New User w/a thought or two

[Hat Trick]

In general, I like HTR very much. There could be refinements, but what's perfect? and if my ideas were part of HTR I'm not sure predictions would improve, even though I would be happier. I DO NOT LIKE a horse, rated highest in FR1, who is NOT a front-runner. To me, it makes no sense, and burns bets. (Maybe some DB guru can check this out sometime). Also, I really think the PED is good, but needs refinement. The format focuses on FR1, but why can't I sort by FR2? (Maybe the new pace set-up allows for this). AND ... I often check for FPS to really see if I agree with the pace designations. Mostly I do agree, but not always, and I seem to be more accurate, given the tracks I play regularly. In sum, HTR is a very fine product, but with room to grow. ps, you NEED more documentation of your factors.

[km]

thanks for the input Hat'

FR1 is the time it takes a horse to go from point A to point B -- period. It is not concerned with running style or the perceived lack of front position. Look at this comparison=

HorseA was 4 lengths back in a race where the leader ran a 22.0 first fraction
HorseB was the leader and ran 23.0 first quarter

Assuming no variant adjustment, horseA would get a running style "P", is not a front runner by any means, but still as the faster Fr1 velocity. HorseB went to the front, but his time was much slower, it is an "F" running style, clearly a front runner, but will be Fr1=2.

You can test for yourself in the Robot that P1 and S1 ("P" running style with Fr1=1, or "S" running style Fr1=1) often payoff better than E1 or F1 as they are not so apparent and tend to have higher odds. Fr1 pays its biggest dividends when it is not attached to a front runner. E1 and F1 are obvious to the public. Fr1 hits with longshots because of the dichotomy with running style.

The new MAXVEL has exactly what you want in terms of sorting all the factors. The HTR2 velocity screen does not sort. The completed version of MAXVEL will be available Monday or Tuesday and will sort on all velocity factors. The upcoming January newsletter has a MAXVEL user guide in it.

Documentation? - there is a massive archive of articles and newsletters in the HTR Library and several user guides, and this bbs as well. If you have specific questions about anything, leave it here and we'll refer you to a previous newsletter or bbs post, or answer it directly. And our seminar is the best for getting the details you want with handicapping w/ HTR. Hope you can make it in July.

[njcurveball]

My take on first fraction was similar in the beginning. Why should I want to rank a horse who consistently is in the middle of the pack #1.

And I think we all can state cases where the horse has ran in the middle of the pack even with #1 first fraction.

But an extreme example would be if you raced 20 of your friends and were always first. You raced against a horse who was always last, yet ran much faster, let's say his quarter mile was 26 and yours was 70 seconds. No guesswork here on who would be in front.

A less extreme example would be a horse sprinting in the middle of the pack. Stretching out with #1 first fraction, they will often take the lead.

The point is that we need to look at the big picture and with pace it is always about time, not position.

If your personal view of a #1 first fraction horse is that they have no chance, then scratch them. We use to have models with 4 or 5 horses per race and if a non-contender won, we would simply put an X in the model.

I think this may be perhaps the only "major" thing I would ask in HTR is to have some kind of Contender flag and limit horses with it.

However, I see the "heat" Ken gets on little things and there is no way he will please the whole group.

The great thing is that we have a state of the art export to do personal things with.

Jim

[jhilden]

I will confirm what Ken said, the Fr1=1 horse that is not a front runner should be examined more as they tend to provide good prices.

Before HTR, my evaluation of early pace mirrored how the general public evaluated it with a track program or DRF. Basically, I looked for the horses that had the small numbers in their running lines for the first and second calls. But this practice just identified who tends to go to the lead in their prior races. Yes, this can be important, but today’s race might be different, and this is when HTR comes in and helps justify what the projected pace of the race might be.

My first epiphany with early pace was when I started using HTR and was able to dig deeper into the horses past numbers. The horse who was ranked Fr1=1 was classified as a “S” and when looking at his past races, he was not a front runner – with the closest first call position being 5 lengths off the lead. I really scratched my head on this one and wondered how this could be. After looking at the field and this one particular horse more closely, I noticed the Fr1=1 horse was dropping in class in what some would classify as a “hidden” drop. Well, it would be considered a hidden drop by looking at the program but HTR’s class numbers clearly displayed this fact.

By using HTR, the Fr1=1 horse was clearly the fastest horse in the field in today’s race. What made this horse look bad in the program was that his form was appearing to be diminishing; in my opinion, he was placed in the wrong races (Or was it an old claiming trick by the trainer?). It’s amazing to see that by looking at the track program, a horse appears to be going down, but by looking at the pace figures in HTR, he actually was getting faster.

By today’s race, the Fr1=1 horse was not getting much respect and went off at double digit odds. The gates opened and the horse went right to the front and never looked back. As I was heading to the windows to cash my ticket, I remember hearing some complaining about the race being fixed and how a horse that never leads early in a race do so today and go wire-to-wire.

Now, situations like the one above do not happen everyday and Fr1=1 horses that win usually are “F” and “E” horses. But juicy prices happen when you look at what the public is missing and I’ll always put weight on the pace figures over running style.

