Contenders

[Latekick]

Can you give me some insight on exactly how you choose your top 5 or so contenders.
I am currently using the top5 Brisn Prime
power along with the top 5 Twinspires Profit line.

I have a few horses a day that come in at nice prices that are not tp 5 ineither of the two.
How do YOU select the contenders you will handicapp

[For The Lead]

Originally Posted by Latekick

Can you give me some insight on exactly how you choose your top 5 or so contenders.
I am currently using the top5 Brisn Prime
power along with the top 5 Twinspires Profit line.

I have a few horses a day that come in at nice prices that are not tp 5 ineither of the two.
How do YOU select the contenders you will handicapp

Here is a link to the Teaching area that deals with picking contenders and pacelines. http://paceandcap.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8784

It starts off with information on the subject taken from either the Follow Ups or the Paceline Manual. Once you read through those their are many example races using RDSS that you can read. Each race will provide a run down of each horse in the race and the reason for consideration or elimination. It will also explain which line is being used for those horses that are determined to be a contender.

[Because I Can Jim]

Hey Latekick,

For the Lead did an excellent job in the teaching area that he refers to. A definite must read and assimilate. Why?

IN the early days of the methodology, whenever there was a workshop or seminar, an enormous amount of time would be spent on paceline selection. Then contender selection would be gone over almost as an afterthought. This is because to some extent you pick pacelines in order to be able to evaluate horses for contention. (An argument and method can be shown for picking contenders first almost to the exclusion of picking pacelines, but, that is for another thread and one that is difficult for beginners to grasp As a hint: it has to do with running styles.)

So, I believe most people will pick a paceline first from which to use for deciding if the horse is a contender or not. That is what they are most comfortable with or they gravitate to and that is absolutely fine. It works for me and many, many others.

But.... (for additional consideration)....

As time passed, the methodolgy became more advanced. Computer programs changed. Today, we are using RDSS2 and in it is something called Paceline Selection Strategy. (PSS)

In PSS, you can choose between different strategies. First there is manual (which is what I learned decades ago and is what is presented in FTL's teaching thread.

Then there is Last Line which is akin to manual. It is just a shortcut and would be changed based upon using a line other than the last line.

But, then there is all of these others - Best Perceptor, Last 3 Comparable and all the way down to Best VDC, Last 3 (which is the one I focus on).

No strategy is perfect. But, they are helpful and let me explain.

My mentor uses Best VDC. He opens up the race and runs Best VDC and from that he chooses his contenders. Here is why:

rmath made a post (http://paceandcap.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9188) from his findings over 650 races using the top VDC and CSR. The winner came out of the top 5 DVC and CSR 81.4% of the time. In reading the manuals, if you pick the pacelines manually, you will pick the correct paceline about 85% of the time.

My mentor saves a lot of analysis time in doing it this way and he is comfortable in his analysis of the pacelines selected for him. He has been handicapping for many, many years and that is what he has evolved to, but, he does not use it blindly like a black box. He does change pacelines selected when necessary and also runs the Last Line PSS to get a different perspective on the a horse. (Most often, his conclusions about a horse will be the same using both Best VDC and Last Line. Ocassionally, they will be different. At these times, he will then look more closely at the horse and other factors in a race to see which paceline he should use or whether or not the horse should be a contender.)

Be forewarned: USE THE PSS LIKE A BLACK BOX AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!

So were does this leave my giving advice....

Study the FTL teaching thread. Internalize it. Use it as a foundation of knowledge from which to make judgements from.

Realize that there are things that are contradictory to using the PSS. For example, FTL has his opinion about layoffs based upon his analysis/statistics which I can respect. He will just not use a horse if a horse hase been layed off after I believe it is 90 days. Using a PSS, it will pick a line regardless of how may days, months or years a horse has been layed off.

On the other hand, while rmath did not supply us with how he decided upon the paceline selection/strategy he used, his stats also point to another direction for contender selection.

I usually end with something like "Hope this helps" but in this case I know that what I wrote may not be that helpful. I wrote it because when I first opened up RDSS2, there was this thing called PSS. Immediatley, I fell into a "black box" mode. My mentor corrected that. Using the PSS (especially Best VDC) is a decent starting point. But, It needs to be tempered with the knowledge from For The Leads post.

Best of luck.

Jim
Any Questions, Any Time

[Segwin]

Good post Jim.

[Bill V.]

Great post and helpful replies to all


My contenders are the horses I think can win the race.
Before I select pace lines, I eliminate some horses.
based on form, poor TPR numbers, poor adjusted speed ratings, poor APV
and too early or too late on the early late graph.
I only bet for win so I throw out many horses who can come in second !!
That is why I don't play exactas.
This is the contender selection method I use

I then get my top contenders during the pace line selection step
I use a combination of what I have learned from FTL's lessons,
Doc's "best of last 3" at a comparable distance, surface and competition level
and the pace line chapter in the book Pace Makes The Race ( original version ).

