Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeff P
Donaldson's method was simple.
Horizontal lines running left to right with 1/5th of a second of vertical space between each line.
Vertical lines marking points of call - start, pace, and finish.
A dot for each horse at each point of call.
A line for each horse connecting the dots for that horse's points of call.
Final time for the race next to the winner.
Vertical space between the dots illustrates differential in time between the horses at each point of call.
From there he emphasized using the plot to interpret improving or declining form for the horses in that race. (See his comments for Very Well and Lamp Black on pages 30 and 31.)
For sprints he used start, 4f pace call, and finish.
In a later chapter, he illustrated making time adjustments for routes using a plot that showed start, 4f pace call, 6f pace call, and finish.
In a later chapter he further wrote about using the plot (intersecting/rapidly declining lines) for trip handicapping.
Clickable thumbnails below showing pages 28, 29, 30, and 31 from How to Select Winning Horses (Montee Publishing Company 1936.)
Imo, the concepts presented are still valid today.
But also keep in mind plotting races, especially if you are gathering the data and doing the plots manually - can very quickly turn into a full time job.
Also keep in mind the money in the pools present day is orders of magnitude more efficient than even 10 years ago.
And yet, opportunities are still there to be found.
-jp
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Interesting stuff. Amazing they were doing it at the start of last century. Should be programmable, though remains to be seen how 'immediate' the information is in the case of large fields or wide gaps between horses. What I mean is you want the graph to give you immediate insight as to how the race was run. Of course, you can do this by looking at the results charts but it gets significantly more tedious in large fields.
Thanks