Modeling for discovering factors that are working for a race is important in handicapping, but so is understanding the pace of the race at hand, which to me can be still tough to project. This is why I dutch (And make multiples in Pick 3’s), it helps overcome my misevaluation of the pace at hand.

[Paladin]

I think the key to the race that jhilden described, was Class Advantage.

Class Advantage can : Make the last race (running in mid-pack) fractions, equal to todays "front of the pack" fractions.
Class Advantage will often allow a horse to run with a different running style.
In this case, he went right to the front and instantly turned into an "F" horse.

However IMO, Without a distinct Class Advantage, many horses who run "out of their natural running style" don't do well.

Why? Because it's not natural for them.
IMO They're running from a (confusing) position in a race that "doesn't feel right" to them.
Most (but not all) horses have a running style that feels comfortable to them.
But a drop in class can do wonders for making them feel comfortable with a Tweaked Running Style.
In which case they're probably more "comfortable" with the horses they're running against, ...Than they are "uncomfortable" using a different running style.
(I think Ron Tiller has a whole program on this subject)

[km]

Very good threads on this Sunday, i betcha we beat the PA today for enlightenment!

Another angle as alluded to by a couple of you, is the F5 or the E7, etc. ("E" running style, Fr1=7). These horses are in trouble. They want to run up close early, but they can't run fast enough to do it apparently = failure. Most "E" and "F" horses that step up in class are vulnerable in this respect, they can't deal with a more aggressive pace.

NJ - yes, i took heat the last we time had a contender selector in HTR, and deservedly so.

It did get 95% winners using about 50% of the horses in the contender mix. What's wrong with that :confused: Well, the 5% turned out to be the key longshots we all need to stay alive in the pickX, tournament, or hit that $5,000 superfecta. Just one out of 20 slips through, but those are the horses that spell doom for the public and make the big money.

You can try a contender method on your own though using the HTR consensus - eliminate any horse that is not 1-2 in at least one factor or that doesn't have a (+) somewhere. But i think that will get too many contenders in some races.

[Zaf]

Yes excellent thread !

[njcurveball]

Ken,

Any contender selection method will leave some winners out. This is not news to you or anyone else on this board. I wasn't talking about something totally automatic. More of a checkbox that starts off being checked for every horse. Then the User can choose who to call a contender.

If there are automated scenarios for some Users that is fine. My preference from experience is to rank only my contenders. Often I use the scratch routine in HTR for that. I have no grandiose views that I will have every winner in my contenders.

Just like when we use to mark up the form and stick 5 or 6 horses in the Sartin Programs. Sure there were a few that put EVERY horse in them. But that just causes static in the rankings.

I know you (Ken) have a long history with the Users of the software and at times (or perhaps all the time) they have expected a product where the $4 horses come up on top, as well as the $100 horses.

What was the old Indian saying, something about the result being more dependant on the indian than the arrow.

I guess at one time or another we all could write you and say the _____ is good, but it could be better if you __________. And I am sure I will do that. ;-)

I am not expecting you to give me the contenders, I just suggested it would be nice to have a way to take horses out of the rankings, other than scratching them and then having them come back when the results come in.

thanks for all you do, it is greatly appreciated!
Jim

[jhilden]

Paladin – you’re %100 absolutely correct, my example was pure class advantage. I used this race because it was the first time I ran into a horse whose running style was not “F” or “E” and was not only Fr1=1, but had just over a 1.00 FPS advantage over the #2 ranked Fr1. I just wanted to inform “Hat” that with HTR, not all Fr1=1 horses should be thrown out of contention without further investigation.

To contribute more into the dialog of early speed:

Majority of handicappers understand the power of early speed, but most do not understand its affect at each track. More importantly, understanding how the betters at your track wager on early speed (and other important factors) is very important. With HTR, we have the tools to help us manipulate any inefficiency in the pools caused by the public over/underestimating any major factor. At Philly Park, Fr1=1 and EP horses perform better at 8.32 then 6 furlongs and at some distances, you’ll be surprised at how “Reverse” running styles perform.

As an example, I will use 6 furlong races for older horses in claiming and allowance races on a fast surface at Philly Park – I have 160 races in my database that meet these criteria (Also these races are my wagering bread and butter). I ran the robot for Fr1=1 with a running style of “F” and “E”. Out of the 160 races, 107 horses(Bets) met the condition with 17 winners. That is 16% wins, an ROI of 0.97, and an IV of 1.24. The average mutual was $12.2, a high pay win of $29, and 2 horses that paid over $20.

Then, I ran the robot for Fr1=1 with a running style of “P” and “S”. Out of the 160 races, 53 horses met the condition with 14 winners. That is 26% wins, an ROI of 1.12, and an IV of 2.00. The average mutual was $8.5, a high pay win of $27 (The horse I mentioned in my first post), and only 1 horses that paid over $20.

Basically, these 14 winners out of 53 qualifiers in 160 races are significant. Yes, these winners only won 9% of the total races, but there were only 53 qualifiers and they returned a good ROI.

