Race 8 - # 7 Beach Patrol (Final Odds 1.70*) - "A" Selection
Race 9 - The San Carlos - # 8 Kobe's Back (2.00*) - "A" Selection
Race 10 - The Santa Anita Handicap - # 2 Melatonin (16.30) - No Selection
Race 11 - The China Doll - # 11 Mirage (Ire) (27.10) - "C" Selection
Once upon a time, (what seems like) a long, long time ago, there were no publicly published speed figures available to all in the Past Performances; no Timeform; no Equibase; no Brisnet; no Beyers. All there was in that dark and unenlightened time was the Daily Racing Form's Speed Rating and Track Variant. They really weren't very reliable; nothing at all like the numbers that we have at our fingertips today. But some players, realizing that you make the best of the tools that you have, would add those two figures together, the DRF Speed Rating and Track Variant, to get a number for each runner that they could compare to the rest of the field.
To show you how that would work, let's look at each entrant in the field of Saturday's Santa Anita Handicap, specifically at each runner's last race on a fast dirt track, add together the DRF Speed Rating and Track Variant for each, and see how they rank:
# 2 Melatonin - 110
# 9 Class Leader - 109
# 5 Effinex - 105
# 8 Imperative 105
# 3 Donworth - 104
# 1 Point Piper - 104
# 7 Hard Aces - 101
# 6 Cyrus Alexander - 100
# 4 General a Rod - 96
Oh well; onto the next race.
Meanwhile, those who had the correct Pick Four sequence of 7 / 8 / 2 / 11 were rewarded with a payout of $5,596.15 for their fifty cent wager. May God bless them as they spend their winnings.
Peace and Love,
Jimbo
3 comments:
Excellent point Jim. BSFs have subjectivity baked in the cake. This leads to systemic idiosyncrasies like Gulfstream, Tampa Bay, and Saratoga figs being consistently too high and Socal figs too low. Materiality, nothing more than a mediocre allowance race by any other measure, got a 110 for an excruciatingly slow Fla Derby which suckered a load of people into betting what should have been an easy toss at Churchill, while California horses routinely outrun their figs in eastern races. Ragozins are not much better. An overrated handicapping tool, one that should be considered but only in a basket of other parameters.
Excellent point Jim. BSFs have subjectivity baked in the cake. This leads to systemic idiosyncrasies like Gulfstream, Tampa Bay, and Saratoga figs being consistently too high and Socal figs too low. Materiality, nothing more than a mediocre allowance race by any other measure, got a 110 for an excruciatingly slow Fla Derby which suckered a load of people into betting what should have been an easy toss at Churchill, while California horses routinely outrun their figs in eastern races. Ragozins are not much better. An overrated handicapping tool, one that should be considered but only in a basket of other parameters.
Thank you, John; and very well stated. As you said so well, there are certain biases built into the speed figure calculations; and recognizing the recurring patterns in those numbers gives a player a huge edge over those who expect speed figures to serve as a substitute for doing the real work of handicapping a race.
Peace and Love,
Jimbo
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