Is it possible that there are no real speed figs?

[thaskalos]

Originally Posted by EMD4ME

As a guy who looks at everything and I mean eeeeevvvveeeerrrryyyyytttthhhhhiiiinnnnggggg (pace figs, speed figs, ALL replays, sire stats, dam stats, dam's dam's stats. dam's sires stats, trainer intent, trainer %, track biases, j/tr tedencies, charts, competition of each horse in each race for all runner's last 5 races, betting patterns, etc.) I am SHOCKED that people out there actually only look at a couple of things and not everything.

Don't be so shocked. Most bettors out there are "specialists", whether they realize it or not. To some of us, myself included, looking at "eeeeevvvveeeerrryyyyytttthhhhhiiiinnnnggggg" is not only unnecessary...it could even be called UNDESIRABLE...because a horse that is validated by "eeeeevvvveeeerrryyyyytttthhhhhiiiinnnnggggg" often gets the short end of the price on the board.

[illinoisbred]

Originally Posted by thaskalos

It doesn't have to be a young horse. It could be a foreign older horse, coming to this country for the first time. Or a shipper from a "better" circuit, which finds the local stock much more to his liking, and improves dramatically in his local races. Or an old claimer who suddenly awakens...once getting claimed by a "miracle-working" trainer.

There are times when the past about a horse must be discarded...and we must begin anew in our grading of the horse. How do we progress in those cases where we DON'T have four relevant past races to rely on for our calculations? What do we use for a bench-mark then?

Agree. Familarity with a circuit does help. I know both you and me know who the "usual suspects"...the "miracle-workers" are on the Chicago circuit. Foreign stock does pose a problem for me since moving my play to SoCal, but thus far, in a year, there haven't really been any that have come out as serious runners. They've pretty much been sandwiched in between the established runners..or behind them by finish position in most cases. But yes, there can be difficult situations and again,a maker just looks to get a "good fit" in and around the strangers.

[illinoisbred]

Originally Posted by EMD4ME

Maybe I wasn't clear, my fault.

I wasn't saying that fig makers don't. I was replying to AL's comment about how certain players only use some tools and can't rely upon only a few tools.

Understand...no problem.

[EMD4ME]

Originally Posted by thaskalos

Don't be so shocked. Most bettors out there are "specialists", whether they realize it or not. To some of us, myself included, looking at "eeeeevvvveeeerrryyyyytttthhhhhiiiinnnnggggg" is not only unnecessary...it could even be called UNDESIRABLE...because a horse that is validated by "eeeeevvvveeeerrryyyyytttthhhhhiiiinnnnggggg" often gets the short end of the price on the board.

Maybe I wasn't clear here also.

I didn't say that a horse needs to be "validated" by everything. I meant that I like to look at everything.

Snake Oil Charlie was a hopeless 80/1 at Belmont this summer. Was 0/13. Near dead last finish in every start in his life. Dirt and Turf.

I looked at the Dam's breeding. All Turf ROUTE. Threw him into pics in Snake Oil Charlie's FIRST TURF ROUTE. It was a crappy field. By looking at every single horse, inside and out (all replays, trainers tendencies, breeding, etc.) I knew the whole field sucked. Snake Oil Charlie had a chance, a small chance to show improvement.

He did and paid near $200 to win.

That's what I'm talking about.

[dasch]

I don't agree with a daily variant because things change from race to race(pace,run-up,trip,wind,etc), to me this is just guesstimating at best.

I also don't agree with projecting because you will still use some opinion on coming to what number you end up giving even if marginal.

What I do is REMOVE pace and trip(wideness) from a horse's performance leaving me with what I call the "core" number. A horse's "speed" or "performance" rating can vary by many factors but my core numbers don't change much. This of course requires accurate info(lengths beaten etc) but there is almost zero opinion on my part involved in making the number.

In the last week Little Curlin at 47-1 on Sunday and Generosidade at 71-1 the previous Sunday were both TOP win contenders of mine based on their core numbers. NOT close so you had to include because of their odds but TOP win core numbers. Some people will see this as a redboard but im just giving an example of if you can figure out a way to do things differently there STILL is tremendous value out there and I am not giving anything away just by telling you WHAT I do as the most important part and what it has taken me years to figure out is the HOW.

[EMD4ME]

Originally Posted by dasch

I don't agree with a daily variant because things change from race to race(pace,run-up,trip,wind,etc), to me this is just guesstimating at best.

I also don't agree with projecting because you will still use some opinion on coming to what number you end up giving even if marginal.

