For me, the above means searching for false favourites to Lay, or for others, to seek out another horse to Back. This is usually indicated by a Fave priced outside the norm. By norm I mean a selection with a price within the average SP for the particular field size. I define average as 80% of all prices starting from the middle price and working outwards to encompass 80% of all SP's that has occurred over a three year period. Any 1st Fave outside this range is a likely false favourite. There were a number yesterday, but just two as an example were R1 Caulfield $3.90 Fave Googly Gander & R7 Murray Bridge $3.80 Fave Addiction To Rock. Both lost.

For me, the best practice is to disregard previous form entirely, and let the law of averages 'do the talkin'!

Or in other words Random Chance more commonly known as pot luck eh Rincon.

Dale.Your right on the button .

Nahhh....if I wanted to bet Random Chance, I'd look up threads like Longshots with mathematics, I'm bored, Ripsnorter Lay system, the list goes on.

Hi LG,

In terms of sample size, obviously the more the better although the benefits than can be gained analysing non-current data (say more than 4 racing seasons old) starts to diminish. Why? Because the market place changes and accordingly commences to revalue various factors. My own analysis of these and others is a big part of how I stay ahead of the game. This applies to point 2. that you raised.

In terms of point 1. , the benchmark returns (average returns) from backing all horses using SP/NSW tote returns around a LOT of 11% (using a proportional stake). If one can identify factors that perform much better than that say LOT of ~6% or less then that is the beginning of the process that I and others such as the major syndicates adopt. Essentially you model needs to be continually updated to cater for this aspect (it's called adaptive market hypothesis).

__________________
Regards


Paul Daily - Ratings2Win Pty Ltd (Director)
R2W Axis - Axis is Australia's leading horse racing software and database; with sophisticated form analysis tools and accurate performance ratings that include Hong Kong.
http://www.ratings2win.com.au/

Thanks Paul. Informative and insightful, especially where you start to reveal some of the 'inner world' of the professional and back this up with some hard numbers e.g. the starting point for where the serious analysis begins.

I had a quick look at the adaptive market hypothesis. That is one hell of a wormhole in which to get lost in for the 'mere mortals' amongst us.What is evident to me however is the need for a 'rolling data sample' to monitor when & where the risk v reward playoff changes, and to evolve with the moving target in real time.

Cheers LG

__________________
The trick isn't finding profitable angles, it's finding ones you will bet through the ups and downs - UB

Hi LG,

That is a great point to take from this. It is also something that we build into Axis; practical and relevant data balance.

For instance our past 20 starts are a rolling 20 for each horse. We maintain 5 years worth of 28 day months (as horses race in 7 day weeks not Calender months) in our database before the program archives the data. For trials we keep 3 years of rolling data. The same does not apply though to our pars (benchmarks) which go back around 14 years. Everything we do in terms of program structure, is set up to display only relevant information with an emphasis on as much speed as possible achieved by controlling the amount of information the program has to access. Of course users have full control over the settings and can 'horde' everything if they want, but those are the defaults and the archive allows them to test as much data back as they want.

Other than for sentimental reasons there is very little point of having the runs of Sunline and Might and Power in your database. It wastes space and slows down the database. It is also irrelevant as the market has changed and in many ways the data is so unrepeatable that its misleading. On top of that, testing ratings and so on based on races that happened 13 years ago is asking for trouble, unless the ratings have not changed in that time (always a possibility with some). This is something most punters don't take into account. There is no point testing a ratings method that for all intense purposes no longer exists because they have been superseded by a better version of the same rating. This is another reason for using Axis. If (not when) we change and improve the performance of our ratings, we actually release a file that replaces all the old ratings data in the database with ratings that are calculated with the current algorithm. This is done 'as if it was calculated on a that day basis' and requires us to keep a snapshot of each day in order to do this properly. This consumes an incredible amount of data and time to do it correctly. Notwithstanding that, we do it so that our clients are actually testing past data using the most recent algorithm instead of having to wait months before seeing any emerging patterns that the new data produces. This sensible practice is not performed by any other provider in the marketplace.

We as punters would expect nothing less and require that information for ourselves so it only makes sense to provide it to our clients as well. After all we all view the data in a different manner based on our own personal views, which in turn makes the likelihood of saturation remote.

