Brisnet Picks

[Que]

Since we are all tied, below are my picks for the first day of the Brisnet contest. Obviously when you see my picks, I'm going for return on investment rather than most wins. While these may be low win percentage horses, I feel they would have a long term value if bet consistently over a period of time. However, since this a short term contest, you just need to make your selections and hope.

September 29 (Week One)

RACE 1 - BEL 2ND

8 JUSTIN'S THUNDER 20-1

I like Justin's Thunder, for the following reasons. Trainer Philip Johnson's record with Shaun Bridgmohan is 54 16-6-7, ROI: 2.31. In addition, Johnson has an +86% ROI in the month of September, 58 12-12-11. And in route races Johnson's record is 54 10-8-10, ROI 1.78, when his horses were 6th or worse in the first call in their most recent race and went on to finish 4th-5th. Under theses same circumstances, Shaun Bridgmohan's record is 212 23-25-20, ROI: 1.15. And to top everything off, Bridgmohan's record with owner Robert Cohen is a very respectable 9 5-1-0, ROI: 3.48.

RACE 2 - PHA 4TH

5 BETELGEUSE 20-1

Although Betelgeuse ran dismally in his last race--finishing 9th; trainer Dee Cury has a record of 11 4-1-4 when returning a horse within 8-14 days after finishing last in their most recent race. The jockey also has a positive ROI at Philadelphia Park.

RACE 3 - WO 5TH

7 BLUE PROSPECT 8-1

A horse with strong connections. Trainer, Michael Wright's, record is 37 13-3-7 when returning horses within 8-14 days at the same class in claiming races. Also, the trainer's record is 217 57-35-22 in sprints with horse's that were 1st at the first call in their most recent race. However, its Blue Prospect's connections that set this horse apart--Fleethouse Stables has won 10 of 31 starts in the last 90 days.

RACE 4 - BEL 9TH

8 HONOR GLIDE 8-1

I'll take a shot with Honor Glide to beat King Cugat. Honor Glide is a very experienced horse, with very experienced connections. Honor Glide has an ROI of 1.22 in his last 17 Graded Stakes events (17 3-2-2). Honor Glide also likes the Belmont turf course, and has a respectable record of 9 2-1-0 when increasing in class by more than 40% from his last race. Trainer, Christopher Clement also wins with a very respectable 20% of his graded stakes entries, 148 31-25-19, ROI: 1.30. In addition, in routes, when Clement's horse's were 2nd or 3rd at the first call and went on to win, his record is 32 14-4-3, ROI: 2.10. Finally, jockey Jose Santos has a 206 29-33-23, ROI: 1.34, in graded stakes races, and has a positive ROI on the turf.

RACE 5 - PIM 10TH

4 WARRANT 5-1

Probably my lowest priced pick of the day at 5-1 on the morning line. However I like this horse's connections, i.e. William M Rickman, the horse's owner, has a record of 266 40-34-25, ROI 1.14. In addition, the jockey/trainer/owner combinations are all positive, i. e. the trainer/owner combination is 129 25-21-11, ROI: 1.50; and the jockey/owner combination 31 7-6-3, ROI: 1.33. Finally, Ramon Dominguez has a superb record with horses making their third or more start on the turf--428 107-81-51, ROI: 1.28.

RACE 6 - AP 8TH

4 PUBLICATION 12-1

Terry Knight doesn't bring too many horse's to post, but the ones he does are well intended. Knight has won 50% of his starts's over the last 90 days, with a record of 24 12-5-4, ROI: 1.528. In addition, Knight has won 50% of his starts with two year olds in the month of September (6 3-0-1, ROI: 2.50), and with horses that were 5th or 6th at the first call in their last race that went on to win (8 4-0-2, ROI: 1.35). Also, the jockey, Randal Meier, is excellent at stretching horses out more than two furlongs with a record of 135 29-20-12, ROI: 1.33. The jockey also has a win percentage more than three times better their expected (27 5-3-1, ROI: 2.52), in route races with horses who won their last race and are between 9/1 and 15/1 in today's race.

RACE 7 - TP 11TH

7 BRAVE ALL THE WAY 12-1

Using reverse logic, Brave All The Way's terrible performance in his last race is what makes him the value in this race. In his last race Brave All They Way was 7th at the half and finished a lackluster 8th, losing by more than 16 lengths. However, in route races with horses that were 6th or worse at the half and finished 6th or worse, the trainer's record is 52 11-5-9, ROI: 1.47; the owner's record is 25 7-2-4, ROI: 1.91; and the jockey's record is 241 30-18-28, ROI: 1.09. Other "positives" include Jackson increasing his horses in class after finishing greater than or equal to 6th, where his record is 5 2-1-0, ROI: 5.38. Finally, when changing to jockey William Troilo, the trainer's record is 27 5-2-5, ROI: 1.26; and despite winning only two of their last 15 starts, the owner's record over the last 90 days is 52 10-3-12, ROI: 1.66.

RACE 8 - SA 7TH

10 PRIMA NOCTI ???

Still haven't seen a morning line on this race... and its 6:30 pm (est) the day prior... what's up with that? Anyway, instead of waiting any longer, I'm going with the Laffit Pincay Jr horse, Prima Nocti. No real reason, except that Laffit Pincay will probably never get the respect he really deserves. If you had blindly bet his mounts for the last 30 days your record would have been 36 6-5-0, ROI: 1.89. Laffit has also won 21% of his mounts for Richard Mandela.

