very "large" percentage of the serious bettors who have the finances to last that long.

Imagine the NY bettor that who thinks he has been winning over the last 3 or 4 years.

22% of the of the 20,000 horses in my NY data base could show a profit just by throwing a dart at the list of entries.

Joe M

[JimG]

Originally posted by Dick Schmidt
If you want the classic Sartin/Brohamer feet-per-second numbers, you gotta type, type, type. Synergism will get you close with the rankings for EP, SP and FW, but no numbers are accessible.


I am certainly no expert on this subject but HTRF and HTR both use feet per second numbers. HTRF uses BRIS and TSN while HTR uses HDW data.

www.htrf.com

www.homebased2.com


Jim

[Dick Schmidt]

JimG,

You could be right, I'm not that familiar with either program. I'm not sure how (or if) any adjustments are done. I know a lot of the HDW data is adjusted, though of course they provide raw data as well. A reader of this board named Glenn Barton just wrote to me and offered to do a downloading version of the program if I can find the source code. I fear it may well be stored somewhere in a box of old floppy disks, but maybe I can dig it out. If he does, he offered to give it to anyone on the board who wants it.

Of course, downloading would be cool, but you'd still have to keep daily variants and a model by hand.


Dick

[jandrus]

hi
tom brohamers mph is close to p-3 and you can get downloads.

[Dick Schmidt]

Jandrus,

I didn't know MPH was still available. If so, then get that. I wrote the first version for Tom, but it was a type-in program with all data entered by hand. I know he got someone who is a real programmer to write his commercial version, and it should be exactly in line with his book.

Dick

[Lefty]

Only place I know MPH avail. is Trackmaster who sells it and you must use their files with it.

[jandrus]

hi
it also uses bris files.

joe

[Dick Schmidt]

I'd rather do it by hand than use Trackmaster or Bris files, but you gotta use what they give you. The printed Form has been known to have a few errors too. Luckily MPH and Phase III are simple programs that you must hand adjust, so as long as the times are reasonable, you should be OK.

Don't forget: read MPH first. Also don't forget that MPH was written by a man who can remember every horse racing in Calif. who trains it, who rode it last and any exceptional times it ran that have "fallen off" the bottom of the Racing Form. Tom makes it look easy, but it is hard work. One track isn't too bad, and two is doable, but more than that and I for one get lost, behind and frustrated. This is probably the most precise method of handicapping there is, but it is also one of the most time consuming.

Good luck,

Dick

[Dick Schmidt]

Attn Ranger and others,

A couple of people have requested copies of Phase III from me and have either given me a bad e-mail address or something. One guy named Ranger, and at least one other.

If you want a copy, don't go through the PA board. Write to me directly and make sure you are using your current e-mail address.

rschmidt02@earthlink.net

Dick

P.S. I forgot to include the BRUN file that Phase III needs to run when I sent out a couple of programs. If it gives you an error, let me know and I'll send the BRUN file to you. Sorry, but you know how it is. You get what you pay for.