Introduction and a rookie question

[raybo]

Originally Posted by whodoyoulike

I don't know who Raybo is but, I've noticed he's usually a straight shooter. This is some very good advice.

Good luck.

Just another horse player!

[whodoyoulike]

Who has figured it out. Not trying to blow smoke, either.

[Poindexter]

Originally Posted by Stillriledup

You say you give extra points to jock and trainer successes but that is stuff already factored into the price. If you are giving a horse extra credit for having a top trainer your program might lead you to bet on more top connections rather than steer you away from that.

You want to stay away from horses with 'overbet humans' and try and gravitate towards horses with competent humans who don't cause the horse you're betting to be overbet.

While I understand your point of trying to stay away form connections that will be bet no matter what horse is running.......you cannot ignore the fact that who the trainer is and who the jockey is both are paramount to determining how much chance each horse has. When I assign a line to a horse, if I see Prat or Bejerano (same goes for your top guns at other circuits) up I might make a horse 15-1 or even 12-1 while I might make the same horse 30-1 if I see guys like Quinonez or David Flores up. For one they ride that much better, also why are they riding to begin with? Same with trainers, you cannot give the same respect to a 4% trainer as you do a 20% trainer. Your goal as a player is to estimate how much chance a horse has(whether making an odds line or using whatever grading system you use) and not giving extra credit to top connections makes this job impossible. If you underestimate the connections you are going to underestimate how much chance their horse has and thus overestimate how much chance every other horse has.

By the way every factor is factored into the price (some more than others), as a player you have to do a better job than the betting public of weighing those handicapping factors and finding value.

[whodoyoulike]

Originally Posted by Mulerider

I could be totally off base, but I'm thinking that it would provide an insight to the quality of the competition the horse had faced, assuming that the higher purse races attract higher quality entries. Or even if all the horses in a given race had consistently run in $10k purse races, it seems to me that the horse with the highest e/p/s would indicate a certain superiority over his peers. ...

As long as you understand what info your factor is providing and it makes sense to you, it should be fine to use. Also, you need to be careful about using factors in handicapping in a rote manner because there are always exceptions in case you haven't noticed.

Btw, I used to use e/p/s for some of the same reasons you mention but I felt it was misleading which is the reason I switched to total earnings.

Just so I'm clear on my responses re: J/T ITM% and earnings usage reflecting the class of a horse, I don't use them to identify my contenders but I use them as part of my decision process after my contenders are determined.

[Lemon Drop Husker]

A lot of good stuff in here.

I'll add my 2 cents.

With all the data, and handicapping information that is available in today's day and age, you have to find your "style". And when you find that style, stick to it and be it.

And of all things, there is no crime in passing a race. Don't like a race, and don't have a firm opinion? They'll run another one in 20 minutes or so.

[Track Collector]

One more piece of advice I would offer is to keep records.

Doing so will help to identify your strengths and weaknesses. Are you good at maiden races, horses 4 years old and up, 6-furlong races on the dirt, races at Louisiana Downs, etc.? Not so good at Allowance races on the Turf, at Delta Downs, muddy tracks, etc.? One's "perception" of where you stand is often a bit different than what will be shown via the actual records that you keep. And just because your records might indicate a weakness in one area does not mean you can not work on it to get better, but DO stop wagering on those types of races until you show significant improvement.

Do "keep score" by your ROI (Return on Investment) rather than the percentage of races you win. Winning a lot of races but still ending up in the negative is not so much fun when the goal is to make money. On the other hand, having a high win percentage is more than ok if one is just looking to have an enjoyable day at the races, in which case one will have some winning days, and some losing days where the total loses in one given day will not be too great.

One warning about using your records.........don't put too much emphasis in them until you build up a sufficient number of races. Records which show you winning 4 out of 10 races with an overall profit of 20% in a particular category might have a completely different result after 40 or 50 races in that category. Also be sure to consider "outliers", that is, high payouts which will show an overall profitable ROI at a certain point in time but are unlikely to repeat in a future sequence of plays. Having a 25-1 winner when the average win payout is something like 4-1 is an example of this. You can still calculate your ROI, but leave the 25-1 winner out of your calculations and see what the "modified" ROI comes out at. Don't be surprised if the ROI is now negative!

Final comments regarding Record Keeping:
--- It involves work to do and review
--- It can be inconvenient because it reveals things to us we DON'T want to know.
--- Is an attribute associated to WINNING HORSEPLAYERS

Hopefully my response does not sound like a lecture. It was meant as a general response to all newer handicappers wishing to improve. From what I have read of your posts already Mulerider, you sound detail-oriented and may already be doing some type of Record Keeping.

Best wishes in your handicapping journey!

[Mulerider]

Originally Posted by Track Collector

One more piece of advice I would offer is to keep records.


Hopefully my response does not sound like a lecture. It was meant as a general response to all newer handicappers wishing to improve. From what I have read of your posts already Mulerider, you sound detail-oriented and may already be doing some type of Record Keeping.

Thanks. I didn't take your response as lecturing.

I'm a semi-retired small businessman with just enough accounting knowledge to make me dangerous. I do keep good records of my trips to the track; to do otherwise would be like operating a business without producing regular income statements. That said, I have no background at all in statistics and probabilities, but still recognize that I will need a much larger sample size of completed races to come to any sort of conclusion as to the effectiveness of my handicapping.

Until I semi-retired last year, I went to the track maybe once or twice a year. I can remember when, two or three decades ago, LAD was a really crowded track. Then the slots came to town and the lottery came to Texas. Long story short, back then I never really expected to make money; I was there for the excitement and the roar of the crowd (and back then LAD had impressive crowds). Now, however, since I've been lurking here for a long while, I still don't have a positive ROI but I can make a $100 voucher last a good long while before re-feeding the machine.

