Sidebar

[classhandicapper]

For me, they are indispensable as a supplement to pace figures.

There are way too many races with fast/slow fractions that do not develop the way "theory" suggests because of the field makeup, action within the race, track bias, and other complications to measuring pace well. The race flow symbols give you another view into what happened in the race based on how much speed was actually entered in the race and how the chart looks.

One of my favorite uses is for running style analysis.

If you see a horse that typically goes for the lead, but last time he was 4th or 5th early and the race got a C+, it's very likely the race was loaded with speed types and he was outrun by horses that were quicker out of the gate, faster, or the jock decided not to battle the others. No matter what, he was out of position because it. You can't always see that in the fractions.

The same thing happens in reverse. Sometimes there's no speed in a race and some horse that usually sits off the pace gets the lead. Even if the pace figures look average or mildly quick, if the race got an S+ symbol, it's telling you that horse probably just drew into a race without any other real speed types and inherited the lead. In a more normal field he'd get outrun early and sit again.

No automated system for figures, race flow, bias or anything else is ever going to be as good as analyzing fields, watching replays, looking at charts manually etc... but that doesn't mean they aren't useful.

I also take a quick glance at the Timeform Bias (red or blue) all the time also.

Do I agree with every bias or race flow note?

No.

But both are terrific ways of getting your attention. They are telling you that something about that race or day was significant enough to set off the algorithm. So I go back and take a look.

Beyer and TimeformUS figures have evolved over the years (decades when it comes to Beyer) and keep getting better and better. The same can be true of the Face Flow symbols if there is demand for them to be refined. There is already a list of things that can be done to improve the accuracy of the notes and provide supplemental information that was put together after the 5 years of testing was done.