When does distance behind winner stop being useful?

[mwilding1981]

I am just wondering at what point everyone stops taking note of distance behind winner, whether it is for creating speed ratings or as part of the handicapping process when looking at past races.

For example do you consider any horse that finished over 10 lengths behind the winner to be all in the same bracket, or do you use 50?

Would be interested to hear why as well. I am currently using 12 and have now got around to adjusting this part of my handicapping and would welcome any advice.

[Greyfox]

I convert all of my figures to percentages.
Any horse whose Pace is 96 % or lower when compared with the leaders has a very low probability of winning, no matter how good his sustained speed is.
Now the Pace times will be varying depending on distance and class so I can't tell you how many beaten lengths that is behind.

It's always a good idea though to toss out any runner who is so far behind that it looks like he's leading the field. ;)

[46zilzal]

If said horse runs close (even 10 lengths back at the wire) a very fast 2nd call, it must be considered.

NO hard and fast rule

[mwilding1981]

Thanks for the advice guys.

[Dave Schwartz]

Michael,

I actually experimented with this quite a bit about 10-12 years ago. At the time I was doing more for a "paceline" approach so it was not about "beyond ?? lengths the results are statistically similar."


The idea was that if you HAD to use a paceline that had large beaten lengths as representative, then 8 was the max.


Dave

[Robert Goren]

The question is not when does it stop being useful, but when does it stop being accurate. Anything over 3-4 lenghts behind the place horse is questionable in my mind.

[mwilding1981]

Thanks for contributing Dave and Robert. The reason for the question came up because I was looking at re-jigging some of my UK speed ratings but didn't want to bring that up immediately because I have been looking at getting into US racing over the last few months and been doing some research so wanted to hear answers from that perspective as well. Changing the question slightly though and putting it to those of you who create your own speed figures, when do you stop adjusting for a horses that are beaten hugely, for example 100 lengths behind the winner. Bear in mind that in the UK we don't have the sectionals that are available in the US.

I have been finding that in some of my new re-jigged calculations I am getting horses with negative numbers because of the huge distance to winner and I am wondering what the best way of dealing with this might be. Obviously a horse cannot have a negative number!

[sjk]

I make numbers no matter how far behind the horse might be. If he ran well in the early part of the race the pace adjustment will bring his figure back to a valid representation of his abilities. If he was hopelessly beaten throughout it will show up as dismal. If you have no sectional information I don't know how you would draw the proper distinctions.

Nothing wrong with negative numbers. I would think it a wonderful opportunity if the commercially available numbers bottom out at zero and I have valid negative numbers to work with.

I do pitch out races where the jockey came off before the first call since I know of no way to make those races into something useful and it will skew the horse's early pace ability.

[Jackal]

I tend to read the form from the right to left. I look for a reason why the horse was so far back.