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SIG's AW Sprint Speed Ratings

I'm not sure I follow the logic in those ratings Ferdy. How can distance beaten LTO be used to rate a horse running in a different race against different competition?



I had a database with nearly five years worth of all weather ratings on my old laptop which was stolen last year. I did have a back-up disk which I cleverly kept in the same bag as the laptop so I wouldn't ever lose it :doh:I got the guy who done it a couple of days later (and he was taught an almighty lesson!) but the laptop and all was long gone.

So yeah, at the minute I am working on compiling my new database from scratch so most races need to be manually rated which takes an age every evening. But hey it pays well (well, sometimes :p)

Cheers,
SIG
 
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Tomorrow is the start of the new all weather season (the unofficial one at least :D) and it also happens to be the official start date of my new yearly all weather campaign. I've had a pretty steady past year minus the couple of months off over the stolen laptop. I took some time off away after that as the thought of compiling a new database from scratch and having to work without one for the foreseeable was too much. However the new database build has been under way for a few months now and things are slowly starting to take shape again.

I've spent the evening sorting out my accounts (and made a couple of very nice withdrawals - summer holiday sorted!) so my bank is reset and in place. I was reminded earlier today of a very important rule in my approach to selecting what races to get involved in which to be honest, I had kind of forgotten recently. The rule is to only get involved in races which, after assessing you can answer the following question with a yes...

Can the favourite be beaten?

It was a random comment by a friend of my brother (I pass my selections to my brother who shares them with a few of his friends), something along the lines of 'he's backing the favourites a lot lately'. To be fair I haven't - My brother has been slow at passing the selections on and a few of them had been well backed by then. But it reminded me that recently I have been missing that important rule. I haven't been asking that question and I've been getting myself involved in races I shouldn't have been near.

So with that fresh in mind, let's get the new (unofficial) season underway with a winner....

Cheers,
SIG
 
26th March 2016

Kempton 15.25
PLUCKY DIP 846
Secret Missile 849
Searchlight 861
The only potential danger from the two horses we have little comparable form on is Mishaal who seems to have early pace. He is drawn beside the equally quick Related and I expect these two along with Yeeoow to break early. However this race will be won in the home straight as that is where most of the pace in this race seems to be. On that basis, I think we can eliminate my second top rated Secret Missile. I have doubts over his late race stamina and am thinking the pace of this race won't suit him at all.

One runner who I have no doubts about late race pace is my top rated Searchlight. He likes to come late and whilst he has the speed and pace to win races this way, luck hasn't really been with him so far. I see him holding up at the rear with the likes of Steel River and hopefully leave himself too much to do again. That leaves my selection for this race Plucky Dip. He was been the fastest around this C&D recently and is running off a fantastic mark. He is drawn low which is a bonus and his tracking style will suit how this race will hopefully be run.

Selections:
Plucky Dip - Win @ BSP

Cheers,
SIG
 
I'm not sure I follow the logic in those ratings Ferdy. How can distance beaten LTO be used to rate a horse running in a different race against different competition?
SIG
This was the original thinking behind these ratings, but I have tweaked them so many times. They originally came from a chap called Rainy California who used to post on the Massey forum among other places.

Below is just one of many attempts i had at trying to create a rating for horses.

About 12 years ago i started to build my own ratings for handicaps using a point count for each horse. I wanted to keep it simple and base it on distance won and beaten throughout the different class of races but at the same distance, matched to a distance won or beaten scale for each runner. I only concentrated on sprint races and assumed the average distance covering the field first to last was 15 lengths, then everything was based on the last three performances.

Basically i started by only using 5f and 6f races because they are usually true run races with no hanging about and the distance between first and last was not a great deal. I then took every class of race from group one down to sellers and gave each class a top rating. I used 140 as the benchmark figure for a group one winner equivalent to 10 stones in weight and dropped the points by a descending figure for each length beaten throughout the class of race until arriving at the lowly seller which would of been about 5 stone or so lower, so a horse getting beat 15 lengths or more in a seller would record a lowly 62, to trouble a group one race it would need to improve by 78 points to 140. (5stone 8lb) Well that was the theory anyway.

I devised this system many years ago and was bought by a 'sporting' publication and they sold it in their newsletter each month, referring to it as the 'key' for £49.99....jeez i wish i woulda settled on a percentage cut lol

Once again it is only for 5f and 6f races, and when calculating each score the previous three races must have been over sprint distances otherwise it was not included in calculations. A difficult system but a specialist one.

