Items on BL BL screen and Pace Balance speed

[Ted Craven]

Ryan,

Hidden Energy is approximately the average of F2 and F3 velocities or (F2+F3) / 2. Generically, useful in shorter Turf routes (along with something like TS+F3 on the Segments Screen, or TS+Deceleration from Velocity Screen. But situationally, it can also be a factor to model on various surfaces (but particularly routes, I think) depending on what the track geometries are, what specific portions of the race occur on the far turn, the length of the stretch run, etc.

Ted

[rjaymes24]

i'm confused, Hidden energy is HID# on the energy screen, right? When I add F2 and F3 and divide them by 2, I dont get the same number as the one on energy screen.

[Ted Craven]

Correct. I mentioned that the formula described is approximate. The concept is as I described. The rank of Hidden energy shown on the Energy screen or on the BL screen should be about the same as you would get if you rank the average of F2+F3 - never more than 1 rank difference in any case I can think of.

The actual formula used for Hidden Energy is not average of F2+F3. The actual Hidden Energy number is unimportant. What is important is both the rank and the gap between ranks, as shown on the Perceptor/Primary factor screen where all the Primary factors (including Hidden) are shown as Best (0.0%) and % deviation from best.

Hope that helps.

Ted

[rjaymes24]

Thanks, Ted. That helps. I'm trying to create a template on some of my favorite tracks and one track in pacticular has HID ranks the winnner as first or second most of the time. Just thought, If I can manipulate F2 and F3 values to get the value of HID on my spreadsheet, it might help predict a single horse or two on my pick threes. But to understand the essence of the ranks and the gap between ranks is even better. Again thank you.

[malickdo]

Quick ques .. where do you find the weight the horses are running at for the current race?

Please guide. Thx so much.

Doug

[Ted Craven]

Doug,

Today's weight is not shown anywhere - weight is not really a factor in the Sartin Methodology. (Previous weight carried is shown on the Original2 screen).

Ted

[BJennet]

Originally Posted by Ted Craven

Hi CC,

Your questions are all excellent ones, and if I understand the gist, are essentially 'what factors should I be paying attention to' and also perhaps 'which ones should I ignore'.

1. What is V/DC

BL/BL is the central, summary screen. All the other screens are feeder screens, or fancy ways of impactfully portraying the ratings as they progress from Raw to Adjusted to Compounded. In the centre of the BL/BL screen is the Bottom Line Score - the weighted Line Score derived from the 7 preceding Primary Factors, which themselves are portrayed in more detail on the tabbed screens to the left of the BL/BL Screen. The BL Score is highly co-related to Total Energy (TE). To the right of the BL Score is an Odds Line (and definitely not one summing to 100%), above which odds a given horse may be a wager, depending on how many horses you will bet, what your historical edge is and net odds offered by all your horses.

To the right of that is V/DC. It's in the centre of the screen co-equal to BL, and for a reason. V/DC is NOT derived from the Supplementary Factors to its right. The V/DC ranking as shown, is a Compound of 2 things: 1) the BL score itself, plus 2) the actual underlying V/DC formula which measures for each race segment the deceleration in that segment relative to the average velocity during that segment, then sums them. Often the V/DC rankings match the order of the BL rankings. For a given paceline, where the component #2 would otherwise rank higher than component #1 (i.e. velocity/deceleration outranks BL), the V/DC component rank is shown for that line instead of the BL rank, thus tied V/DC ranks are common. So, a horse (or paceline) whose V/DC rank is better than its BL rank is showing an ability to better overcome the pace of the race than the mere weighted BL line score would portray.

Doc's idea with this was to point out horses which otherwise would rank lower in BL or TE but stand a good chance if the matchup favours their running or energy disbursement style today, or if the favourite loses (which it does about 2/3rd of the time...). These horses may look like longshots, but they have merit worthy of further investigation. A horse may have low TE for several reasons: in the line you're using (e.g. a recent one) it just didn't have to run that fast to get the job done, wherever it finished (a horse runs as fast as it needs to, not as fast as it can...); OR, the pace was fast and it finished perhaps non-descriptly, but never-the-less disbursed its energy well in the final fraction (relative to all the other horses today). If today's matchup features a number of Early or E/P horses, the horse with a good V/DC rank (say Top 3) may survive the speed duel or collect the pieces.

