Will you post the final figures this year?

Cheers, would\'ve been interesting to see Prince Bishop in the classic but the retirements are well earned. I didn\'t bet him in the world cup, but looking at how fast he run in the two preps despite obviously hating every step of it until they shifted him out in the clear, the big figure sure seemed within reach IF he wouldn\'t hate it as much next time. I guess he figured it out, at last!

Found it in the ROTW archive, thanks again!

Oh really, cheers! I\'ll try to see if I can find it somewhere! Cool that TG agree\'s about Bishop, not easy to be sure on an 8yo running a 3 points new top but that is also what I figured he did.

Doesn\'t that make him a contender for the BC Classic? Any chance they\'re going?

Don\'t know when I\'ll be able to buy a sheet where Prince Bishop runs again so could I ask what figure you gave him for his Dubai World Cup win? I actually have him running in the neg 2 range but not sure if you would agree about that!

Was goofing around on the web researching horse racing in different countries and came over this little gem, Hong Kong Speed Figures! An example: http://www.hkjc.com/english/formguide/formguide.asp?frmRaceDate=21/06/2015&FrmRaceNum=10

I was kinda baffled and impressed that they actually looked surprisingly tight, making me think that they might use ground which would be a surprise in itself, so I read their piece \"Understanding Speed Figures\" where they to their credit are very open about what they do and have done:

http://www.hkjc.com/english/formguide/what_SpeedFigures.asp

Some really, let me say interesting ideas in there:

1. They actually DO use ground, however they might have gotten their formulas slightly wrong (depending on the width of the paths they\'re presuming maybe, shouldn\'t be totally wrong anyway)?:

\"...Since a horse positioned three horses off the rails on two bends travels about 3.5L (equal to about 0.5sec) further than a horse on the rail...\"

2. I specially like the part about Incidents during the race:

\"...The next item is more contentious - post-race analysis of race videos to assess incidents that affected the performance of horses. It is contentious because it involves uses someone's opinion of how much distance a horse lost by being checked or blocked, or by running wide on the turns, or for various other reasons. It is difficult to be precise in making such judgments. For example, how can you be really sure how strongly a horse would have finished if it had not been trapped behind a wall of other runners? Could it have finished two lengths closer to the winner, or four lengths, or five? We use experienced racing analysts to make these judgments and try to be conservative in making adjustments - to under-compensate rather than the opposite...\"

Maybe an idea for TG, Jerry, to start and project lengths on and off the raw time after what a horse looked to lose because of \"checking\"?

3. The stuff about how they created the par times, speed charts, track variants etc is also quite good.. It\'s kinda like Len (but at least they\'re not using wind readings from the nearest airport!). I bet the guys behind these speed figures are world class engineers! (and probably virgins).  

Any thoughts on this, guys? Miff, what is your opinion, have you seen anything like it? I haven\'t tested them or followed them closely so I don\'t know how good they actually work, but I do want to give them credit for trying their best and the part about incidents is, well, CREATIVE I\'d give them that!

This little message from the officials at the bottom of the form might be telling though;

\"SpeedPOWER race form is produced by a private company and is not official Jockey Club information. Every effort is made to ensure the information is as accurate as possible, but the club assumes no responsibility for it.\"

I just thought it was an interesting find and wanted to share it with you.

To be fair, if Miff is right and sheet players is way overrepresented in the pools because they tend to bet more I don\'t see that argument hold up too good. You\'re observation might be right anyway, but that should maybe be more due to the fact that Beyer don\'t use ground so that the best figures are also those that finished first in the race, i.e no \"buried\" figures. But yeah, causation, correlation. One thing I\'m pretty sure of is that Jerry would take 10 casual bettors over 1 highroller any day! (Even if they pay a third of todays price).

Yes, I was thinking of the PP\'s on the DRF (with formulator etc) and didn\'t really even consider the possibility of people buying the hard copies anymore ! But when you mention it, I\'m sure there are a lot that do. It might well be apples and oranges, I won\'t argue on that, however I think also apples and oranges would be a price issue for the average fruit consumer if they were to drift apart too much

Given that my interest in US Racing (I\'m not American) and really horse racing at all began by coincidence when Betfair for a short period of time started to give away the Thoro-Graph for free (though it has escalated a lot since then, mainly focusing on the racing over here), I could never imagine betting these American races using anything else. I\'ve tried DRF too though and while I do appreciate some of the additional information in there (like workouts, fractions, top 3 horses in the past races, career stats etc) the Beyer rating just doesn\'t cut it for me. So I find that for my purposes, that is recreational and sporadical win or bust-betting focusing on win bets on Betfair and some occasional exactas in the tote, Thoro-Graph is amazing and it really is incredible that one could do okay with just purchasing and downloading a PP and go by the sheets, missing all the stuff that goes on on a day-to-day basis that anyone that follows the tracks more closely would know more about. I think that is a big testament to the value of Thoro-Graph, which I, at least for my use, never would question and I\'ll be glad to pay for also in the future.

However, I do know that I would play a lot more US Racing if the form where cheaper and specially if I had purchased it in greatly rebated (compared to the prices today) packages of say 100 or maybe even 200 dollars for all the form you wanted for that month, or say 1000 dollars for all the form you wanted for a whole year. I guess the way you guys do this is to focus on a meeting or two at the time and reduce the cost that way, however what I do when I\'m playing is scim through a lot of races on different tracks all over America and just handicap them as I sit and wait for the next one that seems bettable (this is of course not my approach when I bet over here in my own country, where there is usually just 2-3 meetings per week).

