Pace Ratings

[denniswilliams]

Originally Posted by Dave Schwartz

What I found was that it was BIG-TIME BETTER ON THE TURF - where pace is so non-functional anyway. It would probably also work in foreign racing where, like turf, a blazing pace just rarely happens.
.

Wonder if you might explain why they are better on turn. And why you think they would work in large field foreign racing. thanks

[Dave Schwartz]

Originally Posted by denniswilliams

Wonder if you might explain why they are better on turn. And why you think they would work in large field foreign racing. thanks

Turf, not turn.

Short version:

• The early pace sets the speed of the race.
• A slow 1st fraction makes the final time slower.
• Racing outside the US does not experience this because the definition of a "fast" pace in (say) AUS, would be considered slow in the US.
• The difference is that in US racing the 1st and 2nd fractions tax the horses, whereas the rest of the world does not push as hard.
• Turf routes in the US are much like that and respond the same way.

[Jeff P]

Originally Posted by cj

One thing regarding Dave's comments below. I actually make pace figures the way he says for TimeformUS, treating each fraction like it's own race within a race.

If I had it to do over again, and maybe someday I will, I'd take the final time value of time each race's distance and surface use it for all pace figures in the race. I think it works better. I could write a few pages on this, but the to keep it short I'll say the reasoning is mostly because horses aren't racing to points of call. They are racing to the wire.

I swear I saw Mario Fuentes do exactly that (race to the pace call) aboard Big Louie earlier today at Tampa in R7. Of course nothing in the data suggested to me the horse could get the distance.)

Seriously though:

There's some GREAT discussion going on in this thread.

Originally Posted by Dave Schwartz

Love this.



That was first written about in Scientific Handicapping (1963, Ira Cohen & George Stevens). They called it SIMULATED PACE.

Link to Book on Amazon

I used it for years until I ran into Jim Cramer's idea.

The knowledge base (loosely defined as accounting for the effect of pace) existed in published handicapping books as far back as the 1930's.

I have a book (hardback) written by E.W. Donaldson titled How to Select Winning Horses published by Montee Publishing Co. in 1937.

I also have a PDF copy of an earlier version of the same work written by Donaldson titled Consistent Handicapping Profits also published by Montee Publishing Co. in 1936.

Fyi the 1936 version became a collector's item selling for as much as $1,000 on Amazon when Barry Meadow wrote a review after sitting down with it in the Keeneland Library.

Among other things Donaldson's work included parallel time charts, an exhaustion curve plotting exponential decrease in velocity given increase in distance traveled, a simple framework for plotting the times of the horses in a race graphically at each point of call, the effect of weight carried, ground loss on turns, some insights on trip handicapping in a chapter of the 1937 version titled Diagnosing the Finish, and even how to to identify, correct, and prevent 'figure creep' in your figure making process.

Donaldson's Pace Exhaustion Chart:

[RESIZE size="small"][/RESIZE]


Every time I think about Donaldon's deceleration chart from 1936, I'm reminded WHY Jim Cramer's Pace Figs are scaled the way they are. (The shorter the distance the higher the velocity.)

A Google search for the phrase "site paceadvantage.com montee publishing" (without the quotes) turned up a Paceadvantage thread from 2005 mentioning both books:
http://www.paceadvantage.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=21202

The oldest published work on the knowledge base I've personally been able to find is Donaldson (Montee Publishing Co. 1936.)

Who knows how long the knowledge base has been in existence published or unpublished before that?



-jp
.

[Saratoga]

Originally Posted by cj

I didn't.

I doubt your doing it by hand....

[denniswilliams]

Originally Posted by Jeff P;2934238


Among other things Donaldson's work included parallel time charts, an exhaustion curve plotting exponential decrease in velocity given increase in distance traveled, a simple framework for plotting the [COLOR=#ff0000

times of the horses in a race graphically at each point of call[/COLOR], the effect of weight carried, ground loss on turns, some insights on trip handicapping in a chapter of the 1937 version titled Diagnosing the Finish, and even how to to identify, correct, and prevent 'figure creep' in your figure making process.

Every time I think about Donaldon's deceleration chart from 1936, I'm reminded WHY Jim Cramer's Pace Figs are scaled the way they are. (The shorter the distance the higher the velocity.)

-jp
.

Jeff

I've been graphing races since I started playing Hong Kong - the larger field sizes lead to 'complicated' races. I've tried graphing them by horses' splits but the result is not very illuminating as the time differences are minor (and given the way the races are run there, there's a decent from the 1st to the 2nd fraction and an ascent to the 3rd, for example).

While it captures the acceleration between the 1st and 2nd call and the deceleration to the finish, it's not really showing me much - or, at least, not showing it clearly enough.

Is a better way presented in the book?


(Sorry, tried to paste a copy of an excel graph but it was too large to load, apparently)

[cj]

Originally Posted by Dave Schwartz

Love this.



