Beyer Speed Figure Math -- Can someone check this?

[headhawg]

Originally Posted by Tom

I still say there was nothing as good as the old program with the graph.
The good old days!

No doubt. Being part of that small-ish group of PaceFigures "insiders" was the best. There were great suggestions and ideas on that board, and I for sure was never a better handicapper than during that time. Damn right, the good old days!

[Tom]

Originally Posted by cj

I'm thinking of reviving it!

Really?!

[cj]

Originally Posted by Tom

Really?!

Yep. I love the format. I won't be able to support any files but those from DRF or TimeformUS though as they are my employer now. I'll check back in soon, gotta figure out how much work is involved. I actually doubt it will be too hard, I still keep all the figures, variants, etc. in the same format.

[bcgreg]

Wow...this is the best news that I have read in a long time.

[aaron]

One thing,I am pretty sure of his that players love seeing figures on a graph.Going back to the old days when I used the sheets and even today,players just love that format. They seem to like it even better when the lower the number the better. In my experience,the best part of this format was the tightness of numbers. In many instances two or three points could be huge.

[HalvOnHorseracing]

I finished 65th out of 1,900 entries (top 5%) in the contest today. The winner was -- someone who played the number 4 in every race. Maybe handicapping is overrated.

[dansan]

Yep the #4 was on fire today $105 from Gulf $76 from Aqueduct $82 from Oaklawn my buddy played the 4 and 5 today numbers only

[GMB@BP]

I thought the best was inserting the figures into Bris PP Generator which could be customized any way I wanted, also with my handicapping notes in the running lines.

[Gakiss2]

Sorry to comment late.

Just wanted to say that that tracks with my general understanding that surface matters much less on the short sprints. When you get down to 5F you nearly compare a Turf PP to a Dirt PP 1:1. IMHO

[Gakiss2]

Originally Posted by HalvOnHorseracing

I've never used the Beyer figures. They are numbers available to the entire universe of horseplayers for the price of a Daily Racing Form, or if you have the time and energy you can do your own calculation. I've always ascribed to the idea that there are four important numbers in a sprint race. The half time, the final time, the interior time (the time from the half mile pole to the quarter mile pole) and the stretch time. Figures essentially translate one into another number for ease and comparability. So a figure of 100 at Oaklawn is comparable to a figure of 100 at Gulfstream.

Take these two running times from two consecutive races at the same distance and class level.

:22 :45 1:10.1

:22.2 :45.4 1:09.4

Which horse is better? It may just be that the horse with the 1:10.1 finish time but a faster pace is just as good as the horse with the 1:09.4 finish time with a slower pace. Obviously there are other things to look at, but the point I'm making is that just looking at finish time leaves may cause you to miss a better bet.

I also have automatic eliminations.

- horses with less than a 10% win percentage

- trainer less than 5%

- trainer/jockey win % less than 10%

One final thought. I want horses cycling to the top of their form cycle. You can get some nice prices with horses that are ready to run a big one. There's a lot more to it for me, but I hope this is useful to some people.

I liked your approach to things and therefore would like your input on a recent project of mine. What is your opinion of the recency and pattern of workouts and races? Its easy to just ignore horses with long DSLR but you can miss some good prices. I am trying to find a way to 'calculate' fitness on the basis of Days Since Race, Days since Workout, Pattern of Workout / Racing (One or the other every 20 days vs 30 days). Thank You for your input.

[classhandicapper]

Originally Posted by HalvOnHorseracing

There's a lot more I could have added, but I was making the point that a number representing the final time isn't enough to justify a normal bet.

I've always agreed with Ray Talbout that class is defined as the ability to maintain speed at longer and longer distances. Go fast early and go fast late is a great racehorse.

When I first got into playing the horses in the mid 70s I bought the Talbot, Beyer, and Ainslie books. I also used to read the Talbot magazine occasionally. My idea for trying to make pace figures on the Beyer scale a few years later came from reading the Talbot book. He was ahead of his time on pace even if the accuracy of his charts needed some work. The problem for me back then was that even though I actually had some decent pace figures in the 80s, learning from scratch in those days was a very long tedious process of trial and error. By the time I really started to understand how best to use them, Quirin wrote his popular books and then loads of other people started making pace figures.

