Kee Poly Winning positions
 

Something the Hat worked with me last year on with the new surface at Keeneland and it continues to pay dividends into the current meet.

go to the result charts and track the POSITIONS of the WINNING horse especially the first fractions. Then find horses in the pp's who are FAST and focus on the ones for the WIN who are similar POSITIONALLY to the winners from the pp's.

In my opinion you definitely want to consider TURF lines in the route poly races man. DEFINITELY

This I believe can help BOTH software and non software users ok?

Here are the first 2 days of Poly races broken down into simple sprint/route categories. Positions shown are the first 2 fractions from the WINNING horse in the result chart.

Hope this helps.

Sprint
8-7
2-2
8-11
6-6
9-7
3-2
7-6

Route
12-11
7-4
4-4
7-7
4-4

Richie

Looks to me like other than early is dominating so far.

It sure does Ramon. This surface sure looks to be unique. Amazing.
Richie

4/11 Winner's Positioning
 

Winning Positions
Sprints have 4 calls - 1f-2c-sc-fin
Routes have 5 calls - 1f-1c-2c-sc-fin

Sprints
5-3-1-1
6-8-5-1
1-1-1-1 - Graded stakes
4-4-2-1

Routes
5-6-4-1-1
3-5-5-4-1
10-10-10-6-1 :eek:

Good stuff Richie. I imagine if you look at the fall of last year, you would see similar numbers. What is interesting, is I think the crowd has been slow to catch on, still playing horses on the polytrack that are in the first flight early. Has been a good opportunity for those selecting the correct closers down the stretch.

Jim

Jim,
Here is a race from yesterday. It is a route so we check the route positions in the first post I made right?

We see TWO races where the WINNER raced with a 4-4 1f-1c position. That is the EARLIEST positional move we will accept on a horse being considered for a bet TODAY.

here are the lines for the horses in yesterdays 5th race. the boxes around lines show the ones I ELIMINATE because they are too CLOSE upfront ok?

here are all the lines with boxes around the initial elimns

ok we have chopped out a good chunk to start. now we continue this further and get rid of some more but now the focus switches to pace of race for elimns

the boxes show some more elimns

the 8 and 12 go because they come from Tp and the 9 kills them off
the 1 goes because its a slow ass horse coming from another area code positionally

so here is the field after initial chopping and the boxes show the next ones to go

PROCESS OF ELIMINATION

now we are down to the 3 true contenders (imho) for the win.

so WHO is the closest POSITIONALLY to the winning POSITION PROFILE??

Remember we have 4-4 TWICE from winners to go by as the earliest acceptable right?

the # 5 is a 5-7
the # 9 is a 5-5
the # 11 is an 11-9

LOOK at the # 9 . THERE IS OUR HORSE

I have boxed that "look" on this screenshot Jim

a very nice horse to have in the Kee contest as well as with REAL CASH

they dont all work out like this BUT at these prices they don't have to do they?

Fwiw this is EXACTLY what I am doing man. No smoke and mirrors or "hidden stuff".

Hope this helps

Richie

screenshot from Kee contest showing my selection and result of that race

Very nicely done and easy to follow. I know many here appreciate the time it takes to set that up. I agree that would of been a nice horse to have in the contest. I think my horse is still running. LOL Until yesterday, I was in decent shape in the contest but an 0'fer has dropped me in the mid-300's. It's still early and we just need to keep firing. Hope you catch a couple like that today.

Have a good one.

Jim

PS-How do you draw the lines and arrows into your screen shots?

You're right, this is a great thread, and I profited from it yesterday and hope to today.

I think the reason traditional handicappers (and some in the methodology) has been slow to catch on is that they have assumptions going back years that Keeneland is an early speed favoring track. It is still a speed favoring track, clocking amazing times, its just not favoring front runners.at this time.

I would like to insert a cautionary note here. This may not be entirely a characteristic of Polytrack and may not transfer to the surface at other locations. In addition to the new surface, Keeneland also widened the final turn, making it less of a bullring or hairpin configuration. They also added 100 feet to the final straightaway, making it 1235 feet, one of the longer ones among currently active tracks. Both of these changes should also lessen the advantage of early speed.

The lesson should be that as the new surface becomes more and more common, we are going to have to do as Richie has done and do our homework on the charts and our profiles and keep that information current for the track we're playing..

Dick

Dick,

I agree wholeheartedly that it is important not to make general assumptions about polytrack. But Keeneland has been a gold mine since fall of last year if you know what to look for.

I am hoping that Ted includes something like Richie has done here when the charts are incoorporated into RDSS. Rather than just the same ol' same ol' with modeling factors, it would be nice at a glance to see how the winner has performed over a set number of races and what the winner's call was at each point of the race. Saves the time of manually poring through charts and let's the computer do what it is good at, sorting and retrieving information.

Jim

4/12 - Winner's Positioning
 

Winning Positions
Sprints have 4 calls - 1f-2c-sc-fin
Routes have 5 calls - 1f-1c-2c-sc-fin

Sprints:
6-8-5-1
5-5-1-1
11-11-4-1 :eek:
3-1-1-1
5-7-5-1

Routes:
4-4-3-2-1
7-4-1-1-1

I hit a couple of decent winners and a place today for $45 an change. Here is my overall after today:

Your bankroll total is $120.20
You're currently ranked #300 in the entire contest.

Time to hit some long shots.

Jim

PS-How do you draw the lines and arrows into your screen shots

Jim
I just saw your above question. I am using screenhunter pro. Cost a couple of pennies more than the free one but there is a bit more you can do with it
:)
Richie

Richie:

VERY nice presentation of extremely interesting concept!

Gary

camtasia
 

just wait till Rich learns how to make videos with Camtasia !!:)

4/13 Winner's Positions
 

Winning Positions
Sprints have 4 calls - 1f-2c-sc-fin
Routes have 5 calls - 1f-1c-2c-sc-fin


Sprints:
4-4-3-1
2-1-1-1
4-3-3-1
6-7-3-1
7-6-2-1

Routes:
4-7-5-3-1
2-3-3-3-1

** Very subtle bias change imo**

Richie:

Finished 4th today in NHC Qualify contest and I give a lot of credit to the posts that you have made, especially in this section. Your logic expressed in this thread led me to a couple of very nice winners today. Thank you.

Gary Levin

WOW!

tremendous Gary. You are a super impressive player man. I hope you take the whole blasted thing down!

Really cool!
Richie

Congrats Gary. From the looks of it you were on fire at SA. Way to go. Hope you qualify for the big dance!

Jim

Gary,Way to go I have all the confidence that you will do well.Jeff

4/14 Winner's Positioning
 

When Hat showed me this last year he told me that this poly stuff WOULD change with rain on the surface.

So even though it was always labeled "fast" I should make a note on the days it rained.

Winning Positions
Sprints have 4 calls - 1f-2c-sc-fin
Routes have 5 calls - 1f-1c-2c-sc-fin

4/14 - Winning Positions - RAIN

Sprints:
11-11-2-1 :eek:
5-4-3-1
2-2-2-1

Routes:
4-5-5-4-1
2-2-3-1-1
5-6-4-1-1
3-3-3-2-1
5-5-5-5-1
3-3-3-2-1

Jim, Not to worry There's still plenty of time.

I started the weekend in the 58th spot and dropped to the
172nd spot after the weekend - Sunday was the pits.
2 or 3 good days will bring you back.

You need the big price horses and at KEE this is always a possibility.
My Bankroll is at $259.50

Keeneland 7 Furlongs
 

I want to keep this in Richie's thread and hopefully I can contribute something here. I used 7 furlong races with no maidens and I did not use the about 7 furlong races.

I entered these charts in the spreadsheet to determine how different the new surface might be. This is pretty much a Phase III type of worksheet, ala Brohamer, no adjustments, etc. The ESP is the visual ESP not energy ESP. Although the sample size is only 8 I think this may be enough for analysis.

Keeneland 7 Furlongs fractions
 

This is part of the worksheet I normally don't print. The one thing that jumps out at me is the F2 and F3 compared to F1. F2 in 7 out of 8 races is higher than F1. F3 is higher than F1 in 5 out of 8 races. To me I could make a case for looking at HE (Hidden Energy) here. I know this is after the fact, but these races if I did not know the distance and surface look like Turf races.

I also note from the first part of the worksheet that if the first fraction is run sub 23.0 the front runner is nowhere to be found. I would think it would be very difficult to compare Keeneland lines to Churchill Downs when that meet opens. I know last year in 6 furlong races the first fraction was often sub 22.0 at Churchill Downs. I just don't have a large enough sample size for 6 furlong races at Keeneland to make that comparison.

Churchill 7 furlongs
 

Just for comparison here are 4 races from last year at Churchill.

Churchill 7 furlong fractions
 

Here is the second part showing the fractions. Seems more like a dirt race to me especially the third fraction (F3) as compared to Keeneland.

When you watch a Keenland race it seems like they are stumbling over each other not to be near the lead.

Froggy

Houndog,Nice job on that.Jeff

Very cool
 

Records = getting a good feel for each race

"Dog"
 

Nice work Mike.

This track/surface is unique. Dick (Socantra) has discovered truly remarkable patterns from the result charts. I agree when he says that part of the radical change there has to do with a track reconfig.

I HOPE that the new poly's about to open (Ap,Sa,Dmr) have Keeneland's patterns to them also.

A new era is upon us. We adapt,change and prosper or get run the hell over by those that DO.

I honestly believe we are in the first camp :)

Great work Mike

Charts
 

This sort of research is much easier to do since the Bris PDF charts give you the option of showing the Charts in the Alternative way which shows the winner the way you would see the race in the Racing Form or other PP's.

This makes it especially less time consuming when you have a horse that is sitting 11th in the first parts of the race and having to add the lengths from the horses ahead of him as in the traditional way.

Here is what it looks like. I use the Alternative method which when selected is highlighted. This is a real time saver and less prone to error than doing it the old way.

BRIS charts
 

Thanks. That does make things easier. I've been working with DRF charts, my calculator and columnar pad, so work goes slowly.

The pattern Richie mentioned that I noticed on Blue Grass Stakes day was that their essentially was no deceleration. In the Blue Grass, and pretty much the other routes at Keeneland that day, the Pace of the Race was pretty much accelerating throughout the race.

I looked up the Cynthia pars for pre poly Keeneland and the dirt routes ran a pretty traditional pattern of deceleration for route races. Then I looked t turf routes nd the pars had them pretty much flat across the fractions. But the ploy showed acceleration.

Example:
9f pre-poly fractional dirt par in fps:
54.77, 51.56, 50.51

9f turf par:
55.23, 55.00, 55.00

Blue Grass fractional POR:
51.36, 52.38, 57.23

In other words, the Blue Grass and other routes were almost a complete flip of the old dirt fractions and a very different pattern from the turf races. I don't know what this means, how far it extends or if it applies to other tracks yet. It does seem that we are dealing with a completely different beastie here.

Dick

Dick, those dirt routes for Keeneland are bordering on the extreme for that third fraction. It is as you say does not even resemble Turf Routes at Keeneland. I am not sure what it means or how I can use some of these lines when some of these horses move to Churchill.

I haven't looked at the routes yet so that is my next step. I will not be surprised if I see a sub 66% Med Energy for some of these races. Thanks for pointing this out.

i'll be anxious to see what you find. The Blue Grass and the Jenny wiley both ran that way. Some of the others are flatter, like the turf pars. It surprised the hell out of me. I've never seen races that run like that. My pocket calculator got extra exercise, because I thought I must have blown the calculations, so I repeated them several times and still think that maybe I got it wrong.

If you break it down into 2f segments, the POR starts off slow, dips a little after the 1st segment and then accelerates from there, with little or no deceleration in the final fraction. Keeneland appears to have a considerable dip in the 2nd call times from pre-poly. Hollywood looks like it has a bit and Turfway Park a very small dip. Woodnime doesn't look like there's been any change at all. I haven't gotten a look at any current final time pars yet, though Keeneland doesn't seem to be any slower.

Dick

words of caution about Keeneland is that Turfway Park past performances, when compared to the other tracks, compare as being too fast. very few Tp lines get the winners

Keeneland 1 1/16
 

Keeneland 1 1/16 miles on the dirt.

Keeneland 1 1/8 Miles
 

Keeneland 1 1/8 Miles on the dirt.

3rd Fraction Times
 

Look at some of those 3rd fraction times, especially at a 1 1/16. Also 6 races with MED% below 65%. Blugrass Stakes 63.84%.