That was first written about in Scientific Handicapping (1963, Ira Cohen & George Stevens). They called it SIMULATED PACE.

Link to Book on Amazon

I used it for years until I ran into Jim Cramer's idea.

BTW, when I first came onboard with Cramer's pace figs, the BEST EVER (last 10) 1st Fraction was flat-bet profitable by about 2-3%!

Over the years that went away but even in the last couple of years I've seen that in dirt routes on fast tracks the $net for best ever 1st fract rating was a $2.00 net!

It's the only factor I have in my roughly 3,800 factors per horse that is stand alone flat bet profitable.

(There are still some workout ratings for FTS that have solid flat bet profits with the sample size in the thousands range over the past several years.

What I found was that it was BIG-TIME BETTER ON THE TURF - where pace is so non-functional anyway. It would probably also work in foreign racing where, like turf, a blazing pace just rarely happens.

CJ, if you ever want to discuss this, I'd be honored to share with you what I've found. We can do some real-time searches.

Sounds great Dave. Thanks for all the thoughts to chew on.

[cj]

Originally Posted by Saratoga

I doubt your doing it by hand....

No, but that is how I learned and because I got sick of doing it I learned how to program it all.

[Jeff P]

Originally Posted by denniswilliams

Jeff

I've been graphing races since I started playing Hong Kong - the larger field sizes lead to 'complicated' races. I've tried graphing them by horses' splits but the result is not very illuminating as the time differences are minor (and given the way the races are run there, there's a decent from the 1st to the 2nd fraction and an ascent to the 3rd, for example).

While it captures the acceleration between the 1st and 2nd call and the deceleration to the finish, it's not really showing me much - or, at least, not showing it clearly enough.

Is a better way presented in the book?


(Sorry, tried to paste a copy of an excel graph but it was too large to load, apparently)

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
.

[denniswilliams]

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
.

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

[steveb]

Originally Posted by denniswilliams

How would you compare this method to Rowland's sectional ratings? I play Hong Kong and was using his ratings for a while but didn't really find them of value.

I don't think you should be upgrading numbers as SR does.
More power to him for actually detailing what he does, but I can't cop it personally.

Being a times person myself, I find it very irritating, that I can't get time to be worth two bob at Happy Valley.
Maybe that is why they don't work for you at HK?
Time is the number one thing for me at Shatin though.

[denniswilliams]

Originally Posted by steveb

I don't think you should be upgrading numbers as SR does.
More power to him for actually detailing what he does, but I can't cop it personally.

Being a times person myself, I find it very irritating, that I can't get time to be worth two bob at Happy Valley.
Maybe that is why they don't work for you at HK?
Time is the number one thing for me at Shatin though.

Appreciate you chiming in, Steve.


I don't use numbers at all, really. I programmed Rowland's and Brohamer's methods but they're not as useful as graphing the races - especially since they started offering 200M split times. I'm doing a lot of what Jeff describes above.



I generated some speed numbers using your pars and looked at them for a few cards (they were similar to those you post on X). They're very good. At some point, I'll do some pace figures. Maybe during the off season. Right now, one of my charts has a line for PAR, so I easily can see the race flow and which sections are fast or slow. (Although, this was programmed before they added 200M splits, so I don't see those sectionals).


I saw one of your X posts for HV, and I thought the numbers were very good.

[steveb]

Originally Posted by wiretowire68

I am pretty new at making pace ratings. I was following Dave Schwartz simple example, I do understand FPS, my question in terms of distances and the math in terms of the furlongs when doing Pace Ratings when the distances change, I understand 6F, however, at 6 1/2 is it 2F 1st fraction and still 4F as the EP. My

My general question is does it change at 7F, 1M, etc. ie. 7F/2F=1st Rating 2nd Rating 7F/4F or does it change? and How about the Late Fraction? help or breakdown would be appreciated?

Does it matter what they are called?
If you end up doing it how everybody else does, then you will likely end up like most everybody else does.
Sections/pace are an interesting topic, but I doubt you will find too many people that make money from them.

[steveb]

Originally Posted by cj

One thing regarding Dave's comments below. I actually make pace figures the way he says for TimeformUS, treating each fraction like it's own race within a race.

If I had it to do over again, and maybe someday I will, I'd take the final time value of time each race's distance and surface use it for all pace figures in the race. I think it works better. I could write a few pages on this, but the to keep it short I'll say the reasoning is mostly because horses aren't racing to points of call. They are racing to the wire.

I would think it enlightening for you to write those few pages.
You have some great writing over the years here.
certainly the poster i have paid the most attention to over the years i have been reading stuff on this board

[cj]

Originally Posted by steveb

I would think it enlightening for you to write those few pages.
You have some great writing over the years here.
certainly the poster i have paid the most attention to over the years i have been reading stuff on this board

Thanks Steve. I'll find some time this week to expand on what I wrote.

[Saratoga]

Borrow it.....

Can you read it in an hour...