I have a decent basic working knowledge of Excel, having used spreadsheets since the first Lotus 1-2-3. But my knowledge of it is nowhere near that of someone like Raybo. I would have to hit the books to reach that level, but I'm willing to do it.

My problem, in a nutshell, is narrowing down my contenders. The system I built seems to be very effective in spotting them; I can feel pretty confident that in a 10-horse field one of my top 3 or 4 picks will win the race a good part of the time. Of course, that's no better than the public's batting average. It seems to me I somehow have to learn to look at those 3 or 4 top picks and accurately (so far as is possible) predict how the race will unfold, and how my picks will respond.

Thanks again!

[Mulerider]

Originally Posted by Lemon Drop Husker

A lot of good stuff in here.

I'll add my 2 cents.

With all the data, and handicapping information that is available in today's day and age, you have to find your "style". And when you find that style, stick to it and be it.

And of all things, there is no crime in passing a race. Don't like a race, and don't have a firm opinion? They'll run another one in 20 minutes or so.

Thanks LDH. My positive attributes are few, but fortunately patience and discipline are among them. I pass on a lot more races than I play. As I mentioned in my first post, I get spooked if I look at a race and find that one or more horses have never before run today's distance. And since best speed at distance is one of the metrics I use, I generally pass on those races. It could very well be that I'm skipping those races unnecessarily; a horse's best speed at distance could have occurred two years ago and is pretty much irrelevant now. I can confidently say that I have passed on every race that has a sprint horse going to a route for the first time. It throws a monkey wrench in my homebuilt system.

[cnollfan]

Average earnings per start is not as effective a tool as it used to be for two reasons. There are more state-bred races than before. These races have inflated purses relative to the horses' talents. And there are more racinos than before, also offering inflated purses.

[raybo]

Originally Posted by cnollfan

Average earnings per start is not as effective a tool as it used to be for two reasons. There are more state-bred races than before. These races have inflated purses relative to the horses' talents. And there are more racinos than before, also offering inflated purses.

Yes, but aren't there purse increases across the board at tracks that are increasing purses? Sure there are some tracks that have lower purses, without the added money from external sources, but isn't it the player's responsibility to know what tracks don't have those external sources, and adjust their average earnings calculations accordingly. And isn't it also true that as more and more tracks increase their purses by adding external revenue sources, these average earnings calculations will become a more accurate estimation of class? Higher purses attract better horses. I happen to use average earnings as a portion of my "class" rating in my program, and it works quite well for some types of races, although many of those top ranked class horses are also the low priced favorites. But, often enough, the way I use the earnings often puts me on horses that pay very big, because most others are looking at speed or pace or form, or other ways of determining class. Sometimes earnings based class just beats everything else, and at high odds.

[Overlay]

Originally Posted by cnollfan

Average earnings per start is not as effective a tool as it used to be for two reasons. There are more state-bred races than before. These races have inflated purses relative to the horses' talents. And there are more racinos than before, also offering inflated purses.

The concern about higher race purses for factors not directly related to the class of the horses themselves (such as the considerations that you mentioned) has been around for a long time. (As long ago as the third (and last) edition of Ainslie's Complete Guide to Thoroughbred Racing (published in 1988), the late Tom Ainslie went so far as to say that those who continued to rely on earnings data to make class distinctions were "positively doomed" at tracks or circuits where state-bred races were run.)

However, as borne out since then (at least to my satisfaction) by multiple statistical studies that I have seen and continue to see, average earnings-per-start also measures and reflects consistency as well as class in a way that still allows it to be an effective metric as a comparison or ranking tool when given its proper weight in the overall handicapping picture.

[thaskalos]

Originally Posted by Overlay

The concern about higher race purses for factors not directly related to the class of the horses themselves (such as the considerations that you mentioned) has been around for a long time. (As long ago as the third (and last) edition of Ainslie's Complete Guide to Thoroughbred Racing (published in 1988), the late Tom Ainslie went so far as to say that those who continued to rely on earnings data to make class distinctions were "positively doomed" at tracks or circuits where state-bred races were run.)

However, as borne out since then (at least to my satisfaction) by multiple statistical studies that I have seen and continue to see, average earnings-per-start also measures and reflects consistency as well as class in a way that still allows it to be an effective metric as a comparison or ranking tool when given its proper weight in the overall handicapping picture.

Would you mind presenting one such "statistical study" to us...so we could see for ourselves this proof that average earnings-per-start is indeed an effective class/consistency metric?

[raybo]

Originally Posted by Overlay

The concern about higher race purses for factors not directly related to the class of the horses themselves (such as the considerations that you mentioned) has been around for a long time. (As long ago as the third (and last) edition of Ainslie's Complete Guide to Thoroughbred Racing (published in 1988), the late Tom Ainslie went so far as to say that those who continued to rely on earnings data to make class distinctions were "positively doomed" at tracks or circuits where state-bred races were run.)

However, as borne out since then (at least to my satisfaction) by multiple statistical studies that I have seen and continue to see, average earnings-per-start also measures and reflects consistency as well as class in a way that still allows it to be an effective metric as a comparison or ranking tool when given its proper weight in the overall handicapping picture.

I agree, it's how you calculate average earnings that matters, just taking the total earnings and dividing it by number of starts won't get you there. Other things have to be considered in the calculation.

[Tom]

Originally Posted by thaskalos

Would you mind presenting one such "statistical study" to us...so we could see for ourselves this proof that average earnings-per-start is indeed an effective class/consistency metric?

Have you looked at Dave's P&P?

[thaskalos]

Originally Posted by Tom

Have you looked at Dave's P&P?

Yes...but I didn't see earnings-per-start to be an effective class barometer. Did I miss something?