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What difference does the jockey make

Here is a race I worked out today:
The first column is the runners (most formerly UK), the second column is the projected speeds and the third column are the jockey percentages (1st+2nd wins):

1 - BIG WAVE 1.29.12 28%
2 - HEART BREAKING 1.28.45 34%
3 - ATTILAS 1.28.81 33%
4 - WREN CASTLE 1.28.46 36%
5 - CISKO BOY 1.28.61 58%
6 - POLIORKITIS 1.28.91 16%
7 - ARCANO GOLD 1.28.98 31%
8 - TARAGON 1.28.52 30%

This is over 7 furlongs and is due at 4.30 local time (2.30 UK time).
The speed ratings are absolute - no Beyer or OR formalism.
There some more features in my "smart card" such as the likely pacemakers, but I omit those here for simplicity.

The probabilities that the software gives me are:

5 (20.8%) - 4 (18.4%) - 2 (16.7%) -8 (16.0%) - 3 (14.5%) -7 (5.6%) - 1 (4.1%) - 6 (3.9%) ................... (1)

So the no 5 Cisko Boy is our likeliest winner and the no 6 Poliorkitis is the one with the remote chance.

How did I get those projected speeds ?
This is a long story and requires histogram analysis, track variant analysis and histogram analysis.
I give the end result here.
The jockey percentages ? Those I got from published tables.

The formula ? The formula is of the type I describe some posts above, composition of neurons, but I do not at this moment have it in print.

Now if I omit the jockeys what happens ?

What happens is this:

4 (18.0%) - 8 (17.5%) - 2 (16.9%) - 3 (14.9%) - 5 (14.3%) - 6 (7.4%) - 7 (6.1%) - 1 (4.9%) .............. (2)

So you see that it now shows the no 4 as first chance (Wren Castle).

It's a difficult race. I believe the market will be closer to my probability set (1) than to my probability set (2).
So if I go for that 4-8 forecast of set (2) -without the jocks- I 'll be rich (Wren Castle - Taragon).

But what is supposed to happen here is the probability set with the jockeys counting is stronger and usually closer to the truth.

I 'm sorry I don't have the exact formula right now (other than inside the software's .exe file !).
But I more or less described it's structure in the previous posts.
 
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Cisko Boy (with champion jockey P. Dimitsanis).
The no 7 Arcano Gold finished second.
If you want to see a replay of this race you will have to wait till Monday.
 
markfinn said:
Well you had the winner well done - what price was it ?
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2.19 the win, 21.38 the exacta, 24.34 the quinella (less than the exacta !).
I had a quinella bet that lost.
I guess they went for the champ, like they usually do, so the win dividend is on the low side given the level of uncertainty.
I have big problems because as I have lost the source code I have to reconstruct it and it's not an easy one. There are adjustments needed, new distances, new kilometric conversions. Some faulty power unit burned everything one day and I had no backup.
I wish there was a product for UK races along these lines so I 'm trying to help the guy who wants to create one.
In America maybe they have such. There is the forum paceadvantage.com and those who write there seem to know a lot about these things. Maybe the Italians too. The Italians are the fathers of sports prediction software but I don't know Italian.
 
markfinn said:
Have you tried asking rpjd99 rpjd99 for advice
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Seems like an old post.
An editor called me and he said he's got a new compilation of data from UK-Fr-SA.
Let's wait and see if he's got something better.
I know some French but from my searches in the French internet I did n't find anything so far. Sometimes there are races common to UK programs and French programs and I think the UK analysts do somewhat better.
Then there is a Greek-American friend who says the DRF site has all these things and everybody else is below the standard of DRF.
 
About this race of mine, I notice the following things now:
The best projected speed is 1.28.45, the winner was at 1.28.61, about one length behind (theoretical length).
But is ridden by the champion (Dimitsanis) and so comes on top in the final probability score.
The worst is 1.29.12 (no 1 Big Wave). That's three lengths and it's not beyond possibility really.
The time constant of the "exp like" speed-probability formula for the distance of 7 furlongs stands at 0.8-0.9 seconds if I 'm not mistaken.
About the 2nd finished horse now, Arcano Gold. The theoretical speed is 1.28.98. His jockey was ok, one of the good jockeys of Cyprus (Kapodistrias).
 
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wolfetone said:
The second issue is that people make the mistake of thinking that the best jockeys are those that have the big yards behind them. E.g. Moore, Dettori etc. My view would be that what determines the publics view of a jockey is not the jockeys intrinsic quality but the quality of his mounts. For example, I believe there are a lot of jockeys without such high profiles who would suddenly become stars if they had Moores contacts, or rode for O' Brien.
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Years ago a high percentage of the public would back the jockey before the horse and this created some wonderful value for those who took the opposite view.These days i feel this edge has mostly disappeared but imo there are some very capable journeymen jocks who given the chance will still get the job done but because they are less puffed by the pundits also add points to the price.

Racing data base software now churns out multiple stats in seconds and apparent Go To jocks are an easy find,the astute betting yards will be very aware of this and when there intentions are serious might well choose a less overt Pilot for the right reasons. ?
 
mick said:
Years ago a high percentage of the public would back the jockey before the horse and this created some wonderful value for those who took the opposite view.These days i feel this edge has mostly disappeared but imo there are some very capable journeymen jocks who given the chance will still get the job done but because they are less puffed by the pundits also add points to the price.