Maybe my approach is a rare one and if so there should be no doub\'t that TG is doing this right the way it is done now, however if my approach to this indeed is one that many more would share, couldn\'t it be possible that both TG\'s handle and indeed the overall betting handle on US Racing increase a lot if one tried to get this form products out to the masses in an even bigger way? I\'ve read some discussions in the archives about the general need to attract more sports bettors, poker players etc (like myself), and I think the way to do that would be to make great form products like these more available to the masses (hell maybe even JB could get people sponsing this project, like I presume Betfair did in it\'s time). Because, given all the information available from services like these, there is not many sports out there that provides a bettor with better opportunities than Horse Racing, as a betting experience it is totally unique, specially for people that care about maintaining an edge (poker players, serious sports bettors etc). I wouldn\'t underestimate the effect on betting handling of having people buy into this \"download all that you want\"-mentality either, you don\'t need to be a genius to see that people in buffets are fatter than people in the average restaurant !

Question for all on the board, given the pricing of TG (which is rather expensive compared to the more standard drf form), how much, or maybe rather, how little can you justify to bet on each day for it to still be comfortable to be buying this more expensive though in some critical ways superior form product? Are you all highrollers?

And for Jerry, have you ever been thinking about reducing your prices in a try for a much bigger part of the marketshare (purchase of racing form)? What have been your rationale for or against cheaper/more expensive pricing (other than trying to keep an edge for your own betting)? Do you earn close to what DRF is making selling their form? Or the alternative, would there ever be a chance for the TG-figure to out-compete the Beyer as the standard in DRF, and would that even be remotely interesting for you?

Just asking because of my interest in these business strategical questions.

Cheers for the input and it\'s sinking in slowly, anyways, in this scenario where there were three horses that could run big enough to beat the favorite but it was unlikely that two or three of them would you would rather play those three horses to win or box them in exactas? Because I would never bet three horses to win, then I would rather take a stab at one of them. And I also like to play cold exactas, specially when favorites are involved. I guess the best way to use this race would be what Ringato did, to just play it horizontally and use it to get a 3/5 favorite beat. But I also wouldn\'t shrug at Rick\'s approach which was to use the favorite in the 2nd spot as a saver in some exactas.

I do understand where you\'re coming from TGJB when you\'re saying that a bet either is an overlay or it is an underlay, all though I have to admit it is a difficult concept to come entirely to piece with given that we never know when it actually is an underlay or overlay. I think what I struggle with, and I guess I still have to improve upon this part of my thinking, is that in a type of bet where many people play many combinations you could still get value by playing really focused (i.e an cold exacta, or maybe even a weighted wheel where you take a stab with one combination and settle for less with one or two other combinations).

Another tough concept for me is to only use a horse I like horizontally, I guess I always want to capitalize on my opinions as much as possible but maybe in that way of thinking end up doing the opposite, in the long run, I guess that\'s just a flaw in my money management which I also would have to improve upon to get closer to conquering this great challenge of beating the races..

Okay, I see this thread went really wrong about here but I still think there might be some interesting points to discuss here if one stick to the topic,

P-Dub writes:

\"If a favorite is a poor wagering choice for the top spot, why on earth would you play him to complete an exacta??\"

Why couldn\'t this be a legit approach in a race like this where the favorite is almost sure to run his race that will put him right up there, while it\'s still more likely that at least one of the contestants would run the even bigger figure it would take to win the race? I see that one reccommended here to box the three horses that had bigger numbers in them and hoped that two of them would fire enough to beat the favorite who sure was overbet for the win, and that could well have been a good strategy. Still, if one do the math, is it really a superior bet to do just that than to for example play those three horses in the win spot with the \"overbet\" favorite alone in the 2nd-spot? And you could and probably also should weigh this bet so that it best represent your true opinion of who you like best on the odds to get up for the win.

I guess what I\'m saying is that it does seem a bit dogmatic to automatically assume that chosing the option with the favorite in 2nd is such a horrible bet compared to those where you toss it completely, specially in this case where that favorite is extremely likely to run his race while getting two of the more \"unstable\" ones to fire  seems to be asking a lot, given the way those sheets look. My guess is that probably, in the long term, those two bets wouldn\'t fare so differently and I guess it comes down to a lot of other factors as well, like how comfortable you are with going on long losing streaks etc.

I can\'t really see that either of those approaches, as a rule, would be \"a sure way to bankruptcy\", because I don\'t really think that this game really can be reduced to such rules anyway.

I kinda like to look at the sheets and the way to use them for coming up with selections as a dance (cheeky I know) as much as anything, where a lot of feeling, intuition etc comes into play and where the whole point is to try to get the pieces to fall into place perfectly, for every single race you\'re playing. If what you like about a race is that the favorite will be overbet for the win given that there are a few horses in the race that on their very best could be able to beat him fair and square, however you don\'t really see that two or three of them would be able to because they don\'t run that good often enough, then I can\'t really agree that it would be a sure way to go bankrupt to construct your tickets accordingly.

Two major european-based bookies just made AP even money ( http://www.oddschecker.com/horse-racing/ante-post-racing/international/preakness-stakes/winner ). What do one make of that?

\"Off the top of my head, my guess would be 50/50 for each.\"

And on that bombshell.. Good night!

Serious question, how do you estimate Firing Lines chances for a bounce in percentages? And maybe the same for AP. It would be a cool exercise for your sheet theory 101-exam, maybe it could even help you to spot some value in the \"unbettable race\"!

It is, and specially when the big favorite has a lot of IF\'s around him. Maybe I go crazy and try to get Dortmund up for the exacta as well! (and don\'t worry Toppled, I won\'t bet my house on this, anyway).