Introducing thoroMotion: visualize any horse race

[riskman]

Thanks for sharing this imaginative piece work on the PA forum. I will certainly be playing with this to determine where it ill be most useful for me.

Let us know when you create thoromotion that will accurately predict the final result before "and they're off "

Regards

[thorobasePA]

@GameTheory, @Vinnie, @riskman Thanks very much for your kind comments.

I'm also looking for feedback and ideas about what people would like me to demonstrate with thoroMotion, so if anyone here has some idea, no matter how crazy, please say it and I'll get on it.

[DeanT]

have you done any DD with Bris data files for projected races Robin? eg running races based on running styles, pace figs and late figs bris provides?

Nice job btw! Cool stuff.

[thorobasePA]

Originally Posted by DeanT

have you done any DD with Bris data files for projected races Robin? eg running races based on running styles, pace figs and late figs bris provides?

Nice job btw! Cool stuff.

I'm sorry I don't know what you mean by "DD"?

My work on thoroMotion actually spawned two projects: thoroMotion charts themselves, plus a framework that would standardize horse racing data. I've called this framework, thoroData, and built an interface around it to access that data (the thoroData API).

thoroMotion itself has an API (it's a wrapper around Motion Chart from the Google Visualization API) so everything together I call the thorobase API.

Right now, thoroMotion is in its nascent stage, and should be considered by much an "alpha" release (very unstable) as it's likely to change as it matures.

So, to answer your question in a roundabout manner, thoroMotion can be configured to do whatever you want it to do. If you want it to incorporate projections, or BRIS pace figs, or running styles, or whatever, it can be modified to handle it. The only limit is your imagination - within limits

Ideas of how to use thoroMotion are great, and are exactly the responses I'm looking for. I'm putting the code up on GitHub this week and will start basic tutorials of how to use it soon. It's JavaScript, which is not my #1 language, so I've a few design considerations to clear up first.

Also realize that because it just needs chart data to work from, it can visualize any race and that could include Man O' War's races, Secretariats, Colin's etc. I could team up with that DRF archiving project in Kentucky to do that. Just a thought.

[DeanT]

Sorry Robin, in work mode today. DD is due dilgence and I should say "beta testing" to a programmer.

I am daft with this, but it sure would be cool to see some of the programs out there who give pace, speed and alternative ratings and if they somehow could run a race graphically with those figs.

It is pretty cool what you have done and I would love to see some sharpies work with it. It would be so cool to have a software challenge or something where the Derby is run with various programs and see who comes closest to reality.

Anyhow, great work and I wish you the best with the project.

[thorobasePA]

Gotcha, yeah I had considered bringing in some testers but I only do this in my spare time and I just wanted to get it out there ("Ship It!") to gauge the racing community's reaction.

Right now I've only built one implementation of the thoroData API, to parse BRIS Import Chart result data files. Obviously if you are a handicapper who uses these, you can start benefitting from this straightaway.

I think I'll do a demo of building a projection thoroMotion soon - seems quite a few people are interested in this.

A Derby competition is not a bad idea at all. Actually the very first thoroMotion I built (manually inputting the chart data!) was just after the 2009 Kentucky Derby with all 20 runners. Then I added in the data for "width-from-the-rail" for each horse, at each point-of-call. Being able to review the race in whatever manner I wished was great, and (apologizing in advance for this horrible 'redboard') it did allow me see the significant effort Summer Bird put in in that race, far better than the chart implied. I bet SB to win the Belmont later in June.

Actually that story reminds me of another funny anecdote. I watched the KY09 Derby video over and over again to input the "Wide" data, I remember seeing that one horse, Hold Me Back, just didn't seem to be matching up on the video and the chart/thoroMotion, but I put it down to my inexperience with US racing. A few months later, Steve Haskin wrote about noticing it too and Equibase had to revise the chart. I felt both silly and validated

Thanks for you kind words Dean.

[togatrigger]

How do you know how wide the horse went? Is that in the Import Charts Files? What are the columns for that chart? I've looked over Brisnets website without seeing any schema diagrams for databases or just column labels. Thanks.

[thorobasePA]

Originally Posted by togatrigger

How do you know how wide the horse went? Is that in the Import Charts Files? What are the columns for that chart? I've looked over Brisnets website without seeing any schema diagrams for databases or just column labels. Thanks.

Excellent question togatrigger.

