Picking Contenders & Pacelines

[For The Lead]

To those who took the time to look at these races, I hope you were able to learn something from them.

[Bill V.]

Thank you FTL
( I sent FTL these readouts last night)
The race was a real challenge but I felt I had it about 51%
I had some doubt that one of the routers internal fractions would be the killer

Anyway here is what I sent FTL


Race 2 7 furlongs open 20000 claimer or nw2l ?

+ (+) and 0's

Bold 0 (+) (+) 0

Quick + (+) + 0 +

Flame + (+) (+) (+) + 0 0 0 0

Heza (+) 0 0

Doc + + + + + 0

Agitate (+) (+) + (+) O O O

Murphy (+) + 0 (+) + (+) + 0

Dirty + 0 0 0 0 + (+) (+)

Big Bad + 0 0 ++0 0 0 0

Running style

Bold - Press

Quick - Sus

Flame - SP/NF

Heza - NF

Doc - EP

Agitate - No sprint form

Murphy - SUS

Dirty - was a EP now is SUS

Big Bad- SUS

APV Class

Bold 171.5 165

Quick 125.3 196

Flame 24.7 058

Heza 22.4 0.54

Doc 51.2 163

Agitate 149.4 147

Murphy 34.8 0.58

Dirty 69.9 0.74

Big Bad 196 203

Contenders

Bold Line 3 Press

Quick line 1 Sus

Doc Murry line 1 EP

Dirty Line 1 Sus


Bold wins

[DaveEdwards]

I have to admit to not thinking about class or APV when looking at a race, but this was clearly not the case when this race was first worked through & then used in the Follow Up.

APV is even colour coded in RDSS so perhaps I ought to pay more attention.

Was this one of those races to sort the men from the boys???

Bill,

May I ask, your use of the 0, + & (+), do you use it to ensure you are using an appropriate line only or also as a tool for the form cycle analysis? I know The Doc has made reference to doing form cycle analysis when there is a discernible pattern, but in many cases it appears to my admittedly untrained eye that no pattern does exist. Is this an area you've been able to explore?

I keep having a quote Jim made at the Las Vegas seminar '91 running round & round my head. Paraphrasing now, but "......if you put the right horses into the programs they will sing & dance for you".

Essentially, if I can get to the point where in most cases I can confidently eliminate the non-contenders, especially the shorter price ones that are easier to get sucked into entering, then V/dc & the Incremental Match Up graph can take care of the rest (with appropriate line selections of course). Perhaps a Teaching thread on the elimination of non-contenders might be appropriate? It would be interesting to perhaps gather the various strategies that people deploy in this area.

Thanks FTL & Bill!

[Bill V.]

Bill,

May I ask, your use of the 0, + & (+), do you use it to ensure you are using an appropriate line only or also as a tool for the form cycle analysis? I know The Doc has made reference to doing form cycle analysis when there is a discernible pattern, but in many cases it appears to my admittedly untrained eye that no pattern does exist. Is this an area you've been able to explore?

Dave
Rdss makes doing the + 0 and (+) notations so easy
The lines are color coded so you don't even have to mark them
but i still do . Here is a Early horse I can see how it runs all its plus lines
and I can see why it runs 0 races




I mark both the lines and the Early Late numbers
I note what running stle and the fractions and distance and surface it runs its Plus races at When I see a horse with very little color I know its up against it in todays race

I am sure you will be seeing more on the topic of non contenders that should not be entered in the program

GS
Bill

[For The Lead]

Originally Posted by DaveEdwards

Let me take this one thing at a time.

Was this one of those races to sort the men from the boys???
Well, that's one way to put it! If you go back a couple of posts to the post just before the results, read the last attachment. It makes the point that this is the type of race that can turn "weekend warriors" into professionals. I didn't say it. The follow up did. More specifically, Tom Brohamer did.
Bill,

May I ask, your use of the 0, + & (+), do you use it to ensure you are using an appropriate line only or also as a tool for the form cycle analysis? I know The Doc has made reference to doing form cycle analysis when there is a discernible pattern, but in many cases it appears to my admittedly untrained eye that no pattern does exist. Is this an area you've been able to explore?

If you don't mind my "butting in", it works for both, line selection AND form cycle. Naturally, with regard to the form cycle, class, race condition, distance, surface and track, all have to be taken into consideration.


I keep having a quote Jim made at the Las Vegas seminar '91 running round & round my head. Paraphrasing now, but "......if you put the right horses into the programs they will sing & dance for you".
I can't argue with that. I will, however, expand on it. It's not just the "right horses", but the right horses with the right lines.

Essentially, if I can get to the point where in most cases I can confidently eliminate the non-contenders, especially the shorter price ones that are easier to get sucked into entering, then V/dc & the Incremental Match Up graph can take care of the rest (with appropriate line selections of course).
I would caution about "ELIMINATING" short priced non-contenders. I'm not saying they don't exist, but in most cases, short priced horses ARE contenders with decent form, recent races and good running lines. It's up to YOUR handicapping ability to use the tools provided by RDSS to assist you with that endeavor. Remeber, RDSS, or any other software, is not a "black box". The user still has some evaluation to do on their own. Here's a recent quote from TED that gives some indication as to how he uses his software.

I recommend you never just uncritically accept the auto-pacelines offered. Double check every horse for current condition, best ever performance, competitive paceline, surface preference, matchup surviveability.


Ted also said:
my software is not a betting black box - but since I could not otherwise rank pacelines or properly identify contenders without the computations and rankings of my software - then I'd have to call winning a race a partnership between my own consistent decision making and the software's number crunching, sorting and filtering.

Perhaps a Teaching thread on the elimination of non-contenders might be appropriate?
I thought that was what this thread was about! (lol)

It would be interesting to perhaps gather the various strategies that people deploy in this area.
Have you ever heard the saying "TOO MANY COOKS SPOIL THE BROTH?"
I think that applies here. The follow ups are good places to go for information on this subject, just like the race I just posted. Any those example are consistent, which is important.

Finally, I thought I would post some running lines from my own racing form. Although it is not nicely color coded like RDSS, I don't think you will have any problem in identifying the good lines from the bad. I don't think you will have any problem in identifying the points of call where the horse was actually "impacting" the race. And I don't think you will have any problem in identifying the horses running style. Using a line that is NOT colored would not be advisable. Early in this thread you can see where Doc said, "never use a bad line. It defeats the purpose of trying to pick winning horses".
Thanks FTL & Bill!

Hope all this helps.

[DaveEdwards]

Terrific posts & thanks for your time both.

I don't want to slip into the "do me something" trap now & so I'm going to explore the issues raised and then come back with my thoughts/findings.

There has been a lot of views of this thread so presumably a few others are seeking guidance in this area too. It would be nice I think if a few fed back later how they have found things. I certainly will.

[For The Lead]

This is good advice from the 'Doc".

[For The Lead]

Sometimes you just don't have a choice.
I mean, you follow the guidelines on line selection and you run into a horse like the one below. What are you suppose to do?
Well, given the dilemma this horse confronts you with, just take the last line.
You'll see what I mean.
Those who did were rewarded with a $35.00 winner!



Of the 10 races in the past performances, this horse encountered "trouble" in 9 of them.
Since the last line is a good race, a + race, USE IT!

[For The Lead]

I thought it would be of interest to read how "Doc" went about looking at horses on the basis of being contenders, or not, and how he selected lines. He offered this example. Take note that the first thing "Doc" did was READ THE CONDITIONS"!

[For The Lead]

Read "Doc's" comments on each horse carefully.