The so called 'Binder Improver' (BI) pattern (named by Bill V, aka 'Binder') appears as a #1 (or sometimes #2) V/DC rank in 3rd or 4th position (relative to BL, since the screen is sorted by BL rank). That horse 'improves' on its BL rank. Oftentimes, the odds will be better on such horses and above a certain (self-determined threshold, e.g. 5-1) figure this horse to finish at least in-the-money. Such BI's are also co-related with strong F3, so cross-check F3 on Velocity, L/ep on Energy and Total Pace+F3 on Segments (in Default Mode). For users of RDSS' Validator emulation mode, the relative magnitude of the underlying V/DC formula is shown in that same space on the Segments screen.

Doc stated that where the V/DC rank exceeded the BL rank, he would defer to the V/DC. Over the years, various users and researchers have reported that Top 3 and ties V/DC win between 66% and 75% of the time.

Hope that helps a bit on the derivation and uses of the V/DC.

Re other readouts - first a prologue: RDSS is intended to a faithful rendering of both Validator and Speculator. Though a few (arguably non-significant) readouts from each are missing, other readouts which I believe Doc would have canned by now anyway (i.e. because the concepts never quite panned out, or are fully redundant to other readouts) are still there, among them: SPN, Entropy ( Σ symbol) and Fractals. For that reason, I suggest you ignore them as 'too much information'! You are being well served by all that remains. Other largely redundant readouts are E/ep and EPR (E/ep was Doc's preferred representation of 2nd call energy) and L/ep and LPR (likewise L/ep is better) and thus CPR and TPP (TPP - Total Pace Potential is better). The crucial Early/Late Differential readout could be expressed using the differential between E/ep and L/ep (instead of EPR and LPR) and would be somewhat more accurate. Similarly ALL of the Segments screen is redundant to rankings shown on the Velocity screen (just shown in a different visually impactful manner). Look for the next version of RDSS to be simpler, do more with fewer readouts, more pictures (though all the existing and the above mentioned missing Val and Spec readouts will be optionally available to display and model if you've come to rely successfully on them). CC, if you really, really need to know more about Fractals, let me know. Anyway, I cannot give you any good advice on how to use those readouts other than to model them and see what they say...

Focus on Total Energy, E/L, E/ep, L/ep, TPP, BL, V/DC - then look for value to see if a wager is possible.


2. Pace Balanced Speed (PBS)

V/DC and Total Pace+F3 (Segments) will show you a horse best able to overcome its Pace of Race. Given that Total Energy Top 3 (not tied) will predict between 64% - 67% of winners from some major tracks (according to a few recent reports I received, over about 600 races this year so far), you could do worse than to triangulate those 3 readouts.

In your examples for Total Energy , I'm not sure whether the 1 1 1 1 represent beaten lengths or running position (i.e. 0 beaten lengths, gate-to-wire). Let's presume the latter. Time splits for Horse 1 are 22.5 22.5 25, each for 1320 feet or 2 furlongs - Total Energy is 170.14. Horse 2 splits are 23 23 24 - Total Energy is 169.42. This is a good way to pick horses' recent pacelines for the final Analysis process (try cross-referencing TE with Perceptor Total on the horse's Primary Screen).

To see the fastest horse(s) to the 2nd call, check E/ep for the top 2 ranked (particularly those with E or EP Running Styles) then check the TPP. Those horses with top ranked TPP and E/ep will have had good enough L/ep to stick around. Which leads to...


3. Balance

Balance is the sum of the E/ep and L/ep ranks. If you're winnowing down all horse's lines to say 5 or 4, you can use Balance > 8 as an elimination tool (for WIN), but Total Energy works just as well, IMO (i.e. eliminate to Top 5 TE). The theory is that, over larger numbers of races, the horse with balanced E/ep + L/ep (say less than 8, for a 5 horse set) will represent winners better than, say, 2+6=8 or worse 4+4=8, etc. But I feel this is largely redundant to looking at the underlying component ranks, and I would not recommend obsessing (or even recording) Balance. If E/ep rank is 1 and L/ep rank is 5 out of 5 horses, you get a Balance of 6, yet so do you with 3+3. It's more useful to know if that E/ep #1 rank belongs to an Early horse (distinct from a non-Early) and whether it will have any early pressure from other Early's or from other horses with competitive E/ep ratings, and whether its L/ep is also high enough to withstand such potential challenge - than it is to know only that its Balance was 5 or 6 or 7. The constituent E/ep and L/ep facts are much more fine-grained and useful information, IMO, and thus their aggregate - TPP, will tell you more than Balance.


