Sartin Pace Ratings applied to harness races?

[traynor]

Has anyone successfully modified the Sartin-type pace ratings for harness races?

[Tom]

There is a Sartin program - "Trotomation," and he did a series of articles on harness racing. Go over to Pace and Cap and they are in the library of Follow Ups, the earlier issues.

[traynor]

Thanks for the reference!

[mrroyboy]

Yes I didn't know about that site. Thank you

[traynor]

After reading all the material and comments, I still have the same question. It might have been clearer if I had just asked if anyone was currently using fps rate-of-speed pace figures on internal fractions of harness races as a major indicator of potential performance.

Doc Sartin (and the PIRCO members who worked on developing the harness apps) had some interesting ideas and insights, but that was long ago and far away. A lot has changed since then, most notably the ability of many racing fans to program (or readily obtain) simple pace applications in Excel or as utility applications in other programming languages.

[harness2008]

The Sartin methodology I believe is better suited for the thoroughbreds than harness because of the difference in the way races are run between the two. The T-breds basically run as fast as they can for as long as they can meaning that quarter times basically get slower as the distance lengthens. Of course you can have a slowdown early but it is the exception rather than the rule.

Harness horses can run fast quarters anywhere during the running of a race depending on the pace scenario that develops, a situation that sometimes can be predicted but because of a variety of factors such as post position, driver tactics and so on contributes to pace scenarios that may be completely opposite from what is expected. You could certainly develop similiar Sartin ratings with harness horses but I feel that the ratings for a typical horse would really not be consistent enough to develop a pattern that you can bank on because of the different pace scenarios that horses race against from race to race. I believe it's more important to notice the pace scenario that developed in a horses previous races and see how that particular horse ran against the pace of those races to see if the horse was either helped or hindered by what transpired during the running of the race.

Choosing a paceline from a horses record and applying a Sartin style rating is iffy to say the least since the horse may not necessarily face that identical pace today so the ratings will basically reflect how a horse may do against that particular pace run in that race. You don't have this problem much in thoroughbred racing because of what I stated previously. Kudos to those that can establish Sartin style ratings in harness and apply them effectively but I personally cannot see how they can be a predictive factor.

[Ray2000]

...asked if anyone was currently using fps rate-of-speed pace figures on internal fractions of harness races as a major indicator of potential performance.



I'm not a T-bred player so I have never read any Sartins works or methodology. I do use a computer to analyze fractional times and found this works for me.

1. pp lines must be rated as usable, i.e. no lines with breaks, distanced, or BPQs (see below*) or too old to use.

2. all quarter and final times must be adjusted or 'normalized' by taking into account,
..track speed ratings, DTV, distance covered, cutting wind, battling, and driver ability.

3. Pace is accounted for by summing 4th Q time with final time (ex 27.4 + 1:52.8 = 140.2 seconds)
(I have tried many variations of this formula,.. fastest Q time, best half, middle half, 1st and 4th Qs, each requiring a rerun of 100,000 races for ROI results, but 4th Q + FT always comes out best)

4. the average of 3 most recent pp ratings seems best, but the program "Sulky Picker" uses the projected trend point from 4 to 6 pps.

This speed rating is just one of many factors that go into rating the race entries in order to make an odds line. I would rank it 2nd in importance. Predicting the call order at the half pole is #1





One of the best threads ever relating to this is

http://www.paceadvantage.com/forum/showthread.php?t=64718

If you haven't seen it, you may want to take a look at it, good stuff, especially replies by markgoldie*, harness2008 and lottakash.

*Wonder what ever happened to him?

[harness2008]

Ray, I commend you for everything that you post on this forum. Your analysis and your approach to this game from a mathematical perspective is outstanding and the software that you produce is top notch.