[steveb]

Originally Posted by highnote

My understanding is that a length doesn't change as the distance changes, but the time to travel one length changes at different distances.

I use hundredths of a second to make my figures because it is all computerized. I use 1/5 of a second here for demonstration purposes.

Plugging my 1600 meter par of 95.92 into this formula results in a different value for 1/5 second compared to the value of a 1/5 of a second at 1000 meters:

(1 / (ParTimeAnyDist / 0.01)) * 1000 = bsp per 1/100 second

(1 / (95.92 / 0.01)) * 1000 = 0.104

Multiply 0.104 by 20 to convert to 1/5 seconds.

0.104 * 20 = 2.09 beyer speed points per 1/5 seconds at 1600 meters.

versus 3.34 beyer speed points per 1/5 seconds at 1000 meters.

This is almost identical to the value of 1/5 of a second that Beyer got for 5 furlongs and 1 mile.

1/5 of a second at 5 furlongs = 3.3 Beyer Speed Points.

1/5 of a second at 8 furlongs = 2 Beyer Speed Points.

i'm pretty sure it's all been explained to you on this board before.
one simple calculation WILL emulate beyer because they are simply ratios.
why make a simple task look more difficult than it is?

[highnote]

Originally Posted by steveb

i'm pretty sure it's all been explained to you on this board before.
one simple calculation WILL emulate beyer because they are simply ratios.
why make a simple task look more difficult than it is?

I have a tendency to make things more difficult than they are.

[HalvOnHorseracing]

Originally Posted by Gakiss2

I liked your approach to things and therefore would like your input on a recent project of mine. What is your opinion of the recency and pattern of workouts and races? Its easy to just ignore horses with long DSLR but you can miss some good prices. I am trying to find a way to 'calculate' fitness on the basis of Days Since Race, Days since Workout, Pattern of Workout / Racing (One or the other every 20 days vs 30 days). Thank You for your input.

I believe horses are like humans. You can only push them so far before they start tailing off. I grew up in the days when any handicapping book/article would tell you to "eliminate any horse that has been off more than 30 days." This was because the style of the time was to race horses into condition, especially cheaper horses. Once the horse got his condition back he would race regularly -- maybe every two weeks -- until he started cycling down and then he'd be given a break.

Back then, even the best horses usually had a prep race before running in stakes and handicaps. You could tell because the race conditions were written for the stakes horse. It was usually an allowance race for non-winners since _____. Most of the time the stakes horse didn't run to their best because it was a warm-up.

40-50 years ago claiming horses might run 20 races a year. Now 13 races is considered a good year. It took me a while but I finally accepted that trainers today don't do a lot of racing into condition, so if the trainer has proven his ability to bring a horse to a race in condition I won't hesitate to consider them. I think racing fitness is really more of a function of the trainer.

As far as workouts, coming off a layoff or first timers, I look for a steady pattern with no breaks. I like to see a fast 3F workout early in the workout cycle, and then a nicely spaced set of 4F works. Say a :36.1, then every 7 days a :48 or :49 for maybe two months. I believe any horse that has been working on or off for the last six months is having a problem that the trainer is having a tough time correcting.

I can tell you from personal experience that trainers are different in terms of how they condition a horse. Look at Doug O'Neill's horses. 4F in :49.1. On the other hand Bob Baffert likes blowing his horses out, like 45.4. Most trainers are concerned with making sure a horse doesn't leave his race on the training track. The questions you have to answer are:

is the horse in good condition? That means you just do some fine tuning.

is the horse not at the top of his condition? Maybe work him a little tougher.

I don't want to disappoint you, but I think workout patterns and times are particular to the trainer. More subjective than objective.

Anything else just ask.

[jay68802]

Just to add to what Halve's is saying. Look at Bob Baffert, you will see a horse work every 7 days. Usually some fast ones in the mix. In contrast John Service won a race at Gulfstream with a horse off for 6 months and showed 1 3f work in that time.

In California, every worked has to be reported and timed, not so in other states. Find out what the rules are for reporting work outs in the state that they are running in.