The data we all use.

[jay68802]

Read this article and figured to get thoughts on it. Been discussed before.

http://www.paulickreport.com/horsepl...rt-of-garbage/

[jay68802]

Guess the question is, Could American racing attract new customers and generate more interest in the sport by changing the way the basics are reported. And priding themselves on the reliability and accuracy of this data?

[classhandicapper]

More and better data are a mixed blessing.

It depends on whose point of view we are talking about.

Gambling is a competition. The more information your competitors have and the more accurate it is, the more difficult it becomes to find an edge anywhere. It's generally the work you do on you own that potentially has some value.

Simple example.

Years ago private purchase trainer changes were not in the PPs. So if there was a trainer switch to a guy that you knew moved up horses, you could get a better price than now when everyone knows.

So was adding that information to the PPs a good or bad thing?

It was bad for all the horseplayers I was hanging out with.

If you are selling information, then you should clearly want to clean up the data, add new useful information, and also try to generate new metrics and advanced stats like other sports to generate interest in purchasing your information instead of someone else's.

[Jeff P]

Originally Posted by jay68802

Guess the question is, Could American racing attract new customers and generate more interest in the sport by changing the way the basics are reported. And priding themselves on the reliability and accuracy of this data?

Of course we could.

Imo, racing here in North America lags behind major racing jurisdictions in other parts of the world (Australia, Britain, Hong Kong, Japan, etc.) in a lot of different ways --

Including those mentioned by The Paulick Report article:

I started to look abroad in December 2019. As I write this, I have almost an equal amount of data on British and Hong Kong racing as I can claim for two years of time with U.S. racing. Also, it's free.

Pair that with: higher quality data (sectional times in Hong Kong are nothing short of spectacular), more of it (workouts and vet records at the click of a button, and free), more uniformity in racing (the handicap system, and classes outside of the U.S. are a modeler's dream) and frankly, better quality racing (bigger fields, transparency and integrity), and I can't help but feel ecstatic every day I have the proposition of betting in these overseas markets.

I do not want to give up on U.S. racing.

I still bet in our markets. I am, however, shifting a hefty percentage of my wagering to foreign racing.

-jp

.

[aaron]

Originally Posted by classhandicapper

More and better data are a mixed blessing.

It depends on whose point of view we are talking about.

Gambling is a competition. The more information your competitors have and the more accurate it is, the more difficult it becomes to find an edge anywhere. It's generally the work you do on you own that potentially has some value.

Simple example.

Years ago private purchase trainer changes were not in the PPs. So if there was a trainer switch to a guy that you knew moved up horses, you could get a better price than now when everyone knows.

So was adding that information to the PPs a good or bad thing?

It was bad for all the horseplayers I was hanging out with.

If you are selling information, then you should clearly want to clean up the data, add new useful information, and also try to generate new metrics and advanced stats like other sports to generate interest in purchasing your information instead of someone else's.

I remember years ago when they started breaking down which horses had won on the inner track at Aqueduct. A lot of players that we knew were not happy. They had been keeping their own records and making this public took away an edge. Also, a lot of players used to keep their own trainer patterns,now for the most part trainer patterns are available to all.

[Tom]

I would say Class's argument would be made by the whales, not us. They already have, IMHO, much better data and data for stuff we don't now.

More data, better data, accurate data, and CHEAP data can' thurt. Look at the free DB KEE has on it's site.No proprietary stuff, just stuff that is already out there and haveable for free if you work to get it. I used to hand enter every race at FL in the 80's and 90's until BRIS came along - a lot of work, but doable. And in DOS!

We had a sign in our Quality office that said Better is Better.

* * * * * *
Hey Jay, when I saw your thread title, I thought you were going say this.....

"The data that we use...

https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/230e0d6...5-0349cc31baed

[Robert Fischer]

They still have to break from a starting gate, and run around a circle.

The crowd (and the hard-hitting whales/syndicates) grow smarter all the time.

'The Red Queen Effect' - Alice in Wonderland

You have to adapt, and move forward, just to keep pace.


The better the info, the more important the unaccounted insights become.

Another thing is the emotions of the crowd.
Emotion/psychology of the crowd is something we seem to shy away from, and general isn't understood or discussed.



Not the greatest example in the world, but I just bet against a horse named "Blewitt" at Gulfstream.

Had a couple things going for me. The horse worked very poorly recently (something not everyone accounts for in the data)
and the horse has a 'fun name'
(I have no idea if it's true, but the crowd could possibly like a name like Blewitt(Jason Blewitt is one of the on-air talents, and the horse runs for the well-liked Pletcher barn)

Maybe not a great example, but it happened 10 min ago, so it comes to mind.

[46zilzal]

Most people never learn that LESS is more....


Paralysis by analysis has never gone out of style at the track. IT is the HORSE and little else...Leave out the humans as it will only bias you.....HORSES DO, the rest watch

[cj]

Originally Posted by 46zilzal

Most people never learn that LESS is more....


Paralysis by analysis has never gone out of style at the track. IT is the HORSE and little else...Leave out the humans as it will only bias you.....HORSES DO, the rest watch

You can learn a lot about horses via data. For me, it depends on the race. There are certainly times the humans become the most important factor for me. Race 9 that just ran at Gulfstream was a great example.

[46zilzal]

There has NEVER been nor probably ever be a SINGLE road to success at the parimutuels but HORSE data is OBJECTIVE and human correlation is a best guess..

I will take the former, but understand the limited use of the latter as well...I will just have to miss those isolated incidences.

[Robert Fischer]

Originally Posted by 46zilzal

Most people never learn that LESS is more....


Paralysis by analysis has never gone out of style at the track. IT is the HORSE and little else...Leave out the humans as it will only bias you.....HORSES DO, the rest watch

I like playing with Models <3 <3 <3

I don't like sifting through piles of sand for specks of gold.

Good Data does that labor for the horseplayer.



The horseplayer then gets to look at the signifcant models.

Are they moving in a good direction? Yes...

So then we need the Odds to be generous...

[46zilzal]

I never look at the horse's names either...just go by their cloth numbers

[cj]

Originally Posted by 46zilzal

There has NEVER been nor probably ever be a SINGLE road to success at the parimutuels but HORSE data is OBJECTIVE and human correlation is a best guess..

I will take the former, but understand the limited use of the latter as well...I will just have to miss those isolated incidences.

As the horse population shrinks and more and more horses wind up with a small group of trainers, those incidents aren't all that isolated.

Don't get me wrong, I much prefer to be able to ignore the human connections. It just isn't reality in a lot of races these days. As you say, no one method works all the time, but figuring out when to use what factors well help anybody's bottom line.

[MJC922]

You can overcome many of the problems with the data, my class ratings are proof that you can walk away from time and still have robust predictive numbers, in fact the worse the source data is with respect to times the more error prone the public will be and the more overlays you can potentially find if you put in the effort.

The problem you can't easily overcome however is not knowing what you're getting paid... at least not with the rank and file ADWs over here in the US. I believe the guy is smart to shift his emphasis to international racing but IMO it's smart for other reasons. Clean and free data no doubt helps the casual player narrow the gap to making a better line and you have whales over there but I suspect they don't have any blatant unfair arrangement (think programmatic end of wagering hook) like what is likely going on here.

[Tom]

The horses do the work, but better data tells us how they do it.
Even the Sartin methodology went from raw times and SR+TV to adjusted times and equalized times.