There is never an easy answer when we discuss pace and there are many different opinions concerning this. Here is another thread from back in the day thats useful.

http://www.paceadvantage.com/forum/showthread.php?t=63109&highlight=pace+harness

I am a bit confused though Ray since I remember that you posted ROI analysis in this thread pertaining to the internal pace numbers and you found that Final Time + Best Quarter had the best ROI. I considered this to be the best approach to take and your empirical ROI analysis substantiated this but I'm assuming that your software now utilizes Best Time + Last Quarter. Have you found this now to be a more predictive factor than your original finding? Or perhaps I'm off base and ROI is not your determining factor.

The reason that I would consider using Final Time + Best Quarter is that it is dynamic in that you are utilizing the horses best number run during the race wherever it happened to be into your computation and not solely looking at only one pre determined individual fraction. Using Final Time + Last Quarter is static in that it is the only fraction used regardless of whether it was fast or slow combined with the Final Time in the rating process. It was actually only the 5th best ROI produced out of 7 different comparisons.

Just pickin your brain Ray, not trying to be argumentative.

[Ray2000]

harness2008, thx for the kind words

sorry for the confusion on my reply vs the older thread...

If I can remember correctly, (the data must be on some other computer), the Forum discussions back in November of 2009 on pace analysis had me believing that a change to bestQ would be an improvement so I reprogrammed the robot using that speed rating method and included all the other regular factors, class change, driver/trainer, post, post bias, meds etc. (The test runs in that thread were done by betting best performance by speed, only).

When I reran races from 2007-2009 I found the difference washed out, BestQ+FT was only slightly better than 4thQ+FT. This is always a possibility when combining factors.

Also, at about the same time, Dec 2009, along comes markgoldie and BPQ which I found very useful, but by incorporating that angle, a significant number of races with fast 1stQs are rejected for pace analysis so that muddies the water again and tends to make the 4thQ the BestQ in that population set.

I'm still not sure my current method 4thQ+FT is optimum but like Big Bang Theory Penny's Community College Motto

....."Not Knowing is Half the Fun" :D

.

[traynor]

The Sartin methodology I believe is better suited for the thoroughbreds than harness because of the difference in the way races are run between the two. The T-breds basically run as fast as they can for as long as they can meaning that quarter times basically get slower as the distance lengthens. Of course you can have a slowdown early but it is the exception rather than the rule.

Harness horses can run fast quarters anywhere during the running of a race depending on the pace scenario that develops, a situation that sometimes can be predicted but because of a variety of factors such as post position, driver tactics and so on contributes to pace scenarios that may be completely opposite from what is expected. You could certainly develop similiar Sartin ratings with harness horses but I feel that the ratings for a typical horse would really not be consistent enough to develop a pattern that you can bank on because of the different pace scenarios that horses race against from race to race. I believe it's more important to notice the pace scenario that developed in a horses previous races and see how that particular horse ran against the pace of those races to see if the horse was either helped or hindered by what transpired during the running of the race.

Choosing a paceline from a horses record and applying a Sartin style rating is iffy to say the least since the horse may not necessarily face that identical pace today so the ratings will basically reflect how a horse may do against that particular pace run in that race. You don't have this problem much in thoroughbred racing because of what I stated previously. Kudos to those that can establish Sartin style ratings in harness and apply them effectively but I personally cannot see how they can be a predictive factor.

Actually, the opposite is true--pace is much more important in harness races (and in the longer routes and turf races for thoroughbreds) than in the thoroughbred sprints (the races to which pace analysis is most widely applied). Just as John Meyers (the "original" source of many of the concepts attributed to Sartin and associates) said many years ago, there is little difference between pace analysis and speed analysis in sprints. Meyers repeatedly asserted that the most predictive "pace rating" (0-Fin--the start to finish rate of speed expressed as FPS) was in fact the same as a speed rating.

One of the areas that confuses many prospective pace analysts is the erroneous assumption that specific horses "control the pace" or "set the pace." The romantic descriptions of various turf writers to "explain" how the events in a race unfolded aside, the simple truth is that a horse that takes an early lead and "backs up" to set a slower than normal pace in the early stages of the race has not "controlled" anything. Every horse in the race has benefitted from the relaxed early pace--not just the "pace setter"--and should have been able to exert more of that reserved energy in the rush to the wire.

