Have some questions to be asked?

[turninforhome10]

Hope the software guru's will be kind enough to give me a free one sort of speak. I am as some of you may have come to understand a little bit anal about watching horse in the paddock. I do understand that this turns a lot of people off but let me meet you halfway. I have recently embraced the idea of using spreadsheets. Does anybody know if software exists that would keep a record through dropdown box prompts of paddock notes. My thinking is this. If I could have an organized way of keeping track of such data,I could incorporate this into other records to enhance data. Through the little data i have obtained through a very small pool, KEE and Aqueduct Spring, it has already showed real promise and has allowed more eliminations than ever before. I think so many guys get turned off by watching the horse before a race is little or limited consistency of data, i.e. someone else's system. I did it the hard way by walking out of good paying job to muck stalls and learn the game from the groundup. Not looking for a cookie here, just expressing that by being immersed in the game from the backside as an assistant trainer and being around some truly amazing horseman, I have picked up a few things.
Trainers and horse have "tells" just like poker players.
Also next question. An I will try not sound convoluted. Played with E ponies board a little bit as learning experience with Excel and found something that was a small trend. First I found the mean total for the category, then standard deviation. I threw out horses below the mean in categories where the SD was less than 1/3 the mean and by using the top three horses in only those categories the sheets picked 5 winners thurs 5 fri and 6 sat. My question is this. Is the Standard deviation of the category qualifying the category as being a reliable mode of creating a higher impact value for said category. Am I even thinking in real time here? :confused:

[Skanoochies]

HUH?

[yak merchant]

If you are going to drag a laptop around the paddock it is easy to add a drop down into excel. However, my guess is If you are serious about it, you'll probably end up wanting a tablet with a touchscreen and maybe even a custom app.

But start here and see if this is what you are talking about:

http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/msoffice/how-to-add-a-drop-down-list-to-an-excel-cell/179

[turninforhome10]

Don't go to the track. I output my Twinspires to big screen and have recording ability in my computer. I quit going to the track when Penn National shoved all the simulcasters in a corner and want 2$ for water. Thanks for the input that should do it.

[Jeff P]

For the past several months, I've been (quietly) working on something new called JCapper TripNotes.

It's an interface that provides a way for the JCapper user to record notes about anything related to a single running line for a horse - and have what the user recorded for that running line show up in JCapper past performances.

Here's a recent example:
http://www.jcapper.com/messageboard/avatars/kee_04282011r2.jpg

The above screenshot (please excuse my crude attempt to draw a circle around my own trip note with a red pen) shows my past performances for KEE 4-28-2011 R2 horse #7.

The interface took what I recorded on 3-24-2011 after seeing the horse's race and inserted it into my past performance report.

Specifically, the interface:

1. Replaced the Equibase chart caller's comment with MY trip note.

2. Adjusted the horse's speed fig for that running line using MY assessment that the trip cost the horse 3 lengths.

Note: The 9 pt adjustment to the speed fig for that running line is based on a points per beaten length table provided by Ron Tiller at HDW.

Note: The user has the option to:

a. Have the interface display the trip note only.

b. Have the interface adjust the speed fig for that running line (visual appearance only.)

c. Have the interface adjust the speed fig for that running line and use the adjusted fig (instead of the fig everybody else sees) during number crunching to generate JCapper factors for that horse.

The interface is currently in beta. There's still a few more things that need to be added, but I hope to release it as a program update to all versions of JCapper soon.

Back to the question posed by the OP. A trip note need not be limited to something that happened during the running of the race. Many of my own notes have been based on things I noticed prior to the running of the race such as dull coat, lack of muscling, fractious at gate, etc.

I'm not personally knowledgeable enough to discern different pieces of equipment (bits, bridle, blinker cup shapes etc.) used.

However, there's no reason the interface couldn't be used effectively for that in the right hands.


-jp

.

[turninforhome10]

That is exactly what I am talking about. If you need anything or have any questions about paddock viewing I would be more than happy to give you any information that I can. I try to speak objectively and without ego so only things that I completely understand will be spoken here. Wondering if you could tweak the running lines to qualify certain patterns( shins, breathing etc) as being negative.

[turninforhome10]

I was wondering how hard it would be to create drop down boxes upon paddock criteria ie
Weight -Good, lost since last, fat
Coat- dappled, dull , normal
Behavior- dull, on toes, tail swishing angry
Equipment;
Bit- Ring, Snaffle, Shurr winn, runout
Bandages- Front- back- coldwater
Blinkers- Full, french cup , cheaters
Staff:
Trainer- Saddled- N/A
Groom- Same as last, new
Owner- Attending, absent
And then a wild card box for free text
My thinking is that if we create a field for the data then could we not quantify the data with the rest of our fields. That way the data could not only be used exclusively for the horse but also in the big picture.