GROUP ONE
winner by up to 3 or more lengths = 143pts
winner by up to 2 lengths = 142pts
winner by 1 length = 141pts
winner by 1/2, sh hd or nck or nose = 140pts
btn up to 1/2L = 139pts
btn up to 1L = 138.5pts
btn up to 1.5L = 138pts
btn up to 2L = 137.5pts
btn up to 2.5L = 137pts
btn up to 3L = 136.5pts
btn up to 3.5L = 136pts
btn up to 4L = 135.5pts
btn up to 4.5L = 135pts
btn up to 5L = 134.5pts
btn up to 5.5L = 134pts
btn up to 6L = 133.5pts
btn up to 6.5L = 133pts
btn up to 7L = 132.5pts
btn up to 7.5L = 132pts
btn up to 8L = 131.5pts
btn up to 8.5L = 131pts
btn up to 9L = 130.5pts
btn up to 9.5L = 130pts
btn up to 10L =129.5pts
btn up to 10.5 =129pts
btn up to 11L =128.5pts
btn up to 11.5L =128pts
btn up to 12L = 127.5pts
btn up to 12.5L =127pts
btn up to 13L =126.5pts
btn up to 13.5L =126pts
btn up to 14L =125.5pts
btn up to 14.5L =125pts
btn 15L or more =124.5pts

Then onto group two races with the benchmark dropping 7 points to 133 for the shortest of wins etc etc, in my opinion this was the equivilent of getting to within 6.5 lengths of a group one win whilst a three length winner of a group two was equivilent of getting to 3.5l of a group one win. Each table dropped 7pts through the following range and the points dropped by the same half point as given above. Each class group had the following start points and dropped in the same way as the table above.

G1 / 140
G2 / 133
G3 / 126
LISTED / 'A' HCPS / 119
B HCPS / 112
C HCPS / 105
D HCPS / 98
E HCPS /91
F HCPS / 84
G SELLERS / 77

After calculating the last three runs of each horse (using class and distance rating) the figure was divided by three and whichever came out highest was the selection. It certainly threw up some huge priced winners but it was time consuming as every horse had to be rated even in 20 runner handicaps. Throughout the following couple of years it performed very well and dutching the top three rated was giving a healthy profit. I was still working full time and couldnt sustain the time needed on it. I could only get the form from the racing post and todays internet access would make it far easier.

. What i didnt explain in the initial post was that every value is based on a horse carrying nine stones in that race. For every 1lb over you would add a point and for every 1lb less than nine stones you would subtract a point, but it was always fromactualweight carried.
 
This was the original thinking behind these ratings, but I have tweaked them so many times. They originally came from a chap called Rainy California who used to post on the Massey forum among other places.

Below is just one of many attempts i had at trying to create a rating for horses.

About 12 years ago i started to build my own ratings for handicaps using a point count for each horse. I wanted to keep it simple and base it on distance won and beaten throughout the different class of races but at the same distance, matched to a distance won or beaten scale for each runner. I only concentrated on sprint races and assumed the average distance covering the field first to last was 15 lengths, then everything was based on the last three performances.

Basically i started by only using 5f and 6f races because they are usually true run races with no hanging about and the distance between first and last was not a great deal. I then took every class of race from group one down to sellers and gave each class a top rating. I used 140 as the benchmark figure for a group one winner equivalent to 10 stones in weight and dropped the points by a descending figure for each length beaten throughout the class of race until arriving at the lowly seller which would of been about 5 stone or so lower, so a horse getting beat 15 lengths or more in a seller would record a lowly 62, to trouble a group one race it would need to improve by 78 points to 140. (5stone 8lb) Well that was the theory anyway.

I devised this system many years ago and was bought by a 'sporting' publication and they sold it in their newsletter each month, referring to it as the 'key' for £49.99....jeez i wish i woulda settled on a percentage cut lol

Once again it is only for 5f and 6f races, and when calculating each score the previous three races must have been over sprint distances otherwise it was not included in calculations. A difficult system but a specialist one.