4. APV and Class Rating (CR)

You did not ask about these ratings, summarized on the Entries screen and the top 3 CR labeled with RED/GREEN/YELLOW colour on the horse tabs and on Analysis screens Program # column, but here's a comment since there were a few questions elsewhere. Perhaps you will find that the Top 3 CR are highly represented among winners if you keep the records, but never have they been intended as a primary factor for final contender ranking or wagering decisions. Knowing a horse's Average Purse Value win competitiveness relative to today's Purse, and its in-the-money percentage (components in CR) is just a rough guide as to whom to start with when selecting pacelines - i.e. get the 'principal actors' first - even if some of their CR ranking is derived from last year, or from a previous segment of their form cycle - then move on to the other horses. Purse values are a fraught means of determining relative class - beginning with the classic 'Yellow Manual' in the late 1980's, Sartin always made the case that Class = Energy (and more nuanced: incremental Energy disbursement, or - the Match Up). That is why Total Energy or other means related to compounded velocity ratings are more signature elements of the Methodology (and will point to relatively more obscure, higher paying win and exotic wagers) than those measures based on earnings and consistency, or on man-made race class categories.

One way some people do use CR and APV is if a horse has recently performed relatively poorly compared to its previous form, or has been laid off for some time, consider using a Top ranked APV/CR today as an excuse to go back several lines to previous good performance, and better Total Energy. Be very cautious with this excuse, and insure against loss by demanding better odds on such a runner today, or bet not-for-win. In the case of a returning long layoff horse, also highly prefer some good workout patterns - anything to hint that there's a chance of resuming its former ability.

Another way to proceed through analysing today's runners is described by Barb Craven (and Richie P) here: http://paceandcap.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5881. Similar to that is: start with the Earlies and E/Ps, use the E/ep, E/L sticks and Segments Screen to visualize who will take the lead, how fast, how hotly pursued, etc. Then, work your way through the non-Earlies, watching how their addition to the Analysis set changes the mix and range of Total Energy and which Earlies finally retain sufficient Late to withstand the other Early competitors as well as the Late runners.



Re the (incomplete) RDSS Factor review video - yep, we never got past that first half, sorry! Please consider the foregoing discussion as a down-payment on the remainder! I've avoided doing videos for the past little while as I know the the next version of RDSS will look significantly different (retaining the familiar readouts and navigation style, though), so I don't want to contribute more to the educational libraries only for it to look fairly dated relatively soon. (Plus, it's a bit of work...)

If there are any questions as to what things mean, or how they relate (or how they are redundant) or how to perform analysis and make wager decisions with them, (after studying and thinking about it a bit), just fire away with more questions!



Ted

Hi Ted,

Thanks for this detailed summary. Just wanted to add a couple of comments for newer clients based on my own research on TE. From a sample of nearly 1200 races the most useful finding for me (although maybe it shouldn't have been), was that TE rank is a significant predictor of win probability - each horse wins at a rate almost exactly 60% less than that of the TE rank above them. Interestingly Dave Schwartz came up with a nearly identical win rate for his prime factor, so possibly these ratios reflect something innate about the nature of how horses run.

It's worth adding that separating TE ranks in this way is not something that Howard Sartin emphasized, nor does Ted do it now, since Sartin wanted to encourage his clients to wager on the top contenders who were going off at high prices, although their TE (BL/BL) rank may have been slightly lower. Actually, this made sense at the time, since the top four TE's tended to win at a nearly identical rate then. But I believe that Ted has significantly improved the predictiveness of TE since that time, and there's no reason not to take this improvement into consideration. However, no reason to accept my word at face value - do your own research into the performance of the various factors and see what you find.

Re the 64%-67% stat - I believe you will find the hit rates somewhat higher at top-tier tracks (e.g., the NY and CA circuits), and somewhat lower as you move down to smaller tracks and cheaper animals. The most important things to remember is that, regardless of whatever handicapping bells and whistles you add, the top thee TEs win most of the races.

