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About rating Greyhounds

I went to as many meetings at Blackpool as I could afford to - I didn't earn much at the time - and watched each race with a pen in hand, noting the order of the runners at each bend (4 bends in a normal 460 yd race) plus, where I could, little shorthand like squiggles to show where one or more got bumped and the like. This was something I read from one of the books, I think, a sort of basic form reading to allow running notes that were limited but better than nothing. I'd also note things like EP, railer, wide, slow away and so on - you'd not expect it but sometimes they'd program a railer into trap 5 (5 dog races) or a wide runner into trap 1.

In fact one of their so called open races (these often had the same dogs as any other night, but running under assumed names) was won by a dog called Cathy's Clown who was a wide runner but started in trap 1.... I accidentally backed the dog due to my step brother telling me it was a different, much better dog. (I trusted him far too often). Cathy's Clown came out, ran across the other four, the whole lot collapsed in a heap, and romped home in splendid isolation.

It wasn't really a sensible betting medium, NGRC dogs from preston would appear under different names, the occasional trainer at Blackpool was a bookie at Preston, if a dog was leading easily on the back straight you'd hear the whine from the wire pulling the lure drop in pitch - I swear some nights the leader almost had to double back to chase it - all sorts seemed to be going on.

I did make a few bob on Saturday mornings broadcasts from Hackney as I remember, although I don't remember doing a card file for the dogs there so goodness knows how I worked out the ratings. It's all nearly 50 years ago, funny how you remember that far back reasonably well but can't remember lunch yesterday....

Dave
 
Excellent stuff Dave. As soon as I was 18 I started at the local flapping tracks, Hartlepool and Wheatley Hill, too young looking to bet before then. Similar to yourself kept notes and track positions or lanes as RPGTV calls them now. Eventually took it seriously at Wembley, learning how it all worked and started keeping index cards as yourself. Stopped for many years when working and sports gambling took over but now back collecting results on the computer, though nor yet completed the task! I now have 70,000 rows of Open race form and have to get sorted on it!
 
davejb said:
I went to as many meetings at Blackpool as I could afford to - I didn't earn much at the time - and watched each race with a pen in hand, noting the order of the runners at each bend (4 bends in a normal 460 yd race) plus, where I could, little shorthand like squiggles to show where one or more got bumped and the like. This was something I read from one of the books, I think, a sort of basic form reading to allow running notes that were limited but better than nothing. I'd also note things like EP, railer, wide, slow away and so on - you'd not expect it but sometimes they'd program a railer into trap 5 (5 dog races) or a wide runner into trap 1.

In fact one of their so called open races (these often had the same dogs as any other night, but running under assumed names) was won by a dog called Cathy's Clown who was a wide runner but started in trap 1.... I accidentally backed the dog due to my step brother telling me it was a different, much better dog. (I trusted him far too often). Cathy's Clown came out, ran across the other four, the whole lot collapsed in a heap, and romped home in splendid isolation.

It wasn't really a sensible betting medium, NGRC dogs from preston would appear under different names, the occasional trainer at Blackpool was a bookie at Preston, if a dog was leading easily on the back straight you'd hear the whine from the wire pulling the lure drop in pitch - I swear some nights the leader almost had to double back to chase it - all sorts seemed to be going on.

I did make a few bob on Saturday mornings broadcasts from Hackney as I remember, although I don't remember doing a card file for the dogs there so goodness knows how I worked out the ratings. It's all nearly 50 years ago, funny how you remember that far back reasonably well but can't remember lunch yesterday....

Dave
Click to expand...
davejb davejb you should write a book....never been so captivated in a post lol
 
I could write an autobiography that would appeal to the older reader, it would say 'I was born in June, 1955, what happened after that is a little hazy'.
I was about 20 when the dog racing became a feature in my life, I was already hooked on horse racing and liked the idea of being able to go to race meetings easily - my nearest racetrack for horses being Haydock, which was two bus rides away when they ran buses from Preston to the track on racedays. The dogs were about 20 mins away by bus, unless my stepbrother had one of his cars on the go. (One you had to enter via the drivers door as the passenger side door was held on by string). On a good night (ie recently paid) we'd go into a chippy near the track for a meal, then walked 50 yards to a workingmens' club we never actually joined for a couple of pints and a game of snooker, killing the time before racing quite happily. It was quite funny, we became quite well known regulars there despite never being actual members.

