Importance of workouts

[redeye007]

How important are workouts when determining the fitness of a horse in the race. Is recency more important? Is there anything especially useful to watch for in a horses workouts as indicated in the past performances?

[DeltaLover]

Take a look :

http://www.amazon.com/Bruno-Workouts...no+on+workouts

It covers everything about workouts....

[Dave Schwartz]

Interestingly, that was the first topic of discussion in my webinar last night.

It might interest you.

http://thehorsehandicappingauthority...-game-seminar/

[Pcon04]

I sat with bruno for 3 days at oKlahoma traing track SARATOGA

he doesn't get a list of horses training and guesses who they are

by color and saddle cloth and markings . He is sharp but I thought missed

some for sure.He did watch the gallop out and said that is where the

best part of the work is .

Caveat Emptor

So works !!! who knows how good they are ?? i don't know

[DeltaLover]

His book is very comprehensive and accurate.

A handicapper does not need anything more that he can find in it..

Besides this the whole concept of workouts is overrated.

In my models I use workouts very sparingly.

Merely considering recent activity and even this as a very low impact factor.

Recency is far more important as a factor.

[Tom]

The workout ratings in HTR are very potent in that they improve many other factors when you combine them. What goes into them is not important, it is that they do a very good job when you use them.

A lot like electricity - I don't how the stuff works, but I can light up the night with it.!

[DeltaLover]

Originally Posted by Tom

The workout ratings in HTR are very potent in that they improve many other factors when you combine them. What goes into them is not important, it is that they do a very good job when you use them.

A lot like electricity - I don't how the stuff works, but I can light up the night with it.!

I completely agree with the last statement... If backtesting a factor (which can be expressed as a function of primitive data) shows that it is significant we do not need to know anything more about it!

But What exactly is HTR? From what I am reading here I have to assume is some of the shelf program but I do not know too much about it...

Can you provide a bit more info about the workout rating?

As a rating I have to assume it is a single figure assigned to each starter, similar to quirin for example... What exactly is the scale of it? How do you use it in conjuntion with other factors? Especially with binary factors... Do you convert it to some normalized form? Is your ROI, winning percent or both improved by it ? How it behaves across race classification? Naturally I expect it to have more impact to first time outs than to 6 year olds, although this can be wrong....

[HUSKER55]

The value of a workout has more to do with current condition, in my opinion. Just because a horse has a workout does not give him an edge by itself. But, if his is the best in the field or in the top four then he is probably more ready to run than the rest, which boils down to "he feels good".

But that is just my opinion.

[Broad Brush]

I have always had a lot of success using workouts, though not as they are viewed here. The most important thing to understand about workouts is how
each trainer uses them. They all have patterns that point out good form
or bad form of their horses. Learn the habits of the trainers at the tracks
you follow.

[rubicon55]

Originally Posted by HUSKER55

The value of a workout has more to do with current condition, in my opinion. Just because a horse has a workout does not give him an edge by itself. But, if his is the best in the field or in the top four then he is probably more ready to run than the rest, which boils down to "he feels good".

But that is just my opinion.

I agree, also I look for workouts at regular intervals with no significant lapses between. Lapses may indicate soreness or other health issues. I especially like recent bullet workouts on lightly raced horses or maidens, this is where I think the trainer is pointing the horse towards a top effort next time out. True some trainers purposely do not show a horses true current form in their workouts, that would require back check of the trainers training style and at that track. I could be wrong but top winning percentage trainers have too many horses to manage in order to hold back or shade the horses actual form by instructing the workout jockey to perform mediocre workouts. JMO

[jasperson]

I think that workouts can be important if there is some sort of comment about the work. Just the fact that a horse worked fast has to be compared to his normal work isn't anything new. If a horse normally works fast then it is just another work. If a horses normal work is fast and he works slow that is an important factor. The clocker must know how the horse normally works. Although even the experts can make mistakes about works ergo the Green Monkey. Because of that I only listen to public handicappers that are present at the track they are handicapping and are not doubling as the track annoucer. A track annoucer has enough to do and doesn't have the time to watch workout and talk to trainers. Having said that I rarely look at workout because the ones available don't have the important facts with them.

[JohnGalt1]

One, some horses in Kentucky work off track, and two, tracks like Mountaineer--good luck seeing any work outs on pp's, even on layed off horses.

One workout showing possitive intent is a late (4 days or less before today's race) work out.

[Robert Goren]

I found only one absolute truth concerning WOs. A horse taking a big drop in claiming price from its last in which it ran at least decently with a bullet or near bullet WO since its last race will show early speed and fade. It doesn't matter if the horse has never shown any early speed in its PPs.
Everything else about WOs is trainer related and in some rare cases horse related. You haven't much of a chance of figuring what is going on if it is horse related. If you keep records on trainers, you have chance of figuring out what is going on especially with the low % trainers. Some these guys only win when things fall into a certain pattern usually at a big price. The smaller track, the more that is true.

[raybo]

IMO, the best way of assessing the workouts most of us have access to, is to look at whether or not the workout(s) were designed to improve a horse's recent performance(s) or prepare him for an upcoming race of a different type than he has run recently.

I've stated my thoughts about what I do when assessing current form, so I won't duplicate that here. But, basically, I try to "think like a trainer", a proficient trainer, who is pointing a horse towards a goal, or future performances. In other words, is he trying to make purse money for the owner, himself, and the jockey(s)? Or, is he just going through the motions without planning an individual horse's near future?

Workout times/rankings mean very little, in this kind of analysis, it's the distance and type of work that are more important.