BETTING FOR A LIVING/MORDIN

[twmills]

Hi I am looking for some help probably simple but I just can not get it, I have been reading Betting for a living, especially concentrating on the chapter who is the fastest, I can work out how he produces the winners rating what I can not work out is the beaten horses, her is what the book says.


Can anyone tell me the calculation to get this. Thanks.

 

[Holty10]

I have no idea if I'm right, but it looks fairly straight forward. Bare in mind I have never looked at an angle like this.

He appears to assume 1 length = 1/5 second.

He then appears to calculate the final rating by working out a mile speed for the horses, via their average over the race. So if this race were halved with the average use it would be a 10 length victory or 2 seconds (10 x 1/5), hence the subtraction of 10?

Id guess at 30 lengths beaten at this distance would result on a rating of 70.

 

[nigel90]

Hi @whu
Although I am no expert at compiling speed figs I did read the book extensively and from what I remember NM always worked his figures back to a standard figure PER MILE. In the example above it was a 2 mile race so he calculated the length of time the horse was behind the winner (in this case 4 secs) multiplies by 5 and then divides by 2 to equate the figures to a rate per mile. (the figure 2 representing the 2 mile race) . Hope this helps and if I am a mile off the mark no doubt others with more knowledge than me will point us in the right direction.

 

[arkle55]

Im not a time guru but what stands out ''as i do not remember Nick Mordin talking about'' is how NM made a time allowance for the different lengths of a horse and that different horses slow down at different rates.

Arkle

 

[TheBluesBrother]

@whu

I am not surprised that you were confused by this statement, divide the 20 lengths by 2 miles (20/2 = 10).
It doesn't help when Nick Mordin uses American terminology and quotes fifths of a second, In this country we use decimal (1 length = 0.20s or 1.0s = 5 lengths),
so 10 fifths of a second in English = 2 lengths, (2 lengths/0.20s = 10).

Mike.

 

[Horseplayer]

When Mordin wrote that a length was indeed 0.2s across the board. The powers that be in their infinite wisdom decided to change things and today distance beaten is




In this country it's irrelevant how long a horse is or how much it's slowing down. Distance beaten is a measurement of time.
You can work out the time of a beaten horse by converting lengths beaten into a time and adding it on to the winners time

 

[twmills]

Thanks Guys for the replies

 

[Rhinoz]

Im not a time guru but what stands out ''as i do not remember Nick Mordin talking about'' is how NM made a time allowance for the different lengths of a horse and that different horses slow down at different rates.

Arkle

I have this book but not started to read it yet, I have seen mentioned elsewhere horses are between 8 - 11 feet in length and as you say this has to be a consideration along with the different courses for example a steep climb on the last furlong at one course will make a huge difference so every course has to be considered.

EDIT:-
I just remembered reading there was no standard metric for a length and the horses length varying between 8-11 feet was in 'The Betting Edge' by David- Lee Priest.