The Hare
Mare
Hello All
This is my first post on here and although it looks a little controversial, title wise, I am just deliberating whether compiling speed figures is a useful way to spend my time.
I have read most of the posts on here especially the excellent efforts of The Blues Brothers (Mike). Also though i haven't been a member of the group for too long, i do have a lot of experience with horse racing and in the distant past compiled speed figures for a local newspaper. It is 20 years maybe since i have produced them and to be fair my horse racing study has been placed on the back burner for the last 10 years or so.
But speed figures have always interested me as when i used them they were overlooked, prior to the Mordin and American authors becoming well known in the UK. Obviously the influx of the Internet and the easily automised American methods have made speed figures more available to punters. But there are still few available using the weight carried.
However even reading Mike's excellent articles on here and those of Simon Rowlands, via the Betfair website, i still wonder whether the inaccuracies makes them worthwhile?
The hardest part is the compiling of accurate standard times. The 2 most widely available being Racing Post and Timeform. I imagine the Timeform ones are the more accurate, though i have no personal access to them. As Mike has pointed out on here there are many vagaries in how the Racing Post ones are compiled. I could purchase Timeform and back engineer the figures, but my main interest is in Jump Racing and Timeform continue not to produce speed figures for this section of the sport.
So how to compile them? Mike has written an excellent article on here on how he compiles them using the 25 fastest times at each distance but to me this creates a bias based on how many races are run at each distance? Perhaps the use of a similar percentage of races for each distance is better? No criticism of Mike as he clearly has much more recent knowledge than myself.
Then do you just use the "raw" time or adapt for weight carried, age of horse and ability of the horse? Then after that we have the different going on each day to further refine the finishing time.
But the main advantage in producing them, is i suppose that everyone uses different methods to obtain their standard times and ratings which is perhaps the reason to produce them as accurate production and knowledge of their use must be an advantage?
So other than how to compile standard times, the other issue i have, is the accuracy of the data available. Especially here are the number of different times a race winner's time is given. Racing Post may be the main ones used, but Timeform are timing their own and are in some cases significantly different.
With such inaccuracies in timing; the crazy conversion of times into lengths for final distances by the racecourse judges and the moving of rails and omissions of fences and hurdles. Can producing speed figures be worthwhile?
This is my first post on here and although it looks a little controversial, title wise, I am just deliberating whether compiling speed figures is a useful way to spend my time.
I have read most of the posts on here especially the excellent efforts of The Blues Brothers (Mike). Also though i haven't been a member of the group for too long, i do have a lot of experience with horse racing and in the distant past compiled speed figures for a local newspaper. It is 20 years maybe since i have produced them and to be fair my horse racing study has been placed on the back burner for the last 10 years or so.
But speed figures have always interested me as when i used them they were overlooked, prior to the Mordin and American authors becoming well known in the UK. Obviously the influx of the Internet and the easily automised American methods have made speed figures more available to punters. But there are still few available using the weight carried.
However even reading Mike's excellent articles on here and those of Simon Rowlands, via the Betfair website, i still wonder whether the inaccuracies makes them worthwhile?
The hardest part is the compiling of accurate standard times. The 2 most widely available being Racing Post and Timeform. I imagine the Timeform ones are the more accurate, though i have no personal access to them. As Mike has pointed out on here there are many vagaries in how the Racing Post ones are compiled. I could purchase Timeform and back engineer the figures, but my main interest is in Jump Racing and Timeform continue not to produce speed figures for this section of the sport.
So how to compile them? Mike has written an excellent article on here on how he compiles them using the 25 fastest times at each distance but to me this creates a bias based on how many races are run at each distance? Perhaps the use of a similar percentage of races for each distance is better? No criticism of Mike as he clearly has much more recent knowledge than myself.
Then do you just use the "raw" time or adapt for weight carried, age of horse and ability of the horse? Then after that we have the different going on each day to further refine the finishing time.
But the main advantage in producing them, is i suppose that everyone uses different methods to obtain their standard times and ratings which is perhaps the reason to produce them as accurate production and knowledge of their use must be an advantage?
So other than how to compile standard times, the other issue i have, is the accuracy of the data available. Especially here are the number of different times a race winner's time is given. Racing Post may be the main ones used, but Timeform are timing their own and are in some cases significantly different.
With such inaccuracies in timing; the crazy conversion of times into lengths for final distances by the racecourse judges and the moving of rails and omissions of fences and hurdles. Can producing speed figures be worthwhile?