__________________
Regards


Paul Daily - Ratings2Win Pty Ltd (Director)
R2W Axis - Axis is Australia's leading horse racing software and database; with sophisticated form analysis tools and accurate performance ratings that include Hong Kong.
http://www.ratings2win.com.au/

Thanks RP sorry it took a while to respond.

Obviously those are limited (or selected) races, but certainly a large enough sample to get a good idea. The type of analysis that Axis is capable of is far more detailed than the strike rate for top pick, although as you eluded to, most punters don't even know the rudimentary information even though it can be obtained if someone has a decent command of excel.

What we are talking about is analysing the various elements of those ratings (once imported into Axis) that go far beyond the basic or even an advanced excel users capabilities. Using Axis to analyse this type of data will reveal the strengths and weaknesses of such ratings utilising more than 115 elements many of which are exclusive to R2W and their clients. That is knowledge that is certainly NOT available to the majority of punters and possibly not even to the providers of the rating themselves. Even if they were able to analyse the ratings in that manner they are definitely not going to publish such analysis.

We maintain that armed with this type of analysis, you are well on the way to exploiting the possibilities that the rest of the market cannot see. With Axis there are no secrets, whatever the rating is that you import; the Analysis is available.

As analysis example:

Performance of each rating or rank across distance, track condition, class and 115+ other factors of that pertain to the horse and/or race. Performance of each rating or rank for last start winners, where in their current prep they are, SP rank, Betfair rank and so on for all horses form factors which are available. What about those that aren't? How does top rated perform when it's an R2W backmarker? How does it perform on different track conditions? (all track conditions are verified independently) What about both Backmarker with that has superior track condition ability? Or you can combine a Backmarker, TC and SP together? The ability to drill down is endless and the further you get from the superficial the greater your edge over the market grows.

The performance of each rating or rank across the actual rating value. Want to know what the performance is when the rating price is between $1.0 to $3 ? What about things like, when the top rated horse is so many points or dollars ahead of others? When the 2 ratings/ratings agree ? When they don't? What about top pick when its ranked 1 on the API? What about something more difficult like: What is the performance of the top pick and also top IR rating (our Intelligence Rating) or any other or group of our ratings? Or when they are also so many points clear of the rest of the field? What about our indicators? You could get dizzy and lose months of sleep and still wouldn't get through all the possibilities.

Finally there is the Consensus panel where you could build your own complete rating from all the data at your disposal in that module and include if desired external ratings into the mix. Of course there are the endless options that you could then test and analyse!

At the end of the day it's up to the user as to what level of work they decide to put into their analysis and punting in general. Most don't have the tools or the ability and/or time to build such tools for themselves. We just make it easy, accessible and definitely affordable.

__________________
Regards


Paul Daily - Ratings2Win Pty Ltd (Director)
R2W Axis - Axis is Australia's leading horse racing software and database; with sophisticated form analysis tools and accurate performance ratings that include Hong Kong.
http://www.ratings2win.com.au/

Paul,

What i don't get is where are the files coming from regards different / external ratings I might want to incorporate into the tool. Typically what might be the process of extraction? And how to guestimate costings for upload etc

Cheers LG

__________________
The trick isn't finding profitable angles, it's finding ones you will bet through the ups and downs - UB

Hi LG,

The importing of any ratings is handled by Axis based on the requirement that you need to have to access to the rating/price-line in a csv format. That is the clients responsibility to obtain. For example you may want to see how a rating that you are currently using performs when lined up against specific form factors or other R2W ratings. There is a small one off admin cost associated with setting up this facility. At this stage you can import up to 5 external ratings/rankings/price-lines etc. This also applies to clients using Axis Historical.

Further details can be found in the online manual under Data, Database, Downloads and Imports and then select the Importing Private Ratings section. You also have the opportunity to do what we term an external list test. See manual for further details.

If you have any other specific questions feel free to call me directly.

__________________
Regards


Paul Daily - Ratings2Win Pty Ltd (Director)
R2W Axis - Axis is Australia's leading horse racing software and database; with sophisticated form analysis tools and accurate performance ratings that include Hong Kong.
http://www.ratings2win.com.au/

Cheers Paul.

LG

__________________
The trick isn't finding profitable angles, it's finding ones you will bet through the ups and downs - UB