I always start with the last ( most recent ) pace line If it fits what I am looking for I use it,
If not I asked myself why can I excuse it. If I can I look at the next line I very rarely go past the 3rd pace line .

Bill

[Latekick]

I appreciate all the replys.
Because I Can Jim, thank you for your insight and I would like to go read up on that thread you mentioned but im not sure where to find it at on here.

Bill V. I understand what you are saying, though I am quite new to this sight I have been reading and learning the method for about a year now. Ive read mostly all of the pace line manual and read up on some of the other manuals.
I use the best of the last 3 at a comparable distance and surface, and if the last 3 is at a different surface I go back as far as I need to get a line for this surface. The problem I most often run into is when I choose the last line because its a comparable distance and surface, and the line ranks low, so I dismiss the horse. Well it seems that often times, the horse wins and I am sitting there scrachting my head, and when I go back to look at the horses pps, it shows a line 2 or 3 back that would have made this horse very competitive. To rid of this problem I thought of maybe instead of using running lines to choose best of last 3, to use Speed ratings to choose my best line of the last 3. Say its a 6f dirt sprint. The horse in question ran a 78 going 7f last race and 3 back ran an 85 going 6f. Should I go back to the line 3 back or stay with the 78 being that its the horses last race?



All of this is very important to me and being that I don't quite have a very high bankroll to play on, every wager is critical. I have been stryggling lately with horses that just don't rank very well beating me, and I need to stop this problem before it runs me broke. Getting advice from people who are ACTUALLY showing a profit, will help me tremendously

[For The Lead]

Originally Posted by Latekick

I appreciate all the replys.
Because I Can Jim, thank you for your insight and I would like to go read up on that thread you mentioned but im not sure where to find it at on here.

Here is a link to the thread you are looking for.
http://paceandcap.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8784

There are many more threads in the teaching area that will be of help to you.

The races shown in the teaching area show the complete PP's for each horse in the race, along with comments on each horse in the race, explaining the reason the horse is or is not a contender as well as which line is being used.

At the end of the PP's you will find 4 screen shots from RDSS, the "original" screen, which shows the horses used as contenders and the line used for each horse. Please take note that a "bad" line is never used. All the lines will be either a "+" line of a "(+)" line. In addition, you will find the "TPR" screen shot, the "SEGMENTS" screen shot and finally the "BLBL" screen shot.

Hope you find this material to be informative.

[Bill V.]

Hi late kick

Bill V. I understand what you are saying, though I am quite new to this sight I have been reading and learning the method for about a year now. Ive read mostly all of the pace line manual and read up on some of the other manuals.
I use the best of the last 3 at a comparable distance and surface, and if the last 3 is at a different surface I go back as far as I need to get a line for this surface. The problem I most often run into is when I choose the last line because its a comparable distance and surface, and the line ranks low, so I dismiss the horse. Well it seems that often times, the horse wins and I am sitting there scrachting my head, and when I go back to look at the horses pps, it shows a line 2 or 3 back that would have made this horse very competitive. To rid of this problem I thought of maybe instead of using running lines to choose best of last 3, to use Speed ratings to choose my best line of the last 3. Say its a 6f dirt sprint. The horse in question ran a 78 going 7f last race and 3 back ran an 85 going 6f. Should I go back to the line 3 back or stay with the 78 being that its the horses last race?

This is a good question...

I look at Parx every racing day, I am often face with a similar problem
as Parx 7 furlong races tend to be adjusted too fast.
Some things you would want to consider. What speed ratings has the horse earned at 6 furlongs in its plus races? and is the 7 furlong race comperable
What about the early late and total energy? 7 furlong races tend to have faster epr ratings because so much of the race is run before they hit the turn.
If I can I always try to use a similar distance for a paceline

[Latekick]

Bill, this is a real horse running today and i want to see what you have to say about this paceline selection.
Okay this is a 6f race on a POLY track. His last race he earned an 83 SR while going 6f over a poly track. 2 back he earned an 84 while going 6f on turf, and 3 back was his best of the last 3 with a 92 bt it was 6f on a DIRT surface. I chose the last line even though its not the best SR ( by the way they re all plus races)
This is the problem im running into a bit. I chose the last line even though its not his best, and this may rank the horse lower than his 3 line would, so this horse may be a winner off of his 3 line which is the best of the last 3, but since i chose his last race on Poly, the SR is lower thus it may be lower ranked in my rankings. Thats what my problem has started to become. Horses that WOULD be ranaked highly if i use the best of last 3, but decide not too because of a reason as i just stated. His 92 going 6f on a DIRT surface is 9 points higher than the line i chose last race on a POLY. Whats your thoughts

[Bill V.]

Hi Latekick
Can you tell me what track and race this example is from?
I would love to see the race and the PP's for the horse

In the mean time, horses run against each other not against the surface
If all the other contender all only have Poly lines and your example horse has good lines but from different surfaces its a tough call.
Anyway I would like to see what horse/race your asking about
Just the name and track and race and horse # I can DL the track
Bill