The Mystery of Pace Figures

[traynor]

Originally Posted by thaskalos

The merest TYRO is capable of eliminating the two "slow" horses in your above example...usually at first glance. The effectiveness of pace handicapping cannot be seen in the elimination of the obviously slow horses...where words like "never" and "routinely" apply. In the "real world", to which you so often refer, the serious handicapping question confronting the player isn't "how to eliminate the obvious throwouts"; it's "how to separate the remaining contenders". And, if the handicapper is to do an adequate job of THAT...then he will have to use all the tools in his arsenal. And, in that regard, "pace analysis" is a mighty useful "tool" to have.

I would offer a detailed example of what I mean, but I am still a little reluctant at this moment. You know...this being a "competition", and all...

It is sometimes necessary to belabor the obvious to illustrate a point. I might have written something like, "Don't expect a horse to go faster because its preferred running style and pace figures fit the track profile," or some equivalent clump of insider jargon, but I thought it might go over the heads of the true believers. People tend to process what they think they see written, rather than what is actually there.

The comment was intended as illustrative of foolish concepts--something that pace handicappers and pace analysts seem to adore, with little or no basis for doing so.

[thaskalos]

Originally Posted by traynor

It is sometimes necessary to belabor the obvious to illustrate a point. I might have written something like, "Don't expect a horse to go faster because its preferred running style and pace figures fit the track profile," or some equivalent clump of insider jargon, but I thought it might go over the heads of the true believers. People tend to process what they think they see written, rather than what is actually there.

The comment was intended as illustrative of foolish concepts--something that pace handicappers and pace analysts seem to adore, with little or no basis for doing so.

My own experience tells me that the implementation of "foolish concepts" isn't just the "pace enthusiast's" characteristic. In this game...there is enough "foolishness" to go around.

[whodoyoulike]

Originally Posted by traynor

... The comment was intended as illustrative of foolish concepts--something that pace handicappers and pace analysts seem to adore, with little or no basis for doing so.

So, there is pace, speed, class handicapping etc. which I'm familiar, what do you usually use or can you describe the basics in layman words?

[whodoyoulike]

Originally Posted by Capper Al

Traditional handicapping order is

Form
Class
Speed
Pace
Connection -- some use both Jockey and trainer other use just one

Pace follows speed. Your two slow horses should already be eliminate by the time one gets to pace. I agree with you.

Where does this traditional order come from because I've found that I can't determine Form until I've looked at speed and pace?

How does one determine improving form?

Even a horse which has run at the back of their last few races can show improving form. Maybe, they were entered against a bunch of speedsters or a router in a sprint race which is the reason for their running position during the races.

Using your handicapping order, I'd probably re-order it as:

Speed
Pace
Class
Form
Connections

but, there are many other criteria everyone should use besides just these 5.

[thaskalos]

Originally Posted by whodoyoulike

Where does this traditional order come from because I've found that I can't determine Form until I've looked at speed and pace?

How does one determine improving form?

Even a horse which has run at the back of their last few races can show improving form. Maybe, they were entered against a bunch of speedsters or a router in a sprint race which is the reason for their running position during the races.

Using your handicapping order, I'd probably re-order it as:

Speed
Pace
Class
Form
Connections

but, there are many other criteria everyone should use besides just these 5.

These handicapping factors can't be analyzed individually...because, as you say, they overlap greatly.

[dilanesp]

Originally Posted by classhandicapper

If you are going to get into projecting pace, I think it also makes sense to get comfortable categorizing running styles. Horses will typically only run as fast early as required to get the desired position. Pace figures are measuring how fast they had to run to get that position, but not necessarily how fast they could have run if desired or whether they are comfortable sitting off the pace and finishing well.

This is consistent with what I observe.

The scenario where a pace figure is most useful is as follows. You have a sprint race with two horses who like to go to the lead. They both have a lot of 1's and 2's in their pp's. But the first horse has pace figures (on my scale) of 110, 108, 112 and the second horse has pace figures of 134, 124, 128.

Both horses are going to go to the front, but the second horse is going to get less tired doing it and is more likely to "win" the speed duel and hold on (all other things being equal), because he is capable of running faster in the early going than the first horse and should get less tired.

On the other hand, pace figures tell you nothing about how a closer is going to run, and are very little help even with a horse with tactical speed if the jockey decides to take her off the pace. You can't evaluate pace figures without looking at running styles.

[thaskalos]

Originally Posted by dilanesp

This is consistent with what I observe.

The scenario where a pace figure is most useful is as follows. You have a sprint race with two horses who like to go to the lead. They both have a lot of 1's and 2's in their pp's. But the first horse has pace figures (on my scale) of 110, 108, 112 and the second horse has pace figures of 134, 124, 128.

Both horses are going to go to the front, but the second horse is going to get less tired doing it and is more likely to "win" the speed duel and hold on (all other things being equal), because he is capable of running faster in the early going than the first horse and should get less tired.

On the other hand, pace figures tell you nothing about how a closer is going to run, and are very little help even with a horse with tactical speed if the jockey decides to take her off the pace. You can't evaluate pace figures without looking at running styles.

Nonsense. Pace figures have plenty to say about the performance of closers. You seem to have a very simplistic opinion about pace handicapping...just as you do about no-limit holdem. It's dangerous to think that your knowledge is vast...when it's really limited to certain confined areas.

[Capper Al]

Originally Posted by whodoyoulike

Where does this traditional order come from because I've found that I can't determine Form until I've looked at speed and pace?

How does one determine improving form?

Even a horse which has run at the back of their last few races can show improving form. Maybe, they were entered against a bunch of speedsters or a router in a sprint race which is the reason for their running position during the races.

