Question on HTR (DOS) Past Perf Lines

[Eric]

Hi Folks,

I'm brand new to HTR and have a question about abbreviations used in the DOS Past Performance lines. Just to the right of the Race PER (Speed) figure is a 2 character abbreviation (FF, FA, SA, AF, etc.) I'd sure be appreciative if someone could advise what they represent.

Many thanks in advance,

Eric
eforce@dobe.com

[George]

Going from memory, shorthand for relation of that pp lines pace and final time to par of this race. Not this horse's rating, but leader and winner rating.

F=FAST
A=AVERAGE
S=SLOW

[Eric]

Many thanks for the explanation George - VERY much appreciated!!

Eric

[Donnie]

Eric,
George is correct in the Fast, Average and Slow definition...these denote what some call Race or Pace Shapes. An FA means the first half of the race went faster than par where the last half went about average to par. Check to see how the horse performed against such a race shape. Horses far back in a SS race shape probably have no interest in racing. The theory is to look for horses exiting a FF race who did well and in today against a little slower pace.

Welcome and good luck!!

Donnie

[Glen]

Welcome Eric. BTW, cool aerial photos on your website.

[Eric]

Many thanks again folks for the feedback ...

Donnie: Really appreciate the detailed explanation and welcome. I wonder if Ken is planning to incorporate the same thing in HTR2001?

Glen: Also thanks for the kind words and welcome. I can't take credit for the photos, just the grunt work of finding the Latitude/Longitude coordinates so I could link 'em up with Microsoft's "Terraserver". :-)

Folks: Glen was referring to Aerial Racetrack photographs taken by the USGS that I've pointed to at my website. The photos are accurately scaled (down to 1 pixel in the image = 1 square meter on the earth at maximum image size) so I've found them useful for getting a better feel for the physical characteristics of the tracks. If you save the photographs to your PC, you can then use a graphics program like PaintShop Pro, Corel Paint etc, to get some reasonalby accurate measurements. A plain old hardcopy printout and ruler will work well too. If you REALLY want to get fancy and have a program Like CorelDRAW!, you can enlarge and TILE the printout such that you'd have a hardcopy as large as you like after pasting the individual sheets together. Take a peek:

http://www.dobe.com/

Thanks again!

Eric

[Donnie]

Way cool Eric.....!! One quick question....can one assume that the top of each picture is considered North? That is the way PRM sits I believe in accordance to N/S/E/W. Now if you could just put an indicator of which way and how hard the wind is blowing!! :-)

Best regards!
Donnie

[Donnie]

Just answered my own question...the arrow on top shows images to the north, as does the left arrow show images to the west!

Nice Eric! Thanks!

[Eric]

Donnie,

I'm smiling ... for Wind Direction and Velocity take a peek at my Weather Links page:

http://www.dobe.com/handicapping/weather/weather.htm

I'm also trying to obtain histrorical weather data for tracks such as Temperature and Barometric Pressure. I'm particularly interested in the pressure thing. I don't know about you, but with me, when the pressure drops below 29.9 or so, I REALLY begin to ache (my reward for playing HARD HS football I suppose). Anyway, my goal is to (hopefully, if I can find the data) plot performance vs. barometric pressure. Might be able to find some correlation - particularly those animals who have had a rough "life". Another thing I'm planning to explore is track altitude vs. shipping. Consider a horse who performed "terrible" at a "high" altitude track then ships to sea level with an abundance supply (22%) of Oxygen. This may or may not be a wild goose chase since I haven't got any data yet with respect the the actual altitudes of tracks. I'm Smiling again - I've gots lots of "hair brained" ideas - just need to find the time to be able to pull 'em together.

Have a good one!

[Donnie]

Eric...I have to smile as well...depending on which way (and how hard) the wind is blowing at PRM depends on if I bet front-runners vs. closers. I believe the smart jockeys do try to "track" behind the leaders when running into a headwind down our back stretch. Lord knows I used to do it on my motorcycle behind big rigs!! But I've found reversals seem to pop up when the weather changes here...maybe your pressure has something to do with it as well!

I will try to find and send you some info I recieved from a friend a while back concerning wind velocity and horseracing....hope i still have it on one of my old computers at home!!

Regards,
Donnie

[Glen]

Speaking of wind...I think KM mentioned that the variant HTR uses takes into effect headwind and tailwind to callculate Fr1 and Fr3 figs. Not sure... and I don't know jack squat about other variants and if they take into accound wind.