Gapfire.com

[Gapfire]

Hello,

This is my first post, so would like to take this oppurtunity to introduce myself. My name is Kevin. My father and I run a handicapping site called gapfire.com

As a member and avid reader of the posts at paceadvantage, I know that our site will appeal to many here. We have come on board as an advertiser, so I'd like to give you some basic information about what our site has to offer:

Handicapping Books

My father, Dr. Jim Park, has authored 2 books on horse racing. His latest title Logical Longshots has just been released, and is now on sale. He also wrote Cracking The Track which is sold out, and is no longer in print.


Quickgap Figures

We provide Quickgap figures for most tracks. The Quickgap is basically a database driven ability figure which is based on 12 different algorithms. Each algorithm is weighted according to how it performs at a specific track, and distance.

The Quickgaps are a work in progress, and we strive to make them as effective as they can possibly be. So our Quickgaps today are better than they were 8 years ago when we started out.

Database

We have an extensive database.
Currently our members have access to very basic queries about trainers, jockeys, etc. In the near future we would like to expand. In this regard, we would appreciate feedback as to what users would like to be able to do with a database.


So there you have it, a quick synopsis of gapfire.com. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask, and of course, hopefully you come by for a visit at: http://www.gapfire.com

Kevin
www.gapfire.com

[Gapfire]

I forgot to mention, my father writes an entertaining blog and we also offer a daily free play. It can be found here:

http://www.gapfire.com/free.htm

[mistergee]

is it available same day or day before races

[harness2008]

Without getting into the nuances of your algorithms, could you provide a rundown of what your figures entail? For example is it a speed fig which is tweaked by how a horse races against the shape of the race, is a class fig included with the figure, ground loss?

I would just like to see a baseline so that if one were to review your figs, that individual would not do any double weighting by incorporating a factor that may have already been calculated into the fig.

I didn't see much of a description on your website and if possible would like more info regarding this. Perhaps the info that I mentioned may be included with your book? Just thought I'd ask, any input is very much appreciated.

[Gapfire]

is it available same day or day before races

The Quickgaps are available on the same day of the race. Depending on the track they are usually up by 6am eastern.

[Gapfire]

Without getting into the nuances of your algorithms, could you provide a rundown of what your figures entail? For example is it a speed fig which is tweaked by how a horse races against the shape of the race, is a class fig included with the figure, ground loss?

I would just like to see a baseline so that if one were to review your figs, that individual would not do any double weighting by incorporating a factor that may have already been calculated into the fig.

I didn't see much of a description on your website and if possible would like more info regarding this. Perhaps the info that I mentioned may be included with your book? Just thought I'd ask, any input is very much appreciated.

Yes Harness, our philosophy is that you are playing the track surface as much as you are the horses. This in part, explains why any given handicapping method will work one day, and fail miserably the next.

The gapfire method looks at solid algorithms like early pace, speed, late pace, our own formulas that combine pace and speed, etc. etc. We then track these algorithms to come up with what we call our Quickgaps. As the track results change, so do our figures.

You mentioned race shapes, we do not try to incorporate that into our figures. Instead we encourage our members to handicap races, and then look at our figures to see how they compare.

I hope this helps.

Kevin

[mistergee]

at what difference in the qgap # is it considered a very large gap?

[Gapfire]

at what difference in the qgap # is it considered a very large gap?

That would depend on the race and the surface. For example, if it has been determined that early pace has been performing best a certain distance, track and surface, then we would use early pace to determine the Quickgaps.

We calculate that algorithm in feet per second. So a 57.8 would be quite a bit superior to a 56.8.

Another surface and distance might be playing kindly to final speed. So we would use final speed to determine our Quickgaps. In this case the number spread would have to be higher to be significant. A 90 would not be that much superior to an 89.

In general, we are more concerned as to how horses rank against each other as opposed to high spread differences.

I should also mention that we do not try to choose a single pace line for figure calculations. Instead we look at the horse's best figure, his best 2 out of the last 3, and his last race.

Kevin

[JoeG]

Just checked out your site. The Paypal links for the monthly and yearly deals are not working properly. The monthly link is a fill-in-the-blank amount and the yearly comes up as the monthly.

[Gapfire]

Just checked out your site. The Paypal links for the monthly and yearly deals are not working properly. The monthly link is a fill-in-the-blank amount and the yearly comes up as the monthly.

Thanks for bringing this to my attention. The links were working yesterday when I last checked them. Also some users have reported that they are not being sent to our membership page after their purchase. If this happens to anyone, just notify us, and we will put you in right away.

Thanks again,

Kevin

[harness2008]

This sounds interesting and thanks very much for the explanation. I very much like your idea of incorporating what is winning at the particular track and distance and your figs would represent that.

In the past I have used something similiar in the All Ways software from Cynthia publishing which incorporated something like this with their (WMF's) winning move factors which essentially were ratios of what was winning at a track/distance.

Thanks very much for the post.