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km
4th July 2010, 09:02.24 PM
"Buckfan" Daven queried me about a quirk he noticed when running a Robot2 test.
It had to do with an apparent conflict with a maiden that tested positive for a 'win" in its previous start.

He guessed right away this might be due to a DQd winner. That was correct. Robot2 only looks at the finish position, not the official placement for these filters =

"Won Last"
"Did NOT Win Last"

A "Win" should mean official winner, not including unofficial 1st place finishers that were taken down.

So it came down to two choices while updating Robot2 --

1) Leave the filters intact and change the Labels to "Finished 1st in Last" and "Did NOT Finish 1st in Last" - and continue to filter actual finish, not the official.

2) Redo the filters so that horses were the official winners only from their last start, even if they finished 2nd across the wire but were moved up via DQ.

I chose (1) for several reasons. The most important is that "Finishing 1st" is the key to using this filter to assess future performance. The effort was still there, even if they did commit a foul and the stewards bounced them out. So you'll see new labels for these items in the next version (July 8), while the filter remains the same.

You can test Maiden races for the rare 'Last out 1st place finishers' in the Robot.

= Maiden or MCL (only)
= Won Last (new = "Fin 1st in Last")

In looking over the results, it appears there are a few maidens that actually won their last start, did not get DQd, but qualify for the today's maiden condition for some other reason :confused:
The only thing i can think of is that they may have been stripped of the win after a positive drug test or ineligibility discovered after the race.

Note that none of this affects Robot computations for ROI, etc because the filters we are talking about above are based on the horse's previous start, not today's race. For purposes of statistics, we use official winners only so that actual money returns are accurate.

DanG
5th July 2010, 10:03.40 AM
You hate to single anyone out because so many contribute to this software; but I think it’s a safe bet Daven (Buckfan) does far more behind the scenes then most of us realize. Seems fitting to thank Daven on our weekend dedicated to unsung heroes.

http://theimponderableone.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/quality-assurance.gif

km
5th July 2010, 11:34.49 AM
Thanks for mentioning that Dan.

It is nearly impossible to produce software that is bug free, even at the highest levels, as even Microsoft and Apple have discovered. But knowing that people like you and Daven and so many others have my back in terms of error detection, gives me a lot more confidence to put out new stuff - or to boldly go where no handicappers have gone before :D

njcurveball
5th July 2010, 04:14.45 PM
Great job Daven. I agree with Ken in keeping the factors linked to what happens on the track.

Team HTR definitely on top of this one.

Buckfan
5th July 2010, 04:45.56 PM
My part was miniscule, but thanks for the thougtful words.....Ken, Rick, DanG and Ken's team of superb behind the scene beta-testers make this thing go. I am just happy to be able to participate in a small way, with Team HTR !!! Best team and tools in the business :)