Being a very naive and trusting soul, not to say downright gullible, I was largely unaware of the various tricks being pulled all about, but even I noticed the more blatant. My stepbrother imagined he was well up on stuff, in reality I suspect he was no more than one step ahead of me most of the time. It didn't take much to notice bookies at one track being trainers at another, and when open races were on the card even I could spot, once or twice, a dog I recognised but under an assumed name. Then there was the red eyed one in the parade who went mental and was thrown into the trap - quite literally the handler just threw the dog in and slammed the thing shut - only for the poor animal to come out with a front paw stuck in his muzzle... I have not idea what they'd given him, but it was a good 80 yds or so I guess to the first bend and he was still in front until he had to try to corner on three wheels.

To be fair to Blackpool, I don't think the NGRC track at Preston was any less dodgy!

If there's a resurgence near London then great, it's a good night out - I know some effort was made to move things up market a bit but to me it's a good night out at the lower end of the social scale... nothing wrong with wrapping up in your mac, pulling the scarf tighter, and balancing the card with a pint and a pie. I believe Preston had a restaurant, I never went to look for it so I can't swear to it, and my favourite place to eat at Haydock is a picnic table after visiting the pie concession. (I like pie, mind).

Dave
 
Belle vue is the only track Ive been to, except St Helens 5 dog flapping track, when we went used to be 6 of us (3 couples) we never bet with the bookies or the tote , we enjoyed all putting a couple of quid in a pint glass and taking in turns to pick first , second…so we would all have a fair shot and winner took the pot at the end of each race, at least this way at least a couple of us would have a winning night. Haydock is also my local horse race track, I would be anything to get to a meeting between the age of 14 and 30 hardly missed a meeting there, if nobody else would go I would even go on my own cycle the 9 miles on my pushbike rather than miss a meeting. Had some great times but the one that stuck out most was in the early 2000s, I went on my own on the bike , i had a particularly good day punting and was well up, I was always in the cheap stand Newton stand about 4 or 5 quid, I had noticed at a few previous meetings a guy called Brisbourne had trained a few interesting winners, dark horse types. He had one in the last and they always let you walk through to the more expensive silver ring for the last race on the way through I placed bets on the horse at 33/1 and 25/1 multiple different bookies when they first put prices up, maybe more than 10 , putting on tenners and twenties on playing up my earlier winnings. The trainer was very recognisable, a balding fella with a mop of hair at the side and every meeting you would see him meticulously walking the course, in the race all the horses came over to the stands side except my horse Tycoons Last who stayed on the far side and won easily , it was a massive buzz still the most I’ve ever won on a single horse, telling you now even with pockets stuffed full of cash the peloton in the Tour de France wouldn’t have kept up with me on my way home pumped full of adrenaline.
Never go racing now , I do miss it but dont seem to be able to pick winners like I could when I was younger so I would just be losing money I can’t afford. I know this is off topic and aftertiming but Dave‘s stories of going the dogs and especially Haydock brought back a few memories.
The first time I ever went to Belle Vue I saw Alex Higgins arguing with a bookie, he had a few hangers on with him. It was strange to see someone who I considered a bit of a sporting hero just having a few bets at a dog track like everybody else.
My dad was Irish and we would watch football and horse racing together on the Tv all the time when I was a kid, I knew that he must have been a fan of Alex Higgins because the only time he ever took me to a sporting event it was to see Alex Higgins play Tony Meo in an exhibition at the now defunct spectrum theatre in my home town Warrington.
Belle Vue is closed now, and St Helens closed years ago . A while ago I found an old site that talked about old Greyhound tracks that are no longer with us Greyhound tracks and there used to be 100s of them everywhere I didn’t even realise there were 2 different tracks in my home town, they must have gone before I started betting or I would have never been away If they were still there in my youth.
 