The data for the how wide the horses went I entered manually, it's not in the Import Charts Files. The API allows you to combine user-generated data with the official chart data, as demonstrated on thorobase.com

I'm investigating using a hosted platform that, when a configuration option (e.g. "find wide data") is selected, will look for a user generated data applicable for this race. If it finds it, it will combine it with the chart data you have supplied. You can also modify the incoming data if you disagree with parts of it. I was all set to use Google's Fusion Tables API with thoroMotion until I discovered it requires authentication with Google Servers (i.e. you would need a Google Account), which is a complex issue plus I don't want to require thoroMotion to be bound to a particular company's user account systems.

I'm thinking maybe I should host these data files on thorobase.com itself.

If you don't supply "wide" data, it defaults to use the PP so the horses basically run in lanes (like the 100m in athletics).

[Partsnut]

Robin, You did an excellent job on your new open source software.
It's a great graphical representation. I'm sure it's going to be even better in the future.
Please keep me updated.

[togatrigger]

One last question on the interpretation of the application,

When I set the side to "Wide" and base to "Time", I expected to see, essentially, the race if the track were stretched straight. This is not the case. I assume the time data is set to the data in the charts for each horse and not modified by lengths back.

Great work!

[thorobasePA]

Thanks Partsnut! (I noticed you launched a new blog recently too).

The best ways to keep up with the latest on thoroMotion and thorobase are:

• Subscribe to the mailing list at www.thorobase.com - sign up with the form on the right
  
• Subscribe to the RSS feed for use with a feed reader/aggregator.
• Become a fan of the thorobase Facebook page.
• Follow @thorobase on Twitter.
• Stick around PaceAdvantage.com! I like this racing forum the most, I think I may announce my work almost exclusively here.

[thorobasePA]

Originally Posted by togatrigger

One last question on the interpretation of the application,

When I set the side to "Wide" and base to "Time", I expected to see, essentially, the race if the track were stretched straight. This is not the case. I assume the time data is set to the data in the charts for each horse and not modified by lengths back.

Great work!

This is true, "Time" is not really time, it's distance travelled by the race leader.

The reason for this is that thoroMotion uses Google's Motion Chart and it requires, to allow the playback functionality, a column representing defined types of dates or times. The lowest time granularity it allows to is "hours:minutes:seconds" but I think that doesn't really work for judging how far a race has progressed, especially since the playback's maximum run time is 40 seconds.

So what I use is "years" to simulate furlongs traveled by the race leader, but there is a long standing problem with years and computer dates so the earliest year I can use is 1901 (this goes back to the Y2K scare) not 0 (zero) to indicate the start of the race. Hence the choice to use a higher value (10000) with the right-most digit representing the furlong.

Anyway, distance combined with Lengths Back gets you the race shape. What you are describing I have built too and in fact, once I release the source code, you can easily modify thoroMotion to do exactly this.

I've even once built a version that made the dots run around the race area anti-clockwise to simulate the race (like viewing the track from a blimp above the track). But it turned out not to be a great visualization as having them all bunched together takes away a lot of the small moves forwards and back horses make during the race.

[Partsnut]

thorobasePA:

Thanks Partsnut! (I noticed you launched a new blog recently too).

Robin, yes I have and it's all about horse racing.
Good luck with your new project.

[thorobasePA]

Hello again everyone! I've just updated thorobase.com with more details about thoroMotion.

I've also created a video (with captions of course) where I give a demonstration of thoroMotion and outline its main features. For those who found the original post a little confusing or long, this hopefully will help you.

I show how you can use the line chart view to instantly identify race shapes. I also demonstrate zooming in and out of the race area to focus on particular horses, and I touch on switching the axes to use a logarithmic scale.

As a bonus (and a thank you) to all you early readers and supporters of thorobase, I'm displaying the thoroMotions for all the final-day races at the 2009 Breeders' Cup. These just use the raw chart data, so no "Wide" data - the horses just run in lanes according to their PP.

Still it's fun to watch Presious Passion race way out in front in the Turf and almost hold on, and especially seeing Zenyatta scythe through the BC Classic field.

The BC09 thoroMotions will only be up for a couple of days so head over to thorobase and take a look!

[LottaKash]

Hey Thor, a nifty little thing you've got there.....Nice of you to contribute to the forum....If anything, at least it looks like a lotta fun....Thx...Looking forward to your next iteration.,..