Racing data base software now churns out multiple stats in seconds and apparent Go To jocks are an easy find,the astute betting yards will be very aware of this and when there intentions are serious might well choose a less overt Pilot for the right reasons. ?
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Well this does happen sometimes, go for the second string jockey that is, to pull the wool over our eyes.
I don't believe jockeys don't know their job.
Maybe I can isolate 10-12 cases of poor jockeys.
Two or three that I know of disappeared sometime around 1995 (!) and resurfaced in 2014. Well if you expect from them, you have thrown your money away.
But most know their job and it is really a matter of hierarchy in the yards.

You mention software that works. Name your favourite products, so we know. Can you ?
 
DTR said:
The Adrian Massey website has some interesting free statistical information on jockey performance and ratings, which I find useful:

Adrian Massey's Horse Racing Site
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Adrian Massey was loved by everybody.
He stopped at 2010 and all the people were sad.
Now he started again ?
Is it the same man ?
But I don't see any races in the site now. Only overall stats.
Something for tomorrow's Wolverhampton perhaps ?
 
I use Raceform Interactive which does have a query data base facility,but if stats are your thing then HRB is used by many members of this forum.
 
Jockeys and performance is complex. I think looking at personal and psychological factors is far more important than the usual markers for jockeys and race outcomes. I would suggest the OP is looking in completely the wrong place. Think of a football team and a managers assessment of who would start. A players performance would go up and down depending upon a complex set of psychological, emotional and physical inter relationships. Imagine if each player in that team were a jockey. Each game, race, would be a unique set of circumstances and a relationship between humans and animal that is in flux . The factors affecting a single performance would not be found by looking at the past unless the markers are very simple...like a big race or big game performer . It is much more likely to come down to factors like whether they are hungry. Whether they had sex that morning, geldings excluded, what they rode yesterday. Are they happy, sad, etc etc etc. I believe there is a strong correlation between a jockeys performance and outcome, it varied enormously. But in general perhaps we are looking at the wrong things . There is Simplistic approach to horse betting that says the answer lies only in the form book. The basics are there but no more and sometimes, probably most of the time, the peripherals are more important and more difficult to access than the written record.
 
markfinn said:
Generally Jockeys ride to order or they don't ride again
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Funny you should post this markfinn markfinn as its related to something I've been wondering recently, how many times do we hear about a jockey having to decide which horse he rides in a particular race, is it the really the jockeys decision or the trainer? especially when there's different owners involved.
 
Jack Dawkins said:
Funny you should post this markfinn markfinn as its related to something I've been wondering recently, how many times do we hear about a jockey having to decide which horse he rides in a particular race, is it the really the jockeys decision or the trainer? especially when there's different owners involved.
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Can be a good sign of the trainers intentions
 
Jack Dawkins said:
Funny you should post this markfinn markfinn as its related to something I've been wondering recently, how many times do we hear about a jockey having to decide which horse he rides in a particular race, is it the really the jockeys decision or the trainer? especially when there's different owners involved.
Click to expand...
My current understanding is that most jockeys use Agents and it is these who will ,or should be identifying best chance and then going pro active to seek the booking.With the large yards using retained jocks and frequently running more than one in same race,then something i have learned the hard way is to not allow who is riding which to affect my thinking.Sometimes they may be attempting to put us away but i suspect often the "wrong one" winning is also an unexpected outcome for connections.?
 
I believe if the jockeys were chosen at random, taking into account only the weight, then we were going to see a different pattern of jockey statistics. If in the current tables the top jockey has a 30% record and the one at the bottom of the table has 1%, then it will become something like 15%-10%.
But it does n't work that way.
Also among the professionals there are those who know things and those who are complete idiots.
Ten years ago I knew one of the owners well and he was making money out of it but the rascal never talked.
Then I used to frequent a shop where another owner was placing his bets over the phone. The agent was a friend and he used to tell us every time "so and so phoned and he is on this horse". Biggest waste of time ever. That owner was a an idiot, meaning complete idiot.
I don't bother anymore.
The only one of value was the cousin of one of the trainers. A smarmy character, looked like Artful Dodger of the Oliver Twist story, but I managed to make him my friend. He knew things, he had some bright ideas but ... He just felt he had to pretend he knew the secret of every single little race, every time. So you could n't tell when he was into something and when he was fantasizing things. That worked against his reputation too, but he could n't change his habits. Many are like that, so it was useless.

The strange story was with a certain bizarre person every time in the last race.
One day the main hall in the race course was full of people and someone starts calling the name "George" at the top of his voice. I turn around and I see the man who was shouting and as was natural I assumed he lost his friend George in the crowd and was calling his name. Nobody came, I did n't care.
But then the same scene with him, time after time, after time.
Some kind of phishing he was trying to do maybe.
Then time passed, I get on the train one day from the central station and here is the character popping in behind me !
He goes to the far side of the car and leans on the door.
But the driver makes a mistake ! He opens the doors of the far side for an instant and closes them again.
So the man's coat is caught by the door and there was nothing he could do to take it out. It was caught in such a way he could do absolutely nothing. He had to wait until the train reached the terminus to be freed - or hit the danger button. But in the train there were only some school boys and they started making silly faces at him and doing other awful things. The kids drove him mad, kept swearing all the way. As he did not ask for the danger button I did not feel obliged to help and I sat there watching the martyrdom.
 
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