• RanchWest
    503
    I suspect that those in the industry are not real keen on negative information. But it might be useful in handicapping. Have you ever tracked negative information?

    I am currently working on tracking jockey troubled trips. I know that a troubled trip can happen to any jockey at any time. But I am thinking that jockeys that have a lot of troubled trips may not be very good wagers. What do you think?
  • William Zayonce
    40
    Ranchwest
    You might be on to something with the negative information data . One of my angles involves an attribute which a contender does NOT have.
  • William Zayonce
    40
    Recurrent troubled trips for jockeys might prove to be a sound downgrading factor.
  • Dave Schwartz
    262
    I am currently working on tracking jockey troubled trips. I know that a troubled trip can happen to any jockey at any time. But I am thinking that jockeys that have a lot of troubled trips may not be very good wagers. What do you think?RanchWest

    How are you doing that?
    Comments?
  • RanchWest
    503
    How are you doing that?
    Comments?
    Dave Schwartz

    Yes, based on a list of keywords that appear in the long version of the comments. I realize this is not perfect, but I am thinking that it would be data that is very under-utilized. It took me about an hour or so to set it up and after that it is fairly low maintenance.
  • RanchWest
    503
    I also flag horses with troubled trips. I figure that a horse should also be forgiven for the occasional troubled trip, but when it keeps happening, maybe it isn't a coincidence.
  • Conley
    424
    Ranch right now I am keeping track of track biases and specifically looking at poor/bad or "negative" biases that I can see

    I am doing almost 99% of the tracks on North America right now and have data starting from the start of this month if anyone wanted a quick sneak peek of what I do (which is probably nobody)
  • RanchWest
    503
    specifically looking at poor/bad or "negative" biases that I can seeConley

    Yeah, I am thinking that very few people look at the negatives. For biases, the only discussions I recall are against outside posts on the turf. Not even a lot of discussion of outside posts in routes, even when the runup to the first turn is short. Some of the dashes have short runups to the turn, too... I've seen some tracks where a 1-2-3 post tri box on dashes was winning disproportionately, suggesting that the outside posts sucked.
  • RanchWest
    503
    I saw another negative today. A horse with zero Quirin points and no recent closes went off as the favorite. If the horse doesn't run early and doesn't run late, how is it going to win? This was Bistrita, R5 at FL today, 5/23/22. Went off at 1/4 odds! And, I had her with the 5th best composite speed rating in a 7-horse field. Doesn't even seem possible, though it was the low odds on my automated odds line.
  • Dave Schwartz
    262
    I also flag horses with troubled trips. I figure that a horse should also be forgiven for the occasional troubled trip, but when it keeps happening, maybe it isn't a coincidence.RanchWest

    Please tell me about HOW you do that.

    I'm designing a note-taking & searching process in The Studio, and, not being a note taker myself, I'm a little lost.
  • Dave Schwartz
    262
    Ranch right now I am keeping track of track biases and specifically looking at poor/bad or "negative" biases that I can see

    I am doing almost 99% of the tracks on North America right now and have data starting from the start of this month if anyone wanted a quick sneak peek of what I do (which is probably nobody)
    Conley

    Are you doing this in a spreadsheet?
  • RanchWest
    503
    Here's my word array:

    aTroubleWords := {"steadied","Jostled","Bobbled","awkward","stumbled","bothered", ;
    "hopped","hit","shuffled","Pinched","hesitated","checked","boxed","squeezed", ;
    "lunged","ducked","lost footing","dwelt","Bumped hard","clipped","slammed", ;
    "blocked","slipped","Took up","Jumped","Reared","Tangle","Threw head", ;
    "Pinballed"}

    I make an abbreviated set of PP's showing only the troubled trip lines. That way I can see how many troubled trips each horse has.
  • Conley
    424

    I am doing it the old fashioned way in a notebook ;)
  • Dave Schwartz
    262
    I am doing it the old fashioned way in a notebookConley

    OMG!!!!
  • RanchWest
    503
    OMG!!!!Dave Schwartz

    You probably recall that I told about my friend, the paper handicapper, who referred to himself as a Big Chief Tablet handicapper. :lol:
  • RanchWest
    503
    I saw another negative today. A horse with zero Quirin points and no recent closes went off as the favorite. If the horse doesn't run early and doesn't run late, how is it going to win? This was Bistrita, R5 at FL today, 5/23/22. Went off at 1/4 odds! And, I had her with the 5th best composite speed rating in a 7-horse field. Doesn't even seem possible, though it was the low odds on my automated odds line.RanchWest

    There were 2 horses in that race that had zero Quirin points and no recent closes and in the 6-horse field, neither of the two won. The winner paid $36.20 to win. Bistrita ran second with the $2 exacta paying $85.50. Incredible. A win bet on all 4 of the other horses had high enough odds to ensure a profit.
  • Dave Schwartz
    262
    Respectfully, single race examples have only slightly better than zero value.

    The answer must be verified with much larger samples.

    Without a few hundred negative picks made either completely rule-based or before hand, it's all anecdotal.

    That's why I react so negatively when someone speaks of building models in notebooks: in order to do research, one must look across dozens of pages in such a notebook.
  • RanchWest
    503
    Respectfully, single race examples have only slightly better than zero value.Dave Schwartz

    I will be testing the zero/zero play. But being the 4th of 6 (there was 1 scratch) in Composite Speed cannot be good for a 1/4 favorite.
  • RanchWest
    503
    But I do make a lot of final decisions based on pace scenario. When a horse doesn't run early and doesn't run late, I look elsewhere. But, again, I will research this zero/zero play. I have included it on my quick cap decision screen.
  • Mark
    14
    The filly seemed to be bet heavily because she was taking a huge drop in class! Dropping from a $30,000 claiming race at BEL to $5,000 at FLX.
  • RanchWest
    503
    The filly seemed to be bet heavily because she was taking a huge drop in class! Dropping from a $30,000 claiming race at BEL to $5,000 at FLX.Mark

    The beautiful part of parimutuel wagering is that when someone is really wrong, someone else can be really right.
  • RanchWest
    503
    I will be testing the zero/zero play. But being the 4th of 6 (there was 1 scratch) in Composite Speed cannot be good for a 1/4 favorite.RanchWest

    Three of the zero zero horses today. They finished 2nd, 3rd and 4th. So far, they are 0/5.
  • RanchWest
    503
    Troubled trips...

    So far (still early):
    Routes: 4.95%
    Sprints: 5.74%
    Turf: 6.06%

    Highest percentage for a jockey:
    41.2% of 17 mounts.
  • Tony Kofalt
    393
    You guys totally amaze me!!! Ranch you are so creative, Coley do all this work for every track by hand and Dave always looking for a way to make the process easier.
    When it comes to negative factors, it seems to me that Pickmaster was used in HSH to identify negative factors some years ago. I don't recall the outcome but it felt like a worthwhile venture. Dave do you remember that effort?
    Could there be an opportunity to report these items in a good news/bad news function?
  • Dave Schwartz
    262
    When it comes to negative factors, it seems to me that Pickmaster was used in HSH to identify negative factors some years ago. I don't recall the outcome but it felt like a worthwhile venture.Tony Kofalt

    It used to work very well for negatives but that stopped about 2016 when the 1st public choice became extremely efficient in the market.

    Now, it works quite differently.
    One must find the BEST factors and understand the "RATIO-of-RATIOS" and "1stROR." Both of those are fully explained in Percentages & Probabilities 2022.

    (It is a highly-visual explanation.)
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