GROUP ONE
winner by up to 3 or more lengths = 143pts
winner by up to 2 lengths = 142pts
winner by 1 length = 141pts
winner by 1/2, sh hd or nck or nose = 140pts
btn up to 1/2L = 139pts
btn up to 1L = 138.5pts
btn up to 1.5L = 138pts
btn up to 2L = 137.5pts
btn up to 2.5L = 137pts
btn up to 3L = 136.5pts
btn up to 3.5L = 136pts
btn up to 4L = 135.5pts
btn up to 4.5L = 135pts
btn up to 5L = 134.5pts
btn up to 5.5L = 134pts
btn up to 6L = 133.5pts
btn up to 6.5L = 133pts
btn up to 7L = 132.5pts
btn up to 7.5L = 132pts
btn up to 8L = 131.5pts
btn up to 8.5L = 131pts
btn up to 9L = 130.5pts
btn up to 9.5L = 130pts
btn up to 10L =129.5pts
btn up to 10.5 =129pts
btn up to 11L =128.5pts
btn up to 11.5L =128pts
btn up to 12L = 127.5pts
btn up to 12.5L =127pts
btn up to 13L =126.5pts
btn up to 13.5L =126pts
btn up to 14L =125.5pts
btn up to 14.5L =125pts
btn 15L or more =124.5pts

Then onto group two races with the benchmark dropping 7 points to 133 for the shortest of wins etc etc, in my opinion this was the equivilent of getting to within 6.5 lengths of a group one win whilst a three length winner of a group two was equivilent of getting to 3.5l of a group one win. Each table dropped 7pts through the following range and the points dropped by the same half point as given above. Each class group had the following start points and dropped in the same way as the table above.

G1 / 140
G2 / 133
G3 / 126
LISTED / 'A' HCPS / 119
B HCPS / 112
C HCPS / 105
D HCPS / 98
E HCPS /91
F HCPS / 84
G SELLERS / 77

After calculating the last three runs of each horse (using class and distance rating) the figure was divided by three and whichever came out highest was the selection. It certainly threw up some huge priced winners but it was time consuming as every horse had to be rated even in 20 runner handicaps. Throughout the following couple of years it performed very well and dutching the top three rated was giving a healthy profit. I was still working full time and couldnt sustain the time needed on it. I could only get the form from the racing post and todays internet access would make it far easier.

. What i didnt explain in the initial post was that every value is based on a horse carrying nine stones in that race. For every 1lb over you would add a point and for every 1lb less than nine stones you would subtract a point, but it was always fromactualweight carried.

Thanks for the detailed explanation Ferdy. I personally like to have a fixed constant (i.e. the clock) to draw my data against as opposed to a variable one (i.e. the race winner) as then every runners performance is assessed against the same standard regardless. However if you know this works and you can access the information easier than before, why not give it a go? If you are only focusing on 5f and 6f sprints, you'll only have three or four races to look it on a busy day. Would be interesting to see this theory in action....

Cheers,
SIG
 
13th April 2016

Kempton 6.20
Hardly any form to go on here. King Of Spin is my top rated on speed but is drawn high and is top weight. The pace analysis shows we have a potential fast starter drawn in stall one (who is also the early favourite), Jack Nevison. I can oppose him as this is his AW debut and who knows if he will take to the poly. Plus he hasn't ran since October last year so will likely need this run for fitness. I like the look of DEER SONG who likes to get to the front and although he is drawn high, he is surrounded by slow starters. He knows the track well, has shown improvement recently and is nicely in on the weights. A risky selection but worth a go at the price.

Kempton 8.50
A difficult one to call. Noble Deed is my top rated on speed and drawn well in stall two. However the pace analysis shows he has a potential fast starter either side of him, the inside of which is the early favourite and my fourth top rated on speed, Lightning Charlie. I can oppose him easily here as he is top weight and is carrying a lot more in this one than he is used to. Picket Line, Rigolleto and Ripinto all have the potential to go well but I think I'll forgive his LTO and stick with my top rated and the only value I can find, NOBLE DEED.

Kempton 9.20
An interesting race with a few angles that hold merit. My top rated on speed is Figurante but he is carrying more weight than ever before which could be a shock and should slow him down considerably. The pace analysis shows early pace from the low drawn stalls, the most interesting of which is Showmethewayavrilo who has been quickest over C&D in recent times. Music Major is the early favourite but I can oppose him easily on the ratings. I like Canford Belle and Cool Crescendo but I think SHOWMETHEWAYAVARILO brings the most potential into this and gets my vote at a decent(ish) price.

DEER SONG @ 18/1
NOBLE DEED @ 15/1
SHOWMETHEWAYAVARILO @ 7/1

I'm also having a half point each way treble on the above :handgestures-thumbup:

Good luck!

Cheers,
SIG
 
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