hi all i use to be in norfolk use to go to yarmouth, swaffham,peterborough, flapping tracks bury, wisbech,(it had a stock car track in the middle of the track) march (it had a football pitch inside the greyhound track) use to go to hackney on saturday always use to back first fav first race if lost double up tues if lost double up again thurs until win the start again only had two years of it an was in profit then it was printed i the now defunct handicap book and that was that. i remember a trainer used to run a short hair lurcher over staying trip at wisbech won very often until it got rumble always a trick or two at the flapping tracks, when very very little dad went to boundary park at norwich remember a dog called sweeper a bitch dad won a lot on her. at yarmouth use a system which was good but you had to go at track look up at the weight board that they used do not know if they still had them have not been to track as move to london then look at dog record on program see what weight they won at and was fastest then the whole field in the race the now in if fastest back the dog but what i remember you had to be quick as you only had 1min before the weights were down. wisbech went from flapping to permit but it was a mistake should had stayed flapping they were the good old days
my retirements days as i tell my wife i done my life arse about face as i seem to be working all hours these days he ho. all the best what ever you do and be lucky
 
Mate of mine settled in Cornwall, and used to train dogs around Bodmin moor. Some said he used to give them "road-kill" ( usually, rabbits).
The racing was done miles away around flapping tracks near Newton Abbott, Bristol, and Swindon.

It seemed his dog always won when its price was 4/1. Till then, there would be three or four races when it didn't. :D
Though he said he'd "let us know", all he'd say was " oh, the dog was out last night at such an such. It won.".o_O
 
Is this still active? I have been making my own predictions split and calc times with ratings and looking to freshen it up and chat with ppl to get ideas going
 
Sorry been a while but this might interest a few greyhound fans. I have downloaded three years worth of greyhound races for all uk Tracks. I'm currently producing cards for all A races. I have broken out the comments in detail and using them for inputs to Neural Network As you can see the comments are scored depending on the comment 1 is clear run . Crowded 2 and bumped 3 etc .
This is the card I produce for the races.

1638302301713.png

1638301512898.png
 
Looks like the famous Blackpool dogs handicap plan - railers in 4 and 6, wide runners in 1 and 3, what could possibly go wrong?:D

Good luck with it,
Dave
 
Greyhounds never been something I could understand how to rate , still probably don’t but I have been looking at data and come up with an initial rating system, the bonus is it is all automatic so takes none of my time, but I’m wondering how doe you apply ratings to today’s races.
How many runs do you take into account
Do you consider ratings from other tracks
Do you consider ratings from other distances
assuming your historical ratings are accurate, not claiming that yet, how do you get the best out of them.
I understand horse racing to a certain extent , but greyhound racing not so much.
i looked at the Timeform greyhounds and that is amateurish, the data and ratings are woeful, can’t believe how bad, already surpassed that in a couple hours work, but now I have something potentially and useful and automatic want to learn how to get the best out of it.
 
Outlander said:
Greyhounds never been something I could understand how to rate , still probably don’t but I have been looking at data and come up with an initial rating system, the bonus is it is all automatic so takes none of my time, but I’m wondering how doe you apply ratings to today’s races.
How many runs do you take into account
Do you consider ratings from other tracks
Do you consider ratings from other distances
assuming your historical ratings are accurate, not claiming that yet, how do you get the best out of them.
I understand horse racing to a certain extent , but greyhound racing not so much.
i looked at the Timeform greyhounds and that is amateurish, the data and ratings are woeful, can’t believe how bad, already surpassed that in a couple hours work, but now I have something potentially and useful and automatic want to learn how to get the best out of i
Click to expand...
most the greyhound tracks are bookie owned and the person who knows best is the graded i would try to keep at one track at first and one distance but not sprints as anything can happens then see what your rating come up with then go from there
 
Mike I will post a few past posts i made previously
PIR %
1.00 0.99350
2.00 0.99660
3.00 0.99894
4.00 1.00052
5.00 1.00187
6.00 1.00299
7.00 1.00389
8.00 1.00468
This has been in relation what effect has the PIR at S1 the finish time, so this study just looked at the LTD avg adjusted finish time so I adjusted every runner formline to HOB461, then measured the effect of the PIR so a runner at PIR1 on average ran .99350 quicker and so on , but the problem dogs are rearward runners, and the effect because they are racing rearward , but it has no impact on their finish time % so thats' why you need to measure those differences and be able to identify those rearward runners with confidence , so your not applying the wrong adjustment, here is some analysis normally the reaward group will only win a smaller % of races, but when you isolate the true rearward runners the win % jumps to more then random 14.5% , this makes a big difference in profitability
 
1792324702367.png
here is the earlier results that I did testing, first sectionals, what i did is adjusted all first sectionals times to the LAU515 sectional distance which is pretty common around Aus as well, should be self explanatory.
 