Using your handicapping order, I'd probably re-order it as:

Speed
Pace
Class
Form
Connections

but, there are many other criteria everyone should use besides just these 5.

I gather all the info for each category separately. For example, days since last raced or worked and others for form. And similarly for class, speed, pace and connections. Once I have all the categories figured out then I look at the race in the classical order.

[classhandicapper]

Originally Posted by thaskalos

In other words...you've become what trainers call a "pain-in-the-ass owner".

Not in the training, but we do discuss where to spot the horses and where to place them in the race. From what I can gather the trainer is also a very good handicapper because so far everything we've done made perfect sense to me.

[classhandicapper]

Originally Posted by dilanesp

This is consistent with what I observe.

The scenario where a pace figure is most useful is as follows. You have a sprint race with two horses who like to go to the lead. They both have a lot of 1's and 2's in their pp's. But the first horse has pace figures (on my scale) of 110, 108, 112 and the second horse has pace figures of 134, 124, 128.

Both horses are going to go to the front, but the second horse is going to get less tired doing it and is more likely to "win" the speed duel and hold on (all other things being equal), because he is capable of running faster in the early going than the first horse and should get less tired.

I agree with your example.

These days I start with a query that gives me a very basic idea of the likely pace pressure in each race on a card and the profile of the typical winner at that track at that distance on that surface. I can also look up profiles of fast/slow paced races under those conditions. That flags all the races with some obvious potential for a pace play on that day.

Then I go straight to the flagged races and do a more detailed analysis of each horse's running style, their quality, etc... to determine if I can confidently upgrade or downgrade specific horses within that race relative to their general ability given how I expect it to be run and how confident I am in the projection.

The major difference between what I do and what most people do is that my comparisons are more qualitative in nature than based on pace figures. They often agree anyway, but I have techniques I use that are my own. So when the figures and my techniques disagree, I am away from the consensus.

The major difference between what I am doing now and what I've been doing successfully all along is that a lot of it is automated. I don't waste time looking at races where it's very unlikely I'm going to find that kind of play. I can also simply push buttons and get the data and answers I want. This automated portion is new. But it has the potential to expand my activity. I can get a list of flagged races at any number of tracks in 5 minutes. That beats going through them 1 by 1 and wasting tons of time to get through 1 race card.

[traynor]

Originally Posted by Capper Al

I gather all the info for each category separately. For example, days since last raced or worked and others for form. And similarly for class, speed, pace and connections. Once I have all the categories figured out then I look at the race in the classical order.

An experiment that may be worth your while: Save the preferred running style, pace preference, or whatever you want to call it, as indicated by your use of key race lines from PPs. Use the actual race results as an indicator of the winner's pace preferences. Compare the two. I think I posted the code to extract such some time ago.

The perceptions of preferred running style, pace preference, or whatever you want to call it created by viewing one, two, (or some other small number) of races may be (and very often is) different than the reality of winning races.

I realize that it takes a bit of work, but it can readily be seen that the "projected" pace scenarios and the actual pace scenarios are (much) more often different than they are the same. This may not be due to faulty pace projections as much as it is to the basis used for such projections.

Gross oversimplification: Horse A ONLY wins (based on records of its pace profile in its winning races, NOT on projections) in races in which it was leading at the second call. No lead, no win. In today's race, another entry routinely takes the early lead and carries it through the start of the stretch before wilting. Could be a big problem for Horse A.

Not rocket science, not exactly brilliant pace analysis. The only "added" element is the maintenance of records (from results charts) of the actual pace performance of the winners. Rather than extracting (what one believes to be) each entries pace preferences from one or two races in the PPs, use the actual performance of each entry in its previous winning races as the indicator.

A bit of work, but likely to give you a much more realistic (and useful) perspective on "pace matchups" and when, and under what circumstances, an entry is actually advantaged or disadvantaged by the probable pace scenarios of a given race.

[traynor]

Extracted, saved, and accumulated (in individual entry files) from winning races:

If dbl1CPace <= 1.0 Then
strPreferredPaceStyle = "E"
End If

If dbl1CPace > 1.0 AndAlso dbl2CPace <= 1.0 Then
strPreferredPaceStyle = "P"
End If

If dbl1CPace > 1.0 AndAlso dbl2CPace > 1.0 _
AndAlso dbl3CPace <= 1.0 Then
strPreferredPaceStyle = "M"
End If

If dbl1CPace > 1.0 AndAlso dbl2CPace > 1.0 _
AndAlso dbl3CPace > 1.0 AndAlso dblStrCPace <= 1.0 Then
strPreferredPaceStyle = "L"
End If
If dbl1CPace > 1.0 AndAlso dbl2CPace > 1.0 _
AndAlso dbl3CPace > 1.0 AndAlso dblStrCPace > 1.0 Then
strPreferredPaceStyle = "F"
End If

Basic idea originally in an article link in a post by Bob Pandolfo (which, when I asked, he stated he could not recall posting, and I did not save). I have no idea if the basic concept was his or someone else's. I modified and adopted it for my own use.

[traynor]

Originally Posted by whodoyoulike

So, there is pace, speed, class handicapping etc. which I'm familiar, what do you usually use or can you describe the basics in layman words?

Simply stated, I create models of the attributes of winners. The data for each entry in a given race is then parsed to extract matches to the models. I spend most of my time analyzing data and creating models. I do very little (conventional) handicapping of individual races on a daily basis.

[Capper Al]

Thanks Traynor. I group my horses by attempted win which is first, second, or third by a length for pace comparison. I do try to find similar distance and surface key pace lines.

[Tom]

Originally Posted by traynor
... The comment was intended as illustrative of foolish concepts--something that pace handicappers and pace analysts seem to adore, with little or no basis for doing so.

And so you had to use a totally made up example to make this point?

Uh, huh.....right.