What I do is REMOVE pace and trip(wideness) from a horse's performance leaving me with what I call the "core" number. A horse's "speed" or "performance" rating can vary by many factors but my core numbers don't change much. This of course requires accurate info(lengths beaten etc) but there is almost zero opinion on my part involved in making the number.

In the last week Little Curlin at 47-1 on Sunday and Generosidade at 71-1 the previous Sunday were both TOP win contenders of mine based on their core numbers. NOT close so you had to include because of their odds but TOP win core numbers. Some people will see this as a redboard but im just giving an example of if you can figure out a way to do things differently there STILL is tremendous value out there and I am not giving anything away just by telling you WHAT I do as the most important part and what it has taken me years to figure out is the HOW.

Can you expand on those thoughts please?

In writing vs in person, things can get construed. Just want to see what you mean.

Thank you

[thaskalos]

Originally Posted by EMD4ME

Maybe I wasn't clear here also.

I didn't say that a horse needs to be "validated" by everything. I meant that I like to look at everything.

Snake Oil Charlie was a hopeless 80/1 at Belmont this summer. Was 0/13. Near dead last finish in every start in his life. Dirt and Turf.

I looked at the Dam's breeding. All Turf ROUTE. Threw him into pics in Snake Oil Charlie's FIRST TURF ROUTE. It was a crappy field. By looking at every single horse, inside and out (all replays, trainers tendencies, breeding, etc.) I knew the whole field sucked. Snake Oil Charlie had a chance, a small chance to show improvement.

He did and paid near $200 to win.

That's what I'm talking about.

I understood what you said, EMD...but yours is a confusing method of play, IMO...for me at least. What do I do when my breeding stats conflict with the discoveries of my pace/speed methods? Is a horse like Snake Oil Charlie, who finishes dead-last repeatedly when running in turf sprints, suddenly elevated to win-contender status when switching to a turf ROUTE...simply because the breeding stats suggest a fondness for the turf routes? How often do we see turf routes won by horses who were running atrociously in turf sprints?

"The whole field sucked"...you say. Well...not to argue with you, but I don't categorize whole fields in terms like that. To me, whole fields don't "suck", not are they "GREAT". Whether it's the Breeders Cup Classic, or a lowly $5,000 claimer...it presents its own challenges, and features its own "stars". I am happy for you for cashing big on Snake Oil Charlie...but I would never have made that bet myself.

[dasch]

Originally Posted by EMD4ME

Can you expand on those thoughts please?

In writing vs in person, things can get construed. Just want to see what you mean.

Thank you

I remove pace(plus or minus) and then remove/adjust for the wideness of the trip. To do this accurately I watch every replay and make my own trip/wideness notes and adjustments. What I am left with is an EXACT number. NO opinion, no projection, no variant added in.

This probably didn't help clear things up much as the important info lies in the method but I wont go into any details about that nor would I ask or expect anybody to provide details on the work they have spent years working on.

[EMD4ME]

Originally Posted by thaskalos

I understood what you said, EMD...but yours is a confusing method of play, IMO...for me at least. What do I do when my breeding stats conflict with the discoveries of my pace/speed methods? Is a horse like Snake Oil Charlie, who finishes dead-last repeatedly when running in turf sprints, suddenly elevated to win-contender status when switching to a turf ROUTE...simply because the breeding stats suggest a fondness for the turf routes? How often do we see turf routes won by horses who were running atrociously in turf sprints?

"The whole field sucked"...you say. Well...not to argue with you, but I don't categorize whole fields in terms like that. To me, whole fields don't "suck", not are they "GREAT". Whether it's the Breeders Cup Classic, or a lowly $5,000 claimer...it presents its own challenges, and features its own "stars". I am happy for you for cashing big on Snake Oil Charlie...but I would never have made that bet myself.

I have 2 categories of races (in terms of trip notes). Was it a performance field or a non performance field. For me, when today's field has 1 or 2 or more horses who performed (via poor trip or solid trip) in their last race, then I throw a horse like Snake Oil Charlie out as he would need to improve by leaps and bounds to beat a solid contender. If it's a non performance race, where every contender has been poor or non impressive under optimum circumstances in recent races, then I look for anything that can improve.

The aforementioned assumes similar distance, similar circumstances, no layoff horses etc.

By the way, we don't argue I love to interact and learn from eachother. It's a discussion.

[EMD4ME]

Originally Posted by dasch

I remove pace(plus or minus) and then remove/adjust for the wideness of the trip. To do this accurately I watch every replay and make my own trip/wideness notes and adjustments. What I am left with is an EXACT number. NO opinion, no projection, no variant added in.

