Turf choices just for turning on your RDSS program

[Bill Lyster]

I have been doing some research about handicapping in general and ran across this bit of information. It applies to turf racing which generally runs late at most distances. I look at any turf race and before I pass judgement on the best of last three line chosen by the computer I go to the Primary screen and see who the top 3 LPR horses are and record that in the margin of my notes.

Yesterday and a day or two back I found this information.

Fun fact of the day (1/7/22) at FG. Turf races were 2-4-6-8. Before any handicapping the top 3 LPR from the Primary screen were as follows:

R2 6-5-7, 6 wins at 3.5
R4 1-7-6, horses finish 7-1-6, winner at 4.7
R6 3-5-10, 3 wins at 2.8
R8 7-6-2, horses finish 6-7-2, winner at 1.6

AT SA 3 of the first 4 races, the top 3 LPR had winner 3 times before capping.

At TAM 2 playable races 1 top 3 LPR at 7/1

Yesterday at FG 4 turf races all 4 won by one of the top 3 LPR with one sweep, 1 win place, 1 win show and 1 win with 5/2 being the highest price

This could be just a short term anomaly, so anyone else who can track this should chime in. It could be a great starting point for better turf results.

Bill

[shoeless]

Thanks for sharing

Jeff

[The Pook]

Bill,

It would have to be a short term thing. Just for fun I tracked all turf races yesterday in North America for top 3 LPR before handicapping, betting $20 on each plus ties. It may have worked on the 7th but not the 8th. Still short term but it would be too easy for this to hold up over time.

Bill Lysters Turf Test
Jan 8 2022

FG 2 (3,10,2) OUT -$60
FG 4 (3,7,9) OUT -$60
FG 6 (1,7,2) OUT -$60
FG 8 (3,10,4) OUT -$60
GP 6 (9,2,4) WIN +$10
GP 8 (2,5,3) WIN +$174
GP 9 (9,7,13) OUT -$60
HOU 3 (1,3,4,5) WIN +$63
SA 1 (6,4,2) OUT -$60
SA 3 (6,1,8) WIN -$28
SA 5 (10,2,6,5) OUT -$80
SA 7 (8.5.9) OUT -$60
SA 9 (12,11,3) OUT -$60
TAM 1 (7,5,2) WIN +$54
TAM 5 (5,3,7) WIN +$6
TAM 7 (1,4,8) OUT -$60
TAM 10 (5,9,4) OUT -$60

Hit 6/17
Return -$401

Pook

[Bill Lyster]

Pook,

I have to agree. I went back and did several races and what you show held true. However, some patterns appear that might be worthwhile looking into. I did not cap any maiden races with more than 2 FTS.

I am looking at the VDC info. Ideally you'd want your contenders to be gaining from 1F-2C-FIN, with the exception being early horses, but earlies should be within say 2.0-3.0 at 1F, if not they are out. If a close up early loses .1 or.2 at 2C it needs to make that up by the FIN number, else out. A really sustained horse may not gain or even lose a little at 2C, but must have a big FIN and a low overall VDC to be considered.

You will occasionally find a 0-0-0 horse with a VDC at 4.0 +/-, that 4.0 is a real red sign, have not seen any win lately. In general you can eliminate any horse with a VDC 4.0 or greater, but look at the context of the other horses before doing so.

Thanks for your followup. Good to share info with you.

Bill

[ranchwest]

For me, a warning sign is when I predict nearly all of the horses to be at or near a similar pace. This is especially true if I show a lot of, say, SP horses and no E or L. I am still working through what to do in these situations.

[Lt1]

Weather can also be a factor. Based on past observations at Bel if they get no rain in the later part of June into July the turf courses become like cement
and the late horses are at a distinct disadvantage. Didn't track it this yr.
Tim

[ranchwest]

Weather can also be a factor. Based on past observations at Bel if they get no rain in the later part of June into July the turf courses become like cement
and the late horses are at a distinct disadvantage. Didn't track it this yr.
Tim

Good observation, Tim. I think this is true at Lone Star, too. In Texas, we get a lot of wild weather in the spring and in June it starts getting hot and dry. The turf course often becomes more early. One year, we had no rain from Memorial Day to Labor Day and 81 days over 100 degrees.

[DanBoals]

I have been doing some research about handicapping in general and ran across this bit of information. It applies to turf racing which generally runs late at most distances. I look at any turf race and before I pass judgement on the best of last three line chosen by the computer I go to the Primary screen and see who the top 3 LