selecting contenders

[shoeless]

I have been listening to some of the old seminar tapes to help pass the
time while Im working.I wanted to know if any folks out there will pick
the contenders before they start running the programs or because of
downloading this is a thing of the past.

[dlivery]

Hi

I have listen to some of those seminars and it's helped to keep your direction and not wonder.
But there's one saying I always remember is the handicapping process begins before you turn on your computer.

Lawrence

[For The Lead]

Originally Posted by shoeless

I have been listening to some of the old seminar tapes to help pass the
time while Im working.I wanted to know if any folks out there will pick
the contenders before they start running the programs or because of
downloading this is a thing of the past.

I do it the same old way every single day.

Pick the contenders, throw out the pretenders, pick lines for the contenders and let the program of choice do its' thing.

Why should it be any different now than back then?

Let's say you are using RDSS and downloading files from Trackmaster.
When you open the race card for today, it's like opening the Racing Form to the track you want to play. When you open one of the races in RDSS, it's like turning to the page in the Racing Form to the race you want to play. So where is the difference?

From what I have seen, it isn't the downloading that is different, it's the "approach" that is different.

Years ago, the idea was NEVER to pick a line for EVERY HORSE in the race and then try to "get down" to five contenders. The idea was to pick contenders, regardless of how many there were. Maybe you would get 8, maybe you would get 1. In other words, you HANDICAPPED the race in order to get your contenders, THEN you picked lines for them, THEN you entered them into the computer program.

There is nothing different today just because you download race files rather than purchase a Racing Form.

[Ted Craven]

I take a different view. Times do change, sometimes. How do you analyse horses differently from the mainstream? The horse who wins is the horse who sets or best overcomes the fastest pace of race. Different horses in today's race set or overcome (or don't) different paces of race, at different distances, on different surfaces. They are held at less odds than they should, or more than they should.

One way of determining contenders is to look at their raw running lines - just like thousands of your competitors, then make a judgement as to whether they are worthy of a deeper look, of selecting a line for them.

Here are some winners from yesterday at Gulfstream. Looking only at their raw info, do you have the skill (or even the necessary info) to know whether the horse is worthy of 'putting in the computer', of taking a deeper look? I sure don't.









If your 'racing form' came with a little tick mark suggesting a line to look at to possibly represent the horse, and a summary at the bottom - a 'consensus' pick if you will - all automated - of promising horses based on those little tick marks, and you kept a record of the profitability of such information - why would you not use it? The old racing form (and perhaps even the current one - I haven't seen one recently) didn't provide this information, so you had to work it out yourself, rather laboriously.

Modern tools provide ... modern tools. I would always counsel using your brain, but if you have a tool you can trust (according to your records), then consider using the tool, and trusting it. If you have a tool that enables it, I suggest there is no downside in putting in a line for every horse (or letting the computer do it for starters, for you to investigate further). Sure, some horses in a grey zone (such as some of the above winners, and some losers not shown) will fool you and not perform even if they have have shiny numbers, and you will lose the race. But winning at racing involves anteing up to games where there is a chance to win good money where the public often doesn't think there is, from whatever pool offers the opportunity. Participating in such games (such races) involves losing some of them, but even as in Doc's day, or 20 years ago, we must be prepared to dig deeper than the public digs.

I don't doubt than some among us have the skills to recognize some of the above horses as true contenders without velocity or energy figures. But I don't.

BTW, all the above winners ranked well enough to be bet (at the odds offered) based on automated line selection (or even manual line selection).

Ted

[For The Lead]

Originally Posted by Ted Craven

I take a different view. Times do change, sometimes. How do you analyse horses differently from the mainstream? The horse who wins is the horse who sets or best overcomes the fastest pace of race. Different horses in today's race set or overcome (or don't) different paces of race, at different distances, on different surfaces. They are held at less odds than they should, or more than they should.

One way of determining contenders is to look at their raw running lines - just like thousands of your competitors, then make a judgement as to whether they are worthy of a deeper look, of selecting a line for them.

Here are some winners from yesterday at Gulfstream. Looking only at their raw info, do you have the skill (or even the necessary info) to know whether the horse is worthy of 'putting in the computer', of taking a deeper look? I sure don't.

Attachment 25750

Attachment 25751

Attachment 25752

Attachment 25753

If your 'racing form' came with a little tick mark suggesting a line to look at to possibly represent the horse, and a summary at the bottom - a 'consensus' pick if you will - all automated - of promising horses based on those little tick marks, and you kept a record of the profitability of such information - why would you not use it? The old racing form (and perhaps even the current one - I haven't seen one recently) didn't provide this information, so you had to work it out yourself, rather laboriously.

Modern tools provide ... modern tools. I would always counsel using your brain, but if you have a tool you can trust (according to your records), then consider using the tool, and trusting it. If you have a tool that enables it, I suggest there is no downside in putting in a line for every horse (or letting the computer do it for starters, for you to investigate further). Sure, some horses in a grey zone (such as some of the above winners, and some losers not shown) will fool you and not perform even if they have have shiny numbers, and you will lose the race. But winning at racing involves anteing up to games where there is a chance to win good money where the public often doesn't think there is, from whatever pool offers the opportunity. Participating in such games (such races) involves losing some of them, but even as in Doc's day, or 20 years ago, we must be prepared to dig deeper than the public digs.

I don't doubt than some among us have the skills to recognize some of the above horses as true contenders without velocity or energy figures. But I don't.

BTW, all the above winners ranked well enough to be bet (at the odds offered) based on automated line selection (or even manual line selection).

Ted

It should go without saying, but I will re-state what I have said many times before, you do an excellent job with your RDSS software.

In my post here, at no time did I make an attempt to compare the information within the Daily Racing Form publication to the information contained in your RDSS software.

My example comparison was that downloading a Trackmaster race file was like buying a racing form.
That the act of opening a Trackmaster race file was like opening a racing form to the track you want to play.
That opening a Trackmaster race file was like turning to the page in the racing form where the race you wanted to play was located.

The original poster simply stated that he had been listening to the old tapes and asked the question, “has downloading changed that?” And the simple answer is “NO”!

Anyone reading between the lines in my post can see that RDSS has the flexibility of being used with the original methodology guidelines, the modern guidelines and everything in between.

I will stand by what I did say in my post. Downloading files and working races with a computer verses working races with a racing form has not changed anything. You can do the same thing with downloaded files, today, as you did with a racing form, yesterday.

Nowhere in my post did I attempt to draw a comparison between the “use” of the old and the “use” of the new. Having been a handicapper for more than 45 years and also having developed my own software, I’m quite aware of the differences in that regard.

Not being an RDSS user, I am not aware of the little “bells and whistles” contained in your software, so there is no way I can address those issues, therefore I did not attempt to. However, as I stated, the biggest difference I see between the “old way” and the “new”, is the approach. That means handicapping the race, picking contenders, picking the lines for the contenders and then entering those horses and lines in the software, as compared to picking a line for every horse in the race on the basis of “best of last three distance surface”.

The most successful people using the “old way” would be those who have the best understanding of horse racing and handicapping, as my screen shot indicates. This was said about Tom Brohamer in a comparison to the other charter P.I.R.C.O. members. Naturally, the “old way” doesn’t have “mass” appeal. The new way requires no knowledge of anything, so it does have “mass” appeal. Which is more successful? I guess that is up to the user…in either case.

The bottom line here is, it seems you read more into what I said in my post than what was intended. If that is the case, I apologize for my less than clear presentation.

[shoeless]

Looking back I think my original post was dumb because as you you say FTL when your looking at the pacelines in RDSS it is the same as looking at the racing form ahead of time.

[Ted Craven]

Originally Posted by For The Lead

It should go without saying, but I will re-state what I have said many times before, you do an excellent job with your RDSS software.

In my post here, at no time did I make an attempt to compare the information within the Daily Racing Form publication to the information contained in your RDSS software.

FTL,

I appreciate your comments and clarifications of your thoughts above, and I do acknowledge and thank your for your ongoing positive comments regarding RDSS.

My primary concern was (and is) for the increasing number of newer RDSS uses or evaluators - those trying to get a handle on what to do with the Sartin Methodology, how is it different from their current approach or from mainstream tools. I talk and email with a lot of people who ask about 'best practices' (or at least my interpretation of them) and apparently the video tutorials and Follow Ups are not not enough ...

Sometimes they say that their visual assessment of a horse's performance leads them to omit a horse as a contender, then the horse runs well and provides the juicy exacta underneath an obvious favourite, or pads a trifecta or superfecta, or simply runs well enough versus other sore nags (or against equally middling form horses) and wins at decent odds. I acknowledge that visual assessment gives some good clues to fitness, but often not enough information to uncover the hidden potential - at the odds we need to succeed - which is often revealed by comparing horses' energy ratings, for which readouts we need to 'put them into the computer', or not take them out of the readout evaluations before observing what their potential is.

Clearly, some horses have not been at all competitive recently, and even if they ran middlingly against a good recent pace and rank well, they should not be regarded as win contenders today (perhaps for 2nd or 3rd or 4th). But too many people pass up opportunities to recognize horses who just don't look as good as the general public thinks they do - and use a tool like RDSS (for example) just like they would use the DRF or the raw TrackMaster/Equibase PPs, which is a shame.

Which is the basis of my concern about forming too quick a judgement over whether a horse is a contender (and contender for what: Win, Place, Show, 4th ?) by not putting it in the computer (aka running its pacelines through more detailed analysis).

I believe absolutely that people benefit by learning how folks like Tom Brohamer analysed contenders - and the audios and seminar books are great resources for that - but I suggest that there are also other ways to see non-obvious potentials in horses and not to overlook these in one's handicapping.

Ted

[JimG]

Dorian,

I enjoyed your post. I like to read different approaches and thinking outside the box. I applaud Ted for letting discussion occur that is not strictly classic Sartin Methodology.

I have been using RDSS a good bit for the last month, choosing pacelines primarily using perceptor rating.

Anyhow, my question is why not use all the horses as contenders in RDSS and, of course, concentrate on those at or near the top for win play? Using all the horses sometimes allows you to see a longshot that may rank good in a corallary that can be included at a price in the exotics.

I have gone ahead and "hid" down to top 5 using TE but I find the order is generally the same in the top 5 whether horses are hid or not. Occasionally, there may be some flip-flopping of order but not much of that from what I have seen. I appreciate feedback from current users and Ted on why hiding is necessary? Thanks.

Jim

[froggy]

Amen Ted,

Using Perceptor I pick a line for every horse except those that look terrible. Then after scratches I eliminate down to 5 or 6 using the line score. The winner is there for you to select.
This is a race I won.
No I didn't back up my bet.

[shoeless]

You guys make some valid points.Im still in the dark ages and use the old programs to hand enter my lines so I need to look at the racing form.