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[thaskalos]

Originally Posted by classhandicapper

My data suggests:

1. Among races I projected to have a fast or slow pace, on average they DO tend to have fast or slow paces according to pace figures. But as we all know some don't go according to plan.

2. Among races that pace figures suggest were fast to slow early, the winner tends to come from further back or closer up as you'd expect. However, it gets tricky to measure impacts correctly. Large fields tend to have faster paces and vice versa. So you have to control for field size to know how much of where the average winner came from was related to the pace and how much was related to the field size.

3. Among races I projected to have a fast/slow pace that pace figures suggest DID go according to plan, sometimes the race flow does not follow the pace figures and projections. How the track was playing or whether there was a dominant speed seems to impact that.

4. Among races I projected to have a fast/slow pace that pace figures suggest did NOT go according to plan, the race flow sometimes follows the projection instead of the pace figures. That suggests that sometimes things other than the fractions impact the flow.

Getting at some of those probabilities using your own techniques and figures seems to help me with value judgments.

If I'm projecting a fast pace and given how much pressure there is I'm expecting to be right 60% of the time, and 50% of the time I get the projection right the race falls apart, that means 30% of the time horse A, B, and C are in deep trouble. At least I have a ballpark basis for my thinking instead of just "it looks like a fast pace".

Very enlightening! This is EXACTLY the type of pace analysis that I find most interesting...because of its "practical" value.