What is the correlation between Total Energy and VDC?
 

After looking at Rich's recent VDC/NP post, I was surprised by how closely the VDC results matched my results for TE, and became curious about their relationship. Since I never used Val and VDC is not available in Spec, it's not something I've tracked. However, its results seem similar to TPP, a factor I have tracked, which I found to be .97 correlated with TE, and the ROI difference was also negligible.

If anyone has done any testing in this area, or would be willing to do some, and post the results, I think it would be helpful to everyone.

Cheers,

B. Jennet

Test
 

Hi

The VDC formula is derived from many factors I dont know what they are ,but Im pretty sure Total Energy Is an important part of the mix

VDC Is a weighted measurement of Velocity relative to Deceleration
Total Energy as all readouts in Sartin programs
is derived form the 3 Incremental velocity fractions of every race

I just happen to be reading Follow up # 82 In it Doc writes about an Ideal
spreadsheet He only suggest a few factors to record

VDC, Primary Lines score, Supplemental line score, BLBL Rank, ML odds, Final odds
and as you might have guessed Total Energy

If you dont have VDC TE seems to be the next best thing besides ODDS

Bill V.

TE and V/DC
 

Hi Bill,

Thanks for your response. Although V/DC is not part of Spec, I have some idea of what it is from reading a number of the Follow Ups from when Val was the default Sartin software, and from checking the screenshots of RDSS users.

As I've found from testing TE, BBL, LS, etc., these three are very closely correlated, to the point of being virtually interchangable. But I've always thought of VDC as being a relatively independent factor. However, when I saw Rich's recent VDC test, I was surprised that the hit rates for the top four ranks were very similar to what I found for TE. If it is, there's nothing much more to say, but if not - if V/DC is hitting a group of winners that TE does not - it could provide some ROI enhancement.

Anyone who's interested in this question can just check - how often is TE #1 also V/DC #1, and so on through the first four ranks or so - to learn the degree to which these two factors are correlated.

Two interesting things to note from Rich's 200-race survey, if the numbers hold up over a larger sample, V/DC was slightly better at separating the top two ranks than TE (2:1 and 3:2 ratio, respectively) and V/DC #1 was flat-bet profitable, with an average mutuel of $7.48. In this day and age, this is really incredible. If these numbers pan out, you have a betting strategy that's stripped to the bone - just bet V/DC #1, or for better ROI, bet it at 2-1 and above.

Thanks for your many contributions here, and best of luck at the windows.

Cheers,

B Jennet

nail
 

Hi again. Bang you nailed the concept. Any prime factor in the methodology over a sustained test with consistent line selection as prescribed in the follow up will land you with about a 2.74. So yes you will have the winner of most races in the top3 TE .
Now Doc saw the problem with this. If the winner is one of the top 3 of vital factors like te. His clients main issue was which two should be bet. The VDC formula is a tie breaker and wager decision tool
GS Bill

Greetings folks,
I DO have a spreadsheet that tracks most of the things Doc talked about, (as well as many others), in Follow Up 82. The results are fascinating, to say the least. My question for the grooup is : does anyone know how the Morning Line is constructed these days ? I know how it used to be done, but was curious how it is done now. Does each track have someone that does it, (or groups of tracks) ? Thanks.

May be outdated
 

Hi Dorianmode,

I don't know when Follow Up 82 appeared - possibly the late 90s'? - but Ted made a significant improvement in TE a couple of years ago, which is the reason I asked this question. Although the hit rate of the top two is only slightly improved, the distribution of the win probability from the #2 to #1 is significant. You might want to look into this.

Re morning line, I know that many tracks have used a simple purse value metric, although clearly the NY and CA ML, which are excellent, are obviously using more sophisticated measures.

Cheers,

B Jennet

Oops. Actually there were only 9 races that day.

Roi?
 

Hi Dorianmode,

Your results at BEL are similar to my own experience on the NY and CA circuits, using the top two TE with no further handicapping. However, as you can see, the linemakers at these tracks are using exactly the same tools that we are, thus often making it impossible to make money even with a very high hit rate. In a sense, these results are a microcosm of what handicapping has become in the last few years.

If, as it seems, you're using the ML favorites as a guide to picking horses, this is a guaranteed formula for losing money, as many issues of the Follow Up can illustrate. This is even more true now than at the time when Doc was writing this material. As Dave Schwartz has observed, you can no longer make money betting the top three favorites.

Cheers,

B. Jennet

Thanks, but ......
 

Greetings,

Am still having a great time with the East Coast circuit, but I mainly use the ML and final wagering odds, as a check, to maybe take a second look, and make sure I have not overlooked something in my selection process, which is NOT actually based on the ML, or final odds. So no, it's not my practice to use the ML as you may have thought. I do find it is more accurate in NY tho, as I implied above. I just thought maybe someone may know someone personally, etc., etc. :p
But it is so nice to watch the quality of animals in NY, as opposed to the really minor tracks. It's just a treat to watch them do what they are supposed to do !

There is however a smaller, but not "smallest" ranked track I have noticed recently, (it's just about completed it's season), which has been giving me GREAT odds. I am not going to post the name publicly, but it's as if the wagering public there was from another planet. They let my choices go off at numbers that let me bet three and four horses sometimes ! It's very disconcerting to see horses that they should LOVE, that they just let go of ?? I have to remind myself, it's not Los Angeles/San Diego out there everywhere.

So yes, I am having great success with RDSS, as I knew I would, as my final selector. But that doesn't mean you can disengage your brain. Without the right 4 or five REAL contenders, the numbers are often just a "jumble" of nothing.
So the question becomes "How do you get there?", and I ain't gonna give away twenty years of work ! But as I said in my proir post, if you are getting a hit rate in the 80-85%, you
can bet on almost anything.

Cheers !