Clearly, as a whole, the Fr1=1 is not a bad factor to bet meeting the above conditions no matter what the running style F,E,P,or S. The ROI for all running styles returned a modest 1.02, still, not too bad.

Also, what really surprised me above was that the average mutual was lower for the P and S horses – maybe it was the large amounts of money I was betting on these horses; yes I am JOKING! But honestly, even though the ROI was well into the positives, the lower average mutual for the P and S’s will lead me deep into the database so I can review each of the individual winning horse that had FR1=1 to see what other factors they possessed. I want to polish my assessment of the public’s ability to evaluate early speed.

[DanG]

Great stuff guys!

This is a good way to kick-start the brain pre-6am.:)

[Hat Trick]

Paladin, you expressed CLASS --- and very honestly I still don't think any program deals with this concept in a real way. Yes, it's tricky, and maybe subjective, but when you can see a CLASS rating with pace factors, then you get more of a feel for the race. I still don't see HTR dealing with this issue of Class, but maybe it's me. Of course how much can a program deal with anyway.

[Hat Trick]

Afterthought. I agree with NJ 100%. The scratch routine is great, but in addition a "REMOVE FROM CONSIDERATION" button would be wonderful. Get busy KM.

[dehere]

Two little thoughts

Documentation - great idea but it would be out of date before it got published given the constant updates of the program that take place. Also, many of the HTR factors come with opinions. How do you document opinions? I learn much more from one of these threads than I ever would from a simple statement about what the Fr1 rating means in some publication. Of course, I can't remember what I read when it comes time to handicapping a race, but the thoughts certainly seem relevant at the time I read them.

Use of scratch or "remove from consideration" routine - the problem is, once you remove the horse from the body of the race you also remove any impact the horse may have on the pace of the race, possibly to the detriment of properly handicapping the race. Or do I misconstrue what the "remove from consideration" function would do? Personally, I like the ink pen, big "nope" over the horse procedure.

[DanG]

Paladin, you expressed CLASS --- and very honestly I still don't think any program deals with this concept in a real way. Yes, it's tricky, and maybe subjective, but when you can see a CLASS rating with pace factors, then you get more of a feel for the race. I still don't see HTR dealing with this issue of Class, but maybe it's me. Of course how much can a program deal with anyway.
Hat…

I don’t quite follow you on HTR’s lack of dealing with “Class”. Let’s take a group we all can agree on long term.

MLO=1, claimers. All Tracks, Surf, Age, Sex and same number of legs per runner :D .

All Burger (52,000+ races.)

W%....WP%.....ROI
29%....49%...$0.79

Same group sorted by rank of class. (Zero handicapping applied to a VERY tough group of runners to show profit with.)

• 01= 35%...55%...$0.85
• 02= 31%...52%...$0.82
• 03= 29%...50%...$0.81
• 04= 26%...46%...$0.76
• 05= 23%...42%...$0.72
• 06= 21%...40%...$0.71
• 07= 19%...36%...$0.65
• 08= 17%...31%...$0.63

That’s the linear relationship statisticians seek in a factor.

Class Fit also neatly summarizes class on the “Prgm” screen. (Has successfully negotiated today’s level is represented by “+” and has failed is “-“. Or 1 and 2 respectively via export)

• “+”= 33%....53%...$0.84
• “-“ = 23%...42%...$0.72

As KM knows better than anyone getting a “subjective” rating to impact both Win% & ROI positively is very difficult. HTR’s class rating is far superior to its previous ACL rating and in another world compared to rating horses on earnings.

[MikeDee]

In regards to documentation, one thing to consider Ken has a staff of one person - himself.

What I have found is that you can write volumes of "documentation" and 95% of the population will ignore it and then only ask a question when they get in trouble.

My preference is for Ken to give us new programming goodies to handicap with and just enough documentation to get by.

If you want documentation read the old newsletters, old form threads and just ask your question right here on this board, you get plenty of thoughtful responses.

[Cole]

MikeDee

I have just re-subscribed and couldn't agree with you more.

I know there are a lot of ways to "skin the cat" but I'm beginning to feel if you can't win
with all the goodies you speak of in HTR2 and now Maxvel, you probably can't win period.
I'm not referring to picking only winners but actually making money. Many years ago I picked 8 out of 9 winners at Suffolk Downs and walked out a loser. ( I didn't tell the people I was with as they would have laughed). Prices included $5.40, $4.80, $5.60, etc--and playing a few exactas--it wasn't hard!!

Good Handicapping.

[delayjf]

I think some of the success with regards to F1 horses, especially those that are not front runners, comes from the conditioning that a horse recieves from running a fast 1st quarter. If that velocity is tops in the field, that's a stong indication that he fits with this field.

[DanG]

I think some of the success with regards to F1 horses, especially those that are not front runners, comes from the conditioning that a horse recieves from running a fast 1st quarter. If that velocity is tops in the field, that's a stong indication that he fits with this field.
Excellent point!

If any animal can explode from a standing start it’s often in good health. I know it takes me longer to get up to speed each year! :D