Report for : 31/10/2020
Flat Handicaps
Raw ratings: 1/6 Odds: 6.5 (Return: 7.5)
Mkt filter 1/3 Odds: 6.5 (Return: 7.5)
Flat Non - Handicaps
Raw ratings 3/9 Odds: 5.0 0.5 1.88 (Return: 10.38)
Mkt filter 2/4 Odds: 0.5 1.88 (Return: 4.38)
NH Handicaps
Raw ratings: 2/16 Odds: 4.5 4.5 (Return: 11.0)
Mkt filter 1/9 Odds: 4.5 (Return: 5.5)
NH Non - Handicaps
Raw ratings 5/13 Odds: 0.06 1.1 4.5 1.63 3.0 (Return: 15.29)
Mkt filter 3/4 Odds: 0.06 1.1 3.0 (Return: 7.16)
Total Out = 44 Total return (raw) = 44.17
Total wins: 11 / 44
List of winners:
New 11:50:00 Urban Violet 6.0
New 13:30:00 Rains Of Castamere 7.5
Wol 20:00:00 Law Of One (IRE) 1.5
Wol 20:30:00 Love Love 2.88
Asc 12:15:00 College Oak 5.5
Dow 12:40:00 Quilixios 1.06
Wet 13:00:00 Ashtown Lad (IRE) 2.1
Asc 13:20:00 Sully Doc Aa (FR) 5.5
Dow 14:25:00 The Storyteller (IRE) 5.5
Wet 14:45:00 Roksana (IRE) 2.63
Wet 15:20:00 Cyrname (FR) 4.0
Woohoo, 17p up!
Today - there were 3 bets (Senior Citizen's race had an 8/11 fav) - 2nd 9/2, W10/11 (11/10 before the off) and 6th.
Tomorrow:
Hereford 13:40:00 [NH H] Class 4 [16f] Stks [[11] run]
69 * 5814/71 Benson (Bf 1.73) Drawn 0/11 Gelding
Newland Dr R D P 2-14(4) Twiston-Davies Sam 2-53(13) Days : 20
GNG DST
Passes: Form Stable Odds
Fails:
NH non-handicap - passes ODDS - BET 13/8 1Fav
WR% = 35.0
Plumpton 15:05:00 [NH H] Class 3 [16f] Hcap [[13] run]
110 * 6725051 The Twisler (Bf 8) Drawn 0/13 Gelding
Mulholland N P 6-33(9) Reed Harry 2-8(3) Days : 17
gng DST JCK
Passes: Form Stable Odds
Fails:
NH Handicap - passes ODDS - BET 9/2 1Fav
WR% = 8.0
There now follows a bit about producing all this stuff, anyone who is not interested feel free to stop reading here!
I thought I'd write a little about what goes into producing these ratings each day, and picking the 'selections', because every so often (and this is not a dig at anyone I assure you) I get PMs or requests in threads that go along the lines of 'please can you tell me how to do this sort of thing'. I think there is a misconception that is held by at least some of the folk on here about what this all actually involves.
The racing day, so to speak, splits into 2 sections - sometime around midday/early afternoon I get around to turning yesterday's results into data in a variety of formats, I do this by running a series of programs that I wrote in Python. One program collects race timing info from Timeform and racing Post, when I run my data crunching program over data downloaded from HorseRaceBase I get a third set of times for each race. I then compare all three to try to figure out if my HRB figures need amending. At the same time I also check that all rail moves are correct (compared to the BHA site) and I check the Irish race distances tie in to the distances they are supposed to be. This all takes a while, not least because if any of the race times are a bit whacky (as they have been a number of times this past week), I have to watch the races on the ATR and Racing TV websites and time them myself to see who is right. This can all take anything from 15 minutes to an hour, as having corrected the data I then have to reprocess it and check that what comes out now matches the figures I believe to be correct. Standard times are also checked for each race to ensure they have not changed since last used.
I then run another program that turns the data into ratings, the output is checked, and if any meeting has a dearth of OR rated winners for comparison I used
TheBluesBrother 's RPR to OR conversion chart and the Racing Post RPRs (if available) to fill in for missing ORs. So that takes a few minutes. Then I run a program that checks trainer statistics, then two more programs that add the now finished ratings and the corrected/checked results data to several databases. Next programs are run to see how the ratings performed, where the top rated runners ended up, this is then added to more datafiles. Next up course win rate information is updated and added to datafiles, followed by a check of trainer and jockey win and place rates (another program), a program checks how the selections fared, and another program automates a backup of all data files to an external drive to finish off.
As I actually run two different sets of programs some of these steps are duplicated.
That all adds up to 16 Python programs that run in sequence - sometimes 1 or 2 more are used to do odd jobs along the way.
In the evening, about 6 ish, I run two programs to collect more RP data that is used while compiling my cards etc for the next day. One program collects data from numerous databases and juggles it all together in the three formats I post on here, three Excel macro enabled files load the three card/eps/ratings files and do all the nice formatting.
|That is 19 -21 programs so far, for the daily routine.
I recently compiled my own standard times, it took several weeks working several hours a day, as I worked over 5 years of racing data 'fixing' stuff that was actually inaccurate - I ended up going back over the data a number of times before I was happy to use it.
Again I programmed Python files to extract the bits of data I wanted. I did the NH racing, then AW, and finally the Flat. Half a dozen programs were used to extract, chop , reformat data - I was mixing data from two sources to get the 5 years I needed, so there was an amount of cutting each data set up to match the other and finding bits missing from one and so on. For example one data set had the going info totally unlike the other so I had to write a program that converted one to read like the other. Once the data was ready another 5 or 6 files compiled the standard times, these files were then copied and edited to do the AW and Flat data in turn.
That all amounts to around 23-25 programs to do the everyday stuff, and probably almost the same to do a big job like the standard compiling, plus a few macros in Excel to make things look pretty.
I learned HOW to handicap from Mike (
TheBluesBrother ) pretty much, I'm doing things a bit differently with my new ratings (which aren't on here yet) but there's still a lot of Mike's help in there. The programming 'just' makes it possible for me to do all my work in an hour or two each day - had I to do it all manually each day I'd have quit long since.
Now, bearing the above in mind, please understand why I can't tell anyone else how to do what I do - you'd not only need to understand the handicapping side of it all, you'd have to understand how my programs run, and life is far too short to have to try to explain how several dozen programs work to folk. You can't just run the programs, you have to know how they work, so when a bit of dodgy data comes along you know how to go in and fix it.
It's not about me being secretive, or unwilling to help out, it's just a huge amount of work!
That said I am more than happy to let people in on what I produce.
Dave