woof43 said:
Mike I will post a few past posts i made previously
PIR %
1.00 0.99350
2.00 0.99660
3.00 0.99894
4.00 1.00052
5.00 1.00187
6.00 1.00299
7.00 1.00389
8.00 1.00468
This has been in relation what effect has the PIR at S1 the finish time, so this study just looked at the LTD avg adjusted finish time so I adjusted every runner formline to HOB461, then measured the effect of the PIR so a runner at PIR1 on average ran .99350 quicker and so on , but the problem dogs are rearward runners, and the effect because they are racing rearward , but it has no impact on their finish time % so thats' why you need to measure those differences and be able to identify those rearward runners with confidence , so your not applying the wrong adjustment, here is some analysis normally the reaward group will only win a smaller % of races, but when you isolate the true rearward runners the win % jumps to more then random 14.5% , this makes a big difference in profitability
Click to expand...
Thanks, W woof43 didn’t even think of sections, not sure in aus but what I can gather some races in uk have no sections, others have 1 which appears time to first bend only ?
at the moment just calculated a par time for each CD and rated them from that using a going allowance like I do horses, very basic, complete beginner, will have to get them in a format where I can test to see if any good, but very basic stuff so far but all 1 touch update in a database, with 5 years data.
 
eeyore said:
most the greyhound tracks are bookie owned and the person who knows best is the graded i would try to keep at one track at first and one distance but not sprints as anything can happens then see what your rating come up with then go from there
Click to expand...
Already done all tracks need to get them integrated with today’s runners then hopefully test if my simple rating system is worth persevering with, suppose I could get the ratings back tested first and maybe AI would advice on if they are useful/best way to use them
 
Back in the 70's I did ratings for Blackpool (local flapping track) that did well, I extended to do Hackney which was prominent in the bookies and did okay there too.
I read some book or other to get a few idees, got a working method pretty quit, but hit unexpected snags just as I thought I had it made...:)
I rated as follows - races could be over short (270yd?) mid (480?) long (can't recall) with the vast majority mid distance. I used (memory may err here) 0.07s per length to rate dogs against the winner - first 3 in a race (5 traps at Blackpool, 6 at Hackney, didn't seem to matter) calculate times for 2nds and 3rds, add win times and simply average. If any 'odd' race stook out as unduly slow or fast I'd either fiddle a bit or ignore that race, usually ignore.
That average time became my 100 rated time for the night, so using the distances between finishers calculate the rating of each winner at 0.07s per pt from the 100 rating time, calculate rest of each race field from dist beaten.

Going to the track and taking notes helped - reporting was sometimes a bit inaccurate at times, and it helped if you could annotate a race to show 'Miss Perky' had blood red eyes and seemed to be on cocaine.

I'd then take the top three rated in a race and bet forecasts - 1/2 2/1 1/3 2/3- as the bookies gave nothing away, they'd howl if someone tried to get 50 quid on at 3/1 near enough, I was playing tote for weekend beer money. Same with Hackney, which I could do when Blackpool closed at the end of each summer.

I never found any profit in backing singles based on ratings, but enough forecasts came up at decent prices to keep me happy for a while.
Drawback - dogs go through cycles or get distracted by squirrels or whatever, you can use a rating as a guide to how good a dog is, but have to appreciate that after a time, which depends on the dog and may well include other factors down to the trainer, your 120 dog might now only make 100, but remember the 120 if he starts to bounce back.

some of the anove will suffer from old memory, it's worth trying to get hold of something on training greyhounds, as i did, to help understand what is going on
 
Only missing races not rated seem to be at distances no longer used or closed tracks

UNMATCHED ('HENLOW', '460.0', 11843)
UNMATCHED ('CENTRAL PARK', '480.0', 9692)
UNMATCHED ('CENTRAL PARK', '265.0', 8469)
UNMATCHED ('TOWCESTER', '460.0', 2289)
UNMATCHED ('CENTRAL PARK', '450.0', 652)
UNMATCHED ('HENLOW', '277.0', 573)
UNMATCHED ('HENLOW', '550.0', 326)
UNMATCHED ('CENTRAL PARK', '642.0', 254)
UNMATCHED ('OXFORD', '847.0', 185)
UNMATCHED ('CENTRAL PARK', '500.0', 85)
UNMATCHED ('HENLOW', '692.0', 51)
UNMATCHED ('CENTRAL PARK', '708.0', 39)
1792338522207.png
 
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