Most of what goes on in a harness race can be quantified and used as part of a pace analysis--extra distance covered by being parked out on turn for example, or the relative advantage/disadvantage of post position changes. Those are "real" differences, and can be meaningfully studied. In contrast, attempting to assign values to situations like whether or not a particular horse was advantaged or disadvantaged by some other horse rushing to the lead, racing off to a six-length lead, then collapsing in the stretch, is pretty much hopeless because there is nothing really there to quantify.

It is not so much that pace analysis cannot be applied meaningfully to harness races as that it cannot be meaningfully applied until the myth that one horse "controls" the pace (rather than "sets the pace"--which is simply a numerical value representing the leader's time from Point A to Point B) has been discarded. Attempted divination of "probable pace scenarios" is a great way to spend idle time, but does little to bolster the bankroll.

Like Michael Pizzola used to say, "The worst possible error for a serious race analyst is attributing causality where is does not exist."

[mrroyboy]

Guys

I love posts like these. I consider them a good learning tool. I wish Ray,John and others would do more "how-to"stuff than just posting selections. Thanks guys

[traynor]

I'm not a T-bred player so I have never read any Sartins works or methodology. I do use a computer to analyze fractional times and found this works for me.

1. pp lines must be rated as usable, i.e. no lines with breaks, distanced, or BPQs (see below*) or too old to use.

2. all quarter and final times must be adjusted or 'normalized' by taking into account,
..track speed ratings, DTV, distance covered, cutting wind, battling, and driver ability.

3. Pace is accounted for by summing 4th Q time with final time (ex 27.4 + 1:52.8 = 140.2 seconds)
(I have tried many variations of this formula,.. fastest Q time, best half, middle half, 1st and 4th Qs, each requiring a rerun of 100,000 races for ROI results, but 4th Q + FT always comes out best)

4. the average of 3 most recent pp ratings seems best, but the program "Sulky Picker" uses the projected trend point from 4 to 6 pps.

This speed rating is just one of many factors that go into rating the race entries in order to make an odds line. I would rank it 2nd in importance. Predicting the call order at the half pole is #1





One of the best threads ever relating to this is

http://www.paceadvantage.com/forum/showthread.php?t=64718

If you haven't seen it, you may want to take a look at it, good stuff, especially replies by markgoldie*, harness2008 and lottakash.

*Wonder what ever happened to him?

Most of what Sartin called "energy figures" were simple compoundings of various race segments. A fast last quarter in a slow race is much less impressive than a fast last quarter in a fast race. The easiest way to quantify that is by combining the start to finish time of the entry with that entry's final quarter time. Way back--when the actual race time and actual final quarter time for each entry was not listed in the programs--it was quite profitable to program simple utility applications in pocket computers or graphing calculators to make those calculations. Once it got to the point that it was possible to make "sight calculations," the big prices for that factor diminished substantially. It is still one of the most predictive factors, but nowhere nearly as profitable as it was 20 years ago.

Igor Kusyshyn's Professional Point Count (that sold many, many copies at $200 per) was based primarily on the start-to-finish time and the final quarter time in the last two races. Points were assigned for best, second best, etc. It was great, and quite profitable when it first came out. Using the actual values for time, rather than points, accomplishes pretty much the same thing.

I am really intrigued by your use of averaging in generating your ratings. I have tried numerous combinations, including best two in the last six that I used for a couple of years, but eventually decided that recent races were far more predictive. In fact, all the models I use currently are based on the last three races because I could not find any significant advantage to using older races. I well understand the complexity of changing from one approach to another, even for testing purposes. One little tweak (like selecting the "best" races based on slightly different criteria) makes all previous models obsolete.

[traynor]

harness2008, thx for the kind words

sorry for the confusion on my reply vs the older thread...