Best of luck.

Cheers,

B Jennet

[Bill Lyster]

[QUOTE=BJennet;70157]Hi Ted,

Thanks for this detailed summary. Just wanted to add a couple of comments for newer clients based on my own research on TE. From a sample of nearly 1200 races the most useful finding for me (although maybe it shouldn't have been), was that TE rank is a significant predictor of win probability - each horse wins at a rate almost exactly 60% less than that of the TE rank above them. Interestingly Dave Schwartz came up with a nearly identical win rate for his prime factor, so possibly these ratios reflect something innate about the nature of how horses run."

Sorry it took me so long to read this, but I am having trouble with picturing the math you are referring to in the bolded section above. If you get a chance would you show an example of what you are saying. IS it, for example, that if the #1 TE wins at 60% that the #2 wins at 36% and the #3 TE wins at 21.6%?


thanks,

Bill

[BJennet]

[QUOTE=Bill Lyster;70178]

Originally Posted by BJennet

Hi Ted,

Thanks for this detailed summary. Just wanted to add a couple of comments for newer clients based on my own research on TE. From a sample of nearly 1200 races the most useful finding for me (although maybe it shouldn't have been), was that TE rank is a significant predictor of win probability - each horse wins at a rate almost exactly 60% less than that of the TE rank above them. Interestingly Dave Schwartz came up with a nearly identical win rate for his prime factor, so possibly these ratios reflect something innate about the nature of how horses run."

Sorry it took me so long to read this, but I am having trouble with picturing the math you are referring to in the bolded section above. If you get a chance would you show an example of what you are saying. IS it, for example, that if the #1 TE wins at 60% that the #2 wins at 36% and the #3 TE wins at 21.6%?


thanks,

Bill

Hi Bill,

Sorry to have been so unclear. A couple of years ago, I did a study of TE, using a completely mechanical (at least as completely as I could manage) choice of pace lines: standard Sartin best TE of last three at comparable distance and surface (using judgement on timeframe). #1 TE produced 37% winners, #2 - 25%, #3- 15% , #4-10%. One important caveat: this sample eliminated horses displaying what I think of as 'false postive TE' - 'herd' horses that often hit the board but either never or rarely win, and NL types with the same win-averse behavior. Since I think these are easy-elimination types for most knowledgeable handicappers, I don't believe it should affect the significance of the results much, but I think it is worth mentioning for newer handicappers or new Sartin clients who might be reading this.

As I mentioned these are very similar to Dave Schwartz' results on his own prime figure, and I would guess, other overall measures of racing ability. Although my sample, at 1200, is on the low side, the variance of these hit rates was so low, regularly repeating at 50-race intervals, that I felt there was no reason to continue. One illustration of this phenomenon is a small Pick-6 I hit at DMR last year using only TE - three were #1 TE, two were #2, and one was #3. (Worth adding here that TE has added power on the NY and CA circuits).

I began this study after noticing that #1 TE seemed to be winning much more than with any previous iterations of the Sartin software. And compared with the win-rates listed in even the latest issues of the Follow-Up, my study seems to bear this out. As a result I began going over a sample of lost races, and found I had overlooked pacelines of winners with better TE in favor or pacelines horses that 'looked' better. As I began to use this mechanical method, my hit rate improved.

If you're familiar with Michael Lewis' 'Moneyball', in which he discusses the Oakland A's application of statistical techniques originally developed by people like Bill James to uncover previously hidden attributes which contribute to winning baseball games, this could be said to be somewhat similar. As Lewis mentions, even people considered 'experts' at evaluating talent - coaches, managers, scouts - were and are deceived by aspiring players who 'look' good in every way, but are less productive than seemingly
less athletic-looking types like Kirby Puckett. I believe something similar happens when handicappers look at past-performance lines - some seemingly bad looking pace lines and records contain some positive recent TE. This is what Doc was talking about when he said, 'Don't be deceived by the visual'.

One way of looking at this is to say that these are the frequencies at which the recent best performances in the field will repeat themselves.

Cheers,

B Jennet

[Bill Lyster]

BJ,

thanks for the extended explanation. Big fan of Moneyball and the Athletics as well.

great perspective.

Bill