RACE 9 - HOO 2ND

2 NIGHT VERSE 12-1

I looked at this race long and hard, and decided that I don't have a clue where the value is. Therefore, I'm swinging for the fences once again with Night Verse, 12-1 on the morning line. My only rational is that Michael Natale has proven himself to be a very capable trainer with a record of 333 37-45-42, ROI: 0.99, in claiming races. In addition, his record with horses that finished 6th or greater in their last race and returning at the same class is 45 9-3-1, ROI: 1.69. Reducing the previous stat to cliaming races only, his record improves to 26 7-2-0, ROI: 2.37.

RACE 10 - PRM 3RD

1 SECURITY PROBLEM 15-1

I'm intrigued by the quick turn with the expected longshot Security Problem. Security Problem last raced on 21 Sep, a scant 8 days ago. Security Problem's record when returning within 8-14 days is 8 0-6-1, ROI: 0.00--which is still a respectable performance despite going winless. Moreover the trainer has the following stats with horses returning within 8 to 14 days from their last race: overall, 141 17-21-16, ROI: 1.23; in claiming races, 90 11-17-12, ROI: 1.56; when the horse finished 6th or worse in their last start, 40 5-2-5, ROI: 2.89; and in claiming races when the horse finished 6th or worse in their last start, 24 5-2-5, ROI: 4.82. And if you reduce that last stat to races where the horse is returning at the same claiming level the record improves to 6 4-1-0, ROI: 4.78.

Good luck to everyone.... Que.

[PaceAdvantage]

Que,

Thanks for the in-depth.....unfortunately, I was unable to get my picks in on time today.....they have weekly prizes, don't they?


==PA

[stuball]

Want to thank you for the stats on Bris picks I took them into consideration
for making my picks and they were like a lite in the darkness as I know
little to nothing about some of the tracks and trainers that are used in
the contest..You must have a massive database to be able to pull stats
like that out. I would like to know how you get all the data into your database.
If you don't mind sharing that info -- I use FoxPro for mine and input the data
has always been a project...a work in progress because of errors,etc....
Great work br you is greatly appreciated...if you want to e-mail me my addy is:
stuballzzz@yahoo.com I tried to change it under profiles but it would not change.

Veer strange said it was banned.......

Stuball have a nice day

[Que]

stuball,

Thanks. I enjoy posting picks for contests like this, because there is so much luck involved--i.e. you just need to swing for the fences and hope you hit a few homeruns. I'm glad you found the information useful. Overall the picks had a slightly positive ROI, about their historical average; however, nothing near what I needed in a contest like this. It seemed that the longshots never fired, and the two that did fire were bet down significantly from their morning line odds. I was also kicking myself for not changing my Santa Anita pick. After I finally got the entries, I ran the stats for Santa Anita--which are posted below.

1   Tate Venture          Vienna Darrell           752.2        Desormeaux Kent J        752.3
2   With Iris             Truman Eddie             393.7        Solis Alex O             669.7
3   Mandola               Robbins Jay M            692.7        McCarron Chris J         662.1
4   Divine Spirit         Baffert Bob              636.0        Espinoza Victor          705.0
5   Heisman               Sadler John W            692.8        Smith Mike E             715.2
6   Prospect Baby         Conlon Melody            335.0        Blanc Brice              672.1
7   Mr. Wonderful         Baffert Bob              577.6        Flores David R           701.2
8   Prima Nocti           Mandella Richard E       595.7        Pincay Laffit A Jr       823.3
9   Hero`s Welcome        Hendricks Dan L          513.1        Delahoussaye Eddie J     630.5
10  Devil`s Roar          Greely C Beau            895.5        Gomez Garrett K          880.7

However, I did feel better when Devil's Roar lost the photo finish . Anyway, all I did for the contest was eliminate any horse below 5-1 on the morning line, and combine my jockey and trainer ratings to come up with my picks. However, as you can see from my notes, there's a lot of race/horse specific data that goes into the ratings. The program will also give me "cliff notes" on the primary factors it used to come up with the ratings, which is what I included in my comments.

To answer your questions, I use a variety of data sources, and I use MS Access 2002 as my database program with the Windows XP beta. Switching to MS Access 2002 and Windows XP was a significant step. Because of the size of my database, over two million records and 275,000 races, MS Access was becoming very unstable--Access 2002 handles large databases significantly better than previous versions of Access. Also, I had reached a point where my anaylysis programs would exhaust all my window's and system resources and crash my program. I've been extremely satisfied with Windows XP--and once the hardware manufactures produce comptaible drivers, it should be a very stable OS. Also I agree, that this type of handicapping is a continuing work in progress, not unlike any other handicapping approach. But from my experience, once you build the database and the programs to massage the data, then the fun really begins--i.e. creating the composite ratings that make up your selections. Currently, I think I've got a good handle on the pace data, trainer data, and the jockey data, but my owner data is still a work in progress (i.e. the major problem is all the different ways the owner's name is listed.) In addition, I've yet to combine my pace ratings with my other ratings--and I haven't even started to consider form cycles, pace lines, class, pedigree, etc. I figure I'm about 1/3 complete--always something to do . However, it is fun to give the prototype a public workout once in awhile.

take care, Que.