• Hi Guest Just in case you were not aware I wanted to highlight that you can now get a free 7 day trial of Horseracebase here.
    We have a lot of members who are existing users of Horseracebase so help is always available if needed, as well as dedicated section of the fourm here.
    Best Wishes
    AR

So complex

The Hare

The Hare

Mare
Have been looking again at compiling speed figures. They are so time consuming!

Collected the times no bother. But then the problems start - why is British and Irish racing still so antiquated?

The constant changes of rails and distances especially in National Hunt is a waste of time but manageable. Well it would be if the information was recorded usefully. The BHA site and Racing Post site kind of inform us of the changes but they don't make it easy - why not put the actual distance in brackets after what the distance should be? It might not make any difference to them but with some distances up to a furlong different can have a major impact in the result.

Then we are lucky that some courses just give random information on the distance changes - Southwell jumps seem just to be linked to changes relating to the last meeting. What use is that to telling us the correct distance?

Then watching Wetherby last night we have the fiasco of random fences being missed which happens so regularly. Health and safety takes priority but this obviously affects the time as well.

Ireland of course has none if this information, i am sure they alter rails but it is not recorded.

Then there is the crazy system of lengths. How can they think this is sensible to change the measurements. Surely keep 1 measurement system or give us the time. I know in here i have seen that the Racing Post are given the times but choose not to use them but why then are they not displayed elsewhere as per the Irish?

It is so frustrating that everything seems to be made unnecessarily complicated when the information is known. Also of course we are still operating distances in antiquated systems. The sooner we operate in metric in this country the better it will be.

Mike ( TheBluesBrother TheBluesBrother ) i don't know how you find time to do anything else than compile your figures!

Kevin
 
The Hare The Hare

Sorry I didn't see your post, possibly the parenthesis around my avatar didn't flagged it up.

The time issue compiling speed figures is not for everybody, I spend 3 hours this morning working through yesterday's 9 meetings.

This year I have advanced my speed figures by calculating the rail movements and making the necessary adjustments, the results
have even surprised me.

The information regarding any rail movements and distance adjustments can be viewed in the results on the BHA website and it can be
a real eyeopener.

Another major obstacle is the standard times, there is not a day that goes by without me changing something, even some of the Racing Posts
standards are so far out it makes my eyes water, notably the 2m4f(C) at Navan which is 20.0s out!!!

With all the excessive rail movements, how on the earth would somebody who is learning the game be able to put together a set of standard times,
I have an Excel sheet with all the results from Jan 2010 to date, and as horse racing is linear, I run the data though the stats program SPSS.

Mike.
 
Last edited:
TheBluesBrother TheBluesBrother - Hi Mike please forgive my ignorance about this subject -Speed ratings - seem to be very complicated to compile and therefore I hope its very rewarding subject for you - as some who has never ever worked with or taken much notice of time or speed figures - what is best way to use them is it wit OR type ratings or instead of - from what can see know american racing is totally dominated by speed ratings and I know John Whitleys Racing Research now have American race cards and speed figures clearly a growing subject that perhaps all punters should be aware of - can I also ask how do you obtain your timing for each race - do you record every race every runner ?
 
markfinn markfinn

My method of compiling speed figures is to use their official ratings to determine the class of the race, and where some horses do not have a handicap rating I use a Racing Post Rating conversion chart.
Yes I record every runner and my database (members area Racing Post) has the results of every race run in England, Ireland and the France Galop courses for both the Flat and Jumps, in fact I cover
more meetings than Dave Edwards "Top Speed" does.

Mike.
 
Last edited:
TheBluesBrother TheBluesBrother

Mike - thanks for the speedy reply - pun intended - I thought I read that you were at odds with their figures , how dot you he get correct comparison.
 
Last edited:
Mike what are your thoughts Re the official going verse going via time.Often conflict which should we trust.?
 
mick said:
Mike what are your thoughts Re the official going verse going via time.Often conflict which should we trust.?
Click to expand...

The official going reports most days are works of fiction, yesterday's meeting at Haydock park was given out by the clerk of the course as good, I had it at +0.50s/f (fast).

The majority of the punters do not understand what is going on with the times and going etc.

This morning as most days, I was having email correspondence with Dave Edwards, for example the time returned for the 1.50 at Masons-Laffitte yesterday of 1m 40.26s should have been
1m 11.81s (only 28.45s out) and I mentioned to him that I calculated that Haydock's 2m2f211y(C) distance was short by 0.5f, I amended the standard time by down by 7.0s to correct the anomaly.

Mike.
 
Last edited:
TheBluesBrother said:
The official going reports most days are works of fiction, yesterday's meeting at Haydock park was given out by the clerk of the course as good, I had it at +0.50s/f (fast).

The majority of the punters do not understand what is going on with the times and going etc.

This morning as most days, I was having email correspondence with Dave Edwards, for example the time returned for the 1.50 at Masons-Laffitte yesterday of 1m 40.26s should have been
1m 11.81s (only 28.45s out) and I mentioned to him that I calculated that Haydock's 2m2f211y(C) distance was short by 0.5f, I amended the standard time by down by 7.0s to correct the anomaly.

Mike.
Click to expand...

Hi Mike TheBluesBrother TheBluesBrother I had Haydock flat races at Good to Fast on my ratings.
 
Sorry for the belated reply, always looking for time! (no pun intended).
As ever some excellent replies from @TheBluesBrother
@markfinn you ask how to compile speed figures, that is a varied topic. It seems there are many different ways that people choose. My own is similar to Mikes', or was when i used it many years ago. It seems on this site many people now compile them but again with no definitive method.

The biggest issue is the use of weight and weight for age. I've always been more interested in National Hunt and that is probably down to the WFA scale used. This arbitrary addition of ratings based on immaturity is again very varied between compilers, the BHA scale starts off way too high and appears to alter much more rapidly than Timeform and the Racing Post. Then the American scale starts so much lower. Mile's figures without the WFA are the ideal method. Weight itsself was always interresting under Nick Mordin day, I could see why it is not used in the USA where weight differences are very slight but the handicapping system in Britain and Ireland sees huge differences and weight should really be included especially affecting the horses carrying it on softer ground.

Here's the latest Timeform method assuming them to be the most advanced, other than John Whiteley whose method i can't find but would be interested in!

Horse Racing Times Explained: How to analyse times of horse races

Personally i think the use of 25lbs a second at 60seconds is too high,

Though Simon Rowland wrote articles on Betfair a couple of years earlier with a different method!

Betting Strategy: Simon Rowlands on time analysis, part one : Betting Strategy : Horseracing
Betting Strategy: Simon Rowlands on time analysis, part two : Betting Strategy : Horseracing

These methods appear closer to the kind of lbs/length i use, producing about 20lbs a second.

Then you have the crazy British method of not giving times of finishers and altering the lengths per second as they choose. So something that is so simple is made incredibly complicated and inaccurate . Presumably due to tradition and everyone knows how many lbs there are in a length and all that. The information is available why not make it available on the BHA site as the Irish do, it should be up to the user to decide whether they want it, not some out dated Racing Post editor/manager or apparently modernising BHA hierarchy.

So those are the best methods to use once you obtain accurate standard times, which is the hardest part!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top