How do the Europeans Handicap?

[Capper Al]

What I'd like to know is how do Europeans handicap with the limited information that they have in the Racing Post or Racing Times? And if the public there hits 33%+ winners like they do in North America. This thread is open for those in the know to fill the rest of us in.

Thanks

[DeltaLover]

Originally Posted by Capper Al

What I'd like to know is how do Europeans handicap with the limited information that they have in the Racing Post or Racing Times? And if the public there hits 33%+ winners like they do in North America. This thread is open for those in the know to fill the rest of us in.

Thanks

I cannot speak of the Euros in general but I can write a whole book about how handicapping was done in Greece, years ago when there was no Tote board or any kind of electronic data..

Back then, we used to know the majority of the horse by their names, and some of us even knew their breeding by hard.

The horse who was going to take the early lead, was known to every one and it was also written in the program as the faster horse. We were well aware about how fast or heavy the track was and the daily program was expressing the 'speed' of the track, in seconds (for example faster by 1.5 sec)...

We had relatively few distances (1000m, 1400m 1800m and 2400m) and only dirt.. We had very detailed workout tabs, including the jockey, time and even company (if was available).. The programs were reporting the final time of each starter (and not only the winner of the race) using an electronic timer.

Steward reports were publicly available in the end of every racing day.

A horse that happened to finish less than fifth without a reported excuse, was not allowed to win a race before a mandatory lay-off of 20 days. In the opposite case, there was an investigation and possible penalties. There were no claiming races at all and up to three years old they were running in conditions like N1L, N2L etc and later they were added to a global handicap, divided in six classes... The horse was going up and down in class based in number of loses and winners ( I think this is similar to an Australian system)...

Fillies were regularly running against males..

Favourites were winning at a 33% rate..

All races had WIN PLACE EXACTA QUINELLA DOUBLE and TWIN QUINELLA (which was the most exotic bet of the time)...

It was very common to place a bet in the day before (and even more than this)..

Also we used to bet with (illegal) bookmakers, who were offering IF bets, that were very common... For example: Give me 1000 drachmas to win of the five in the first and 50% of the winnings bet them on the third exacta 3X2 and the rest 50% on the last double 2X3...

[BlueChip@DRF]

Originally Posted by DeltaLover

Also we used to bet with (illegal) bookmakers, who were offering IF bets, that were very common... For example: Give me 1000 drachmas to win of the five in the first and 50% of the winnings bet them on the third exacta 3X2 and the rest 50% on the last double 2X3...

Oooooh! Advanced parlay!

[DeltaLover]

Originally Posted by BlueChip@DRF

Oooooh! Advanced parlay!

We used to do this every day...

[Capper Al]

Interesting that favorites still won 33% of the time.

[Capper Al]

Since the Euro's don't have speed figures. They have Timeform which is class and speed together. The Euro's don't have class figures. They probably use earnings per start instead. The Euro's don't have workouts. The Euro public probably focuses on finish last race like our public. And the Euro's do seem to be big on the connections.

The point here is without workouts, without speed figs, and without pace figs- the Euro public does just as well as our public. So might we be able to dismiss speed figs, workouts, and pace figs also? It seems so since the public win rate is about the same.

[DeltaLover]

Originally Posted by Capper Al

Since the Euro's don't have speed figures. They have Timeform which is class and speed together. The Euro's don't have class figures. They probably use earnings per start instead. The Euro's don't have workouts. The Euro public probably focuses on finish last race like our public. And the Euro's do seem to be big on the connections.

The point here is without workouts, without speed figs, and without pace figs- the Euro public does just as well as our public. So might we be able to dismiss speed figs, workouts, and pace figs also? It seems so since the public win rate is about the same.

The whole point is that horse betting is a competition among horse bettors each of them trying to do the best, utilizing the existing information. As we already know very well, whenever some piece of information finds its way to the wide betting public, it is eventually incorporated to the crowd's consensus loosing any value that might present to its original inventor

[DeltaLover]

Originally Posted by Capper Al

Interesting that favorites still won 33% of the time.

I am a firm believer, that even though we did not have the notion of a speed figure, the way we were handicapping back then, as I have described it above, was more predictive than how we do it today. This was happening due to the small population, the limited number of distances and the transparency of medical and training records

[cj]

Originally Posted by Capper Al

Since the Euro's don't have speed figures. They have Timeform which is class and speed together. The Euro's don't have class figures. They probably use earnings per start instead. The Euro's don't have workouts. The Euro public probably focuses on finish last race like our public. And the Euro's do seem to be big on the connections.

The point here is without workouts, without speed figs, and without pace figs- the Euro public does just as well as our public. So might we be able to dismiss speed figs, workouts, and pace figs also? It seems so since the public win rate is about the same.

Euro's have speed figures. There are speed figures published in Timeform (Timefigures) and Racing Post (Topspeed) and there are other sources available that are very good. http://www.speedratings.com/ is one example.

[Tom]

Sectional times are available for some tracks as well.
Doesn't BRIS do class figs for the Euros?

[Capper Al]

Originally Posted by Tom

Sectional times are available for some tracks as well.
Doesn't BRIS do class figs for the Euros?

I know they do on North America PPs for shippers. I don't know if the Euro Racing Forms do.

[Capper Al]

Originally Posted by cj

Euro's have speed figures. There are speed figures published in Timeform (Timefigures) and Racing Post (Topspeed) and there are other sources available that are very good. http://www.speedratings.com/ is one example.

Do they carry these in the Racing Forms by pp line? I understand that there are vendors that sell fractional times and speed figs separate from the Racing Forms.

[jfdinneen]

Capper Al,

As a handicapper of Euro races, I look for events in England, France, and Ireland (Grade 1 Horse-Racing Countries) with a high degree of chaos (I have entropy scores for all race-types). From this initial list, I have selected seven race-types that I focus on exclusively. Because of the high level of uncertainty in these races, the market (wisdom of crowds) is a less successful predictor. With a Bayesian-based, Elo-Class algorithm, I generate my own performance figures. Using the performance figures for all entrants in a chosen race, I run a Monte-Carlo simulation of 1000 races that automatically generates a realistic odds-line as final output. Critically, as long as there is at least one overlay (almost always) in the chosen race, I finally run a Haigh-like Kelly-variant algorithm that selects the final contenders. (As I have stated elsewhere, this list may include both overlays and underlays).

John

[cj]

Originally Posted by Capper Al

Do they carry these in the Racing Forms by pp line? I understand that there are vendors that sell fractional times and speed figs separate from the Racing Forms.

It has been a few years since I saw a paper version of Euro PPs, but when I did Timeform had Timefigures and Racing Post had Topspeed included for each race.

[whodoyoulike]

Originally Posted by Capper Al

Since the Euro's don't have speed figures. They have Timeform which is class and speed together. The Euro's don't have class figures. They probably use earnings per start instead. The Euro's don't have workouts. The Euro public probably focuses on finish last race like our public. And the Euro's do seem to be big on the connections.

The point here is without workouts, without speed figs, and without pace figs- the Euro public does just as well as our public. So might we be able to dismiss speed figs, workouts, and pace figs also? It seems so since the public win rate is about the same.

I don't understand why you would conclude the 2nd to last sentence of dismissing speed figs etc.

I also find it odd the favorites win 33%. Didn't someone else mention that in England 33% was common?

I wonder why that happens.

Does anyone have stats for HK, Japan or Australia?