If I can remember correctly, (the data must be on some other computer), the Forum discussions back in November of 2009 on pace analysis had me believing that a change to bestQ would be an improvement so I reprogrammed the robot using that speed rating method and included all the other regular factors, class change, driver/trainer, post, post bias, meds etc. (The test runs in that thread were done by betting best performance by speed, only).

When I reran races from 2007-2009 I found the difference washed out, BestQ+FT was only slightly better than 4thQ+FT. This is always a possibility when combining factors.

Also, at about the same time, Dec 2009, along comes markgoldie and BPQ which I found very useful, but by incorporating that angle, a significant number of races with fast 1stQs are rejected for pace analysis so that muddies the water again and tends to make the 4thQ the BestQ in that population set.

I'm still not sure my current method 4thQ+FT is optimum but like Big Bang Theory Penny's Community College Motto

....."Not Knowing is Half the Fun" :D

.

A suggestion: you might consider writing a simple function to combine the BQ and LQ concepts. I never found the early fractions to be overly significant in predicting subsequent winners, but one of the ratings I use has a toggle to select the best of either the third or last quarter before compounding with the start-to-finish time. That in essence creates a hybrid rating that is neither 3Q + FT nor LQ + FT, and has attributes lacking in both.

[harness2008]

Haha, Traynor I'm beginning to believe that we wouldn't even agree on the time of day or if it's day or night. No worries, that's what makes racing and it would be a boring sport if everyone handicapped the identical way as everyone else did.

Ray, thanks very much for the clarification. I agree, at that time there was a lot going on in terms of postings from some top notch individuals on here which all gave us some food for thought. You are computer literate, which I am not in terms of writing programs for the ideas that I have so I value your opinion highly.

As long as we're all content and profitable with the way that all of us approach this puzzle on a individual basis, that is good enough for me. You can learn something new everyday on this board and I always have my eyes open.

[traynor]

WOW! You folks have posted some really useful stuff! Thanks for the short cut links to the topics.

DTV is an area of immense concern and confusion. I will bypass the page after page of boring stories about the whys and wherefores, and cut to the chase.

Correcting for anomalies is quite likely the most important factor in developing accurate track variants. After a LONG time spent making variants worth betting on, the most useful approach I have found is to use the "middle races." For harness races, it is fairly easy because most distances are the same. The easiest way to do it (if impressive sounding words don't give you hives or make you break out in a cold sweat) is to calculate the mean of the interquartile range. It is a simple calculation found in most statistics programs, or can be coded in by hand. Even Excel probably has it.

When creating pars, store the values by class (or whatever criteria you use for pars). When calculating the pars, discard the lowest 25% of the values and the highest 25% of the values, and use the middle half to determine the par.

When comparing that value to the daily results, use essentially the same approach. Depending on the number of races you have to work with, discard the two or four races with the widest variation from par as suspect, and calcualte the DTV based on the remainder.

[traynor]

Haha, Traynor I'm beginning to believe that we wouldn't even agree on the time of day or if it's day or night. No worries, that's what makes racing and it would be a boring sport if everyone handicapped the identical way as everyone else did.

Ray, thanks very much for the clarification. I agree, at that time there was a lot going on in terms of postings from some top notch individuals on here which all gave us some food for thought. You are computer literate, which I am not in terms of writing programs for the ideas that I have so I value your opinion highly.

As long as we're all content and profitable with the way that all of us approach this puzzle on a individual basis, that is good enough for me. You can learn something new everyday on this board and I always have my eyes open.

I disagree. (Now theres a surprise!) Actually, I think we are probably much more in agreement than disagreement--especially after reading some of your older postings. I am very much impressed by "serious" handicappers and race analysts--of whatever persuasion--and you are quite obviously a member of that elite group.

I am very much opposed to "groupthink" (which was the topic of a number of papers I wrote in grad school, most notably in regard to its existence in the engineering department at Morton-Thiokol, and the contribution of that anomaly to the Challenger disaster). Probably the result of involvement with the Sartin methodologists back in the old days, when anyone who dared dissent from the party line was cast as a pariah.

I am also very aware that the devil's advocate position is essential to real learning. Uncritical acceptance of the statements of an authority figure might be fine for love, politics, or religion, but when it is my money going into that betting window, I want more than someone's opinion to rely on.

Lastly, my apparent "differences of opinion" are derived from a very rigorous graduate education in business management, during which virtually every scenario I developed for group problem solving and discussion carried the warning, "Be prepared to defend your choices!"

[LottaKash]

I am very much impressed by "serious" handicappers and race analysts--of whatever persuasion--and you are quite obviously a member of that elite group.

I want more than someone's opinion to rely on.

"Be prepared to defend your choices!"

As are you Traynor of that elite group, imo, anyway...(the elite group) As are a bunch of others here, as well...

My opinion is the only one that I value as well....I respect, admire and am very inquisitive when it comes to cerain others opinions on a race or of a horse, but in the end, I have to live by my own opinions, as we all must when we reach a certain juncture in the game...We must find our "own way"...

And, you are right Traynor, one must be willing to defend themselves in order to get at the "real truth".....Which is what we are all seeking, right ?

best,

best,

[LottaKash]

One little tweak (like selecting the "best" races based on slightly different criteria) makes all previous models obsolete.

Isn't that how it goes as we move along in our handicapping careers....I can't count the times that I dramatically changed and/or rearranged my "way of going"....

It seems everytime that I would read a book from someone that was successful, and could prove it with $$$$, that it would inspire me to the point to start over using that approach or idea.....Sometimes I would incorporate just "one litttle thing", or completely toss all of the "old way".....

Talk about living in a state of flux and confusion.....Thru the years I always thought that I had finally "arrived"....haha....

Funny thing tho, now that I've finally got the hang of this game, how unwilling I am to change nary a thing about it, and yet at times, I think that perhaps, after reading some ideas from people I respect in handicapping, maybe I am missing something, and need to look at my game further, again, seriously......That doesn't happen too much, thank God, much, anymore.....Nowadays,when I read of someone elses way of going, in a thread such as these, or a book, I can now take an idea or so and just lend it to what I already know, without making any sweeping changes to my way....Mostly now, when I read someone elses opinion that I value, I do it more for inspiration and slight tweaking......Brain Food, actually....Hey, the more I think of racing the more I think of it !!

That is why high level threads such as these are so useful and entertaining for me....I enjoy the heck out of them....

best,

[traynor]

Isn't that how it goes as we move along in our handicapping careers....I can't count the times that I dramatically changed and/or rearranged my "way of going"....

It seems everytime that I would read a book from someone that was successful, and could prove it with $$$$, that it would inspire me to the point to start over using that approach or idea.....Sometimes I would incorporate just "one litttle thing", or completely toss all of the "old way".....

Talk about living in a state of flux and confusion.....Thru the years I always thought that I had finally "arrived"....haha....

Funny thing tho, now that I've finally got the hang of this game, how unwilling I am to change nary a thing about it, and yet at times, I think that perhaps, after reading some ideas from people I respect in handicapping, maybe I am missing something, and need to look at my game further, again, seriously......That doesn't happen too much, thank God, much, anymore.....Nowadays,when I read of someone elses way of going, in a thread such as these, or a book, I can now take an idea or so and just lend it to what I already know, without making any sweeping changes to my way....Mostly now, when I read someone elses opinion that I value, I do it more for inspiration and slight tweaking......Brain Food, actually....Hey, the more I think of racing the more I think of it !!

That is why high level threads such as these are so useful and entertaining for me....I enjoy the heck out of them....

best,

Many years ago, Howard Sartin commented that the reason so many racing fans had such a problem winning was that they were continually adjusting their approaches so they would have won the last race. That problem was made even worse by the so-called "Brohamer Model" that advocated "betting on what was winning" at the moment, on the erroneous assumption that one could take advantage of "short-term trends" that the Brohamer Models were supposed to uncover.

That was a nicely worded explanation for a tendency that most serious bettors dismiss as being "caught in the switches."

The difficulty is in recognizing when one's approach needs to be changed to reflect new realities, and when those "new realities" are simply random variations of normal sequences that seem to indicate a trend, but are simply random variations of normal sequences.

It is nice to have your records in a database in a format that allows every race to be re-evaluated in resposne to tweaking, rather than simplistic backfitting. For example, if your present approach generates an ROI of 110%, and a minor change shows increased return on a small number of races, it is useful to re-evaluate the previous races with that tweak in place. In most cases, six months of races is sufficient to indicate "long-term" results, provided the data is clean, and outliers eliminated.

If the tweak increases the overall ROI in the six-month sample, it may be worth using. Similarly--regardless of what kind of results are generated yesterday or last week--if including that tweak diminishes the ROI for that same six-month sample, it is probably little more than an interesting distraction.

"Re-evaluating six months of races" is not as formidable a task as it may seem. It is mainly a matter of getting the dates programmed correctly, so that as each race is re-evaluated, only that data that was available prior to the race is used. Once you realize the value of such a block of races, you will realize that the time and effort put into creating and maintaining it is time and effort well-spent.

What I use currently is a secondary file with the last six months of races (continually updated so it is always the last six months), with the last four past performance lines for each entry and all driver and trainer records as they existed at the time of the race. It was designed, and is used, specifically to test any new ideas or changes before incorporating them into the main analysis portion of the application I use to analyze current races.

[LottaKash]

Many years ago, Howard Sartin commented that the reason so many racing fans had such a problem winning was that they were continually adjusting their approaches so they would have won the last race. That problem was made even worse by the so-called "Brohamer Model" that advocated "betting on what was winning" at the moment, on the erroneous assumption that one could take advantage of "short-term trends" that the Brohamer Models were supposed to uncover.



I can relate to much of the above, as well....I have been those and them at some time or another...

I've got to hand it to you computer guys tho....You can spit out so much info at the flick of the switch...

Me, I never got into DB'ing, at all....Everything I know is up in this ole head of mine....Still, there's a lot there.....

My best bets, using P&P off the top of my head theses days are my " =G= " horses.....=g= means Gut feeling....And my =G= horses are my best bets these days....A =g= horse is one that, after a first scan of the race, my first selection will be the =g= horse......And after all these years, the =g= is my prime play now....They don't all win of course, stiil, they are my best ones...

For the past some 50 odd years of playing this game, I've always had this passion for the game and I was relentless in this pursuit....In my younger days, anyone who know me would always see a program sticking out of my back pocket and comment about it....So, it is nice to see that my current instincts can finally be trusted to lead my way after all these years....It wasn't always that way, but I always wanted it to be that way....

Years ago, when I attended the races almost nightly, there were these gifted players, that could scan a program, and in a few seconds it seemed, give you a valid and viable horse to play......I am getting close to that now these day, I think....It only takes me a minute or so to evaluate a race to come up with the main contenders, and a minute or so more to find who I think is the best of them.....Perhaps that is because I know my circuits all too well, or maybe not....

Of course all of this is due to the numbers that I have been using for the last 3-yrs... Since adopting and incorporating these numbers into my scheme of things, everything has changed....The numbers reveal much of what I used to wonder about....Now I can explain much of it to my satisfaction, knowing that I can prove some of those things now, by using the numbers....

Pace makes the Race, and that is my mantra.....Pace explains almost everything for me....So, if I get a horse that is the classiest, and it is in shape enought to win, and he has the best pace numbers...He will be there at the end....That is what I have learned....

Too late for a DB for me, except for my bets that is.....I don't think I can go any higher, but then again, I have always thought that, haha!....

best,

[mrroyboy]

John looks like you are back for real. How about some new articles like about your pace numbers etc. You are right that this forum is a great teaching site and alot of that is YOU!@!!

