Key Race Theory

[SmarterSig]

Hi

I noticed a thread from some time back on Key race theory and one of the questions was has anyone quantified the value of applying key race theory. I am publishing an article in the December mag of SmarterSig which introduces KRT but also puts a little flesh on the bones of measuring its usefulness. Its difficult to exhaust the measurement angle because KRT is quite complex when it comes to measuring it and of course it means different things to different people, but some broad brush measurements should show some movement in a positive direction.

[jfdinneen]

Mark,

Given the small sample of past performances, I measure the subsequent finishing positions of juveniles (2yos) from each race throughout the remainder of the year (see attached) as a trigger for isolating possible longshots.

John

[Milkshaker]

This is an aside to your actual question, but it got me thinking back 25 years or so when I diligently clipped DRF charts into a ledger and "keyed" the races with multi-colored pens (wins up or down in class). Especially liked to discover "hidden keys" (races that produced subsequent winners beyond the top 3 italicized in PP lines).

When I think back on it, that was a far more time-consuming process than what you could do today with the aid of computerization.

But at the same time, I know with certainty that all that time I spent flipping back & forth through my chart books, making little notations and scrutinizing the same races over & over & over made me a better handicapper in the long run.

My point being: Technology can be a great time saver, freeing you up to do other things, but for me at that time & place in my learning, there was no substitute for deep immersion in those charts. Eventually, subtle patterns emerged beyond beyond the keys I was actively studying.

[SmarterSig]

As I mentioned I have taken a rough form of measurement to check the usefulness but if I find the time I will try a more fine grain form of measurement. Perhaps looking at the pounds beaten in subsequent races of a races runners relative to class ie up down or same. Perhaps combining all the runs together could give a key race measurement. The possible problem with this is that as the number of subsequent runs builds up the effectivness may decrease as horses get overbet from races producing good runs. My rough measurement that I mentioned tends to suggest this is the case.

[traynor]

This is an aside to your actual question, but it got me thinking back 25 years or so when I diligently clipped DRF charts into a ledger and "keyed" the races with multi-colored pens (wins up or down in class). Especially liked to discover "hidden keys" (races that produced subsequent winners beyond the top 3 italicized in PP lines).

When I think back on it, that was a far more time-consuming process than what you could do today with the aid of computerization.

But at the same time, I know with certainty that all that time I spent flipping back & forth through my chart books, making little notations and scrutinizing the same races over & over & over made me a better handicapper in the long run.

My point being: Technology can be a great time saver, freeing you up to do other things, but for me at that time & place in my learning, there was no substitute for deep immersion in those charts. Eventually, subtle patterns emerged beyond beyond the keys I was actively studying.

That is the entire point of developing pattern recognition skills--to recognize implicit details that would otherwise be overlooked, and to integrate those implicit details into the process of race analysis.

[andicap]

Mark,

Given the small sample of past performances, I measure the subsequent finishing positions of juveniles (2yos) from each race throughout the remainder of the year (see attached) as a trigger for isolating possible longshots.

John

John, Could u explain what the columns in your chart represent?

Thanks

[jfdinneen]

andicap,

The Subsequent Firsts column identifies the number of additional wins by the individual horses in each race. By contrast, the Key Race Wins column gives the total number of winners of later races from contenders in the current race.
For example, the winner of the first race wins five more races during the flat season and there are five horses in total from the first race that win at least one more race.

John