This probably didn't help clear things up much as the important info lies in the method but I wont go into any details about that nor would I ask or expect anybody to provide details on the work they have spent years working on.

Thanks dasch. I thought I knew where you were coming from. Now I know. Great post.

I don't expect you to divulge more. Was just wondering if where you were coming from is where I thought you were coming from.

[Capper Al]

Originally Posted by EMD4ME

As a guy who looks at everything and I mean eeeeevvvveeeerrrryyyyytttthhhhhiiiinnnnggggg (pace figs, speed figs, ALL replays, sire stats, dam stats, dam's dam's stats. dam's sires stats, trainer intent, trainer %, track biases, j/tr tedencies, charts, competition of each horse in each race for all runner's last 5 races, betting patterns, etc.) I am SHOCKED that people out there actually only look at a couple of things and not everything.

Like I said, I am in awe of those who can only use trainer/pedigree. I use almost every factor.

[Nitro]

I’m sometimes curiouslly intrigued with threads like this only because many years ago I used to do the same thing. Although CJ is correct to some degree when he stated:

Originally Posted by cj

I'm not going to give away much, but I don't use pars at all. It is basically impossible at most places any longerThere are so many different conditions you would never have a big enough sample size to have anything remotely reliable.

But I would think that certain things like knowing the local horse population at your favorite track really haven’t changed all that much. So looking at conditions within a specific population can reduce the sample size significantly. So I completely agree with:

Originally Posted by illinoisbred

Agree. Familarity with a circuit does help.

I found that the one thing that really firmed up those PAR values for adjusting my figures was to average the PAR values for all the races at same distance (and track surface). My figures were so accurate that I was able to predict the running times of races the day after the PARS were created. (assuming there weren’t any changes to the track due to the weather). But as much fun as that all was I found a much more powerful method for predicting the future.

Originally Posted by EMD4ME

As a guy who looks at everything and I mean eeeeevvvveeeerrrryyyyytttthhhhhiiiinnnnggggg (pace figs, speed figs, ALL replays, sire stats, dam stats, dam's dam's stats. dam's sires stats, trainer intent, trainer %, track biases, j/tr tedencies, charts, competition of each horse in each race for all runner's last 5 races, betting patterns, etc.) I am SHOCKED that people out there actually only look at a couple of things and not everything.

Well you're really going to be SHOCKED to find out that there are some like myself who only look at ONE FACTOR. And I don’t see it as part of “everything” listed in your comment! As far as I’m concerned you’ve left out the most significant aspect of playing the horses in real time. You can view and subjectively analyze all of the past history on these horses and yet the most critical factor is missing from the equation: Current Condition on Race Day.

Originally Posted by Capper Al

Cincy,
I'm in awe of those who can do pedigree/trainer. These usually are real horse people, not us guys playing with numbers.
Ciao

The REAL horse people know a bit more then that! Just curious Al. If you’re in awe about the “Insiders” how would feel about some Outsiders who are in touch with Insider intentions in real time?
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[ultracapper]

Originally Posted by cj

You are comparing the times the horse runs to what the horse has run in the past. I look at each horse's last four races compared to what it ran today. So for each race card I can have hundreds of data points. I'm not comparing horse to horse, I'm comparing each horse to itself.

Isn't that what Beyer does? He finds a number of horses that ran as expected, to start the process, and then goes from there?

Edit: I should have gotten deeper into the discussion before asking a ground-bottom question.

[Elliott Sidewater]

Originally Posted by Capper Al

The discussion really is about the daily variant actually nullify the speed by adjusting to the class of the field? In the OP, there was an example of adjusting the daily variant to what a field of $20,000 claimers at a certain track are expected to run. By making this adjustment, aren't they nullifying speed?

I know it's a lot of work making your own Beyer style figures with parallel charts, track variants, and daily variants.

No, the daily variant does not nullify the speed. There's a big difference between adjustment and nullification. The variant is used to adjust the speed. You really should read Beyer's 1st book Picking Winners, it explains the process in detail and the basics have not changed since the 70's.

[steveb]

Originally Posted by illinoisbred

Pretty much the same as CJ stated in post #12. I project the individual horse off his/her previous efforts.

to do that then you would need a pace factor which then means its not really a speed figure, because in most instances what any individual horse will do depends on the race pace, that is, what the leading horse/s are doing.

speed figures rightfully should have huge variations in my opinion that reflects the different ways races are run, the different makeup of the race, and so on.
i don't and never have believed in projections.

then you could you make additional figures that might give adjustments to the individual runners depending on how they went or were suited, not to the race as a whole