[LottaKash]

John looks like you are back for real. How about some new articles like about your pace numbers etc. You are right that this forum is a great teaching site and alot of that is YOU!@!!

I don't know about that "alot part" Roy, still, I offer what I can to anyone who would listen, and for whatever it may be worth to them......

best,

[traynor]

I can relate to much of the above, as well....I have been those and them at some time or another...

I've got to hand it to you computer guys tho....You can spit out so much info at the flick of the switch...

Me, I never got into DB'ing, at all....Everything I know is up in this ole head of mine....Still, there's a lot there.....

My best bets, using P&P off the top of my head theses days are my " =G= " horses.....=g= means Gut feeling....And my =G= horses are my best bets these days....A =g= horse is one that, after a first scan of the race, my first selection will be the =g= horse......And after all these years, the =g= is my prime play now....They don't all win of course, stiil, they are my best ones...

For the past some 50 odd years of playing this game, I've always had this passion for the game and I was relentless in this pursuit....In my younger days, anyone who know me would always see a program sticking out of my back pocket and comment about it....So, it is nice to see that my current instincts can finally be trusted to lead my way after all these years....It wasn't always that way, but I always wanted it to be that way....

Years ago, when I attended the races almost nightly, there were these gifted players, that could scan a program, and in a few seconds it seemed, give you a valid and viable horse to play......I am getting close to that now these day, I think....It only takes me a minute or so to evaluate a race to come up with the main contenders, and a minute or so more to find who I think is the best of them.....Perhaps that is because I know my circuits all too well, or maybe not....

Of course all of this is due to the numbers that I have been using for the last 3-yrs... Since adopting and incorporating these numbers into my scheme of things, everything has changed....The numbers reveal much of what I used to wonder about....Now I can explain much of it to my satisfaction, knowing that I can prove some of those things now, by using the numbers....

Pace makes the Race, and that is my mantra.....Pace explains almost everything for me....So, if I get a horse that is the classiest, and it is in shape enought to win, and he has the best pace numbers...He will be there at the end....That is what I have learned....

Too late for a DB for me, except for my bets that is.....I don't think I can go any higher, but then again, I have always thought that, haha!....

best,

The essence of race analysis is pattern recognition. Sometimes that takes a long time to learn, sometimes not so much, depending on how one analyzes races. It looks like you have your patterns down pat.

It is a real shame that the majority of computer handicappers actually diminish their ability to recognize patterns by using computers. There is a lot to be said for a few minutes after each race spent going over the past performances in the program to locate patterns that would have predicted the winner, or that would have flagged a selection as a no-go. There is much to be learned by having the PPs of all the entries on one page to compare and contrast at a glance. Much of it can't be learned any other way.

[LottaKash]

The essence of race analysis is pattern recognition. Sometimes that takes a long time to learn, sometimes not so much, depending on how one analyzes races. It looks like you have your patterns down pat.

Much of it can't be learned any other way.

That's it Traynor, the pattern recognition....And, it does take a long time to get without the aid of a computer or a smarty pants mentor on board with you....I used to get so jealous when I would see another player ahead of me, yet much younger....Now it's a lot easier.....As for learing, I wouldn't have had it any other way....Lot's of "tears and cheers" along the way....

Essentially tho, I firmly believe that, if one is to succeed at this game then he must have numbers good enough and reliable enough that they will lead the way to better understand why horses win and lose.. And if one is lucky enough and willing to learn and interpret those numbers correctly, they will over the long haul, begin to enjoy the game all the more than perhaps he used to.....I know in my case, that is so true...

The game is much easier for me now, and as a result, I have been tweaking and fine tuning what is already a "good way to go".....Tweaking is more fun than seeking....Even tho we still must seek, for me now, the seeking is more about little finesse things, rather than what works and what doesn't.....In essence it really is not that hard a game when you have numbers to keep everything in order....Violate the rules and you pay, tho....

Now, I just need to know about how to better capitalize on all my hard work thru the years...haha....That is a whole nuther game, in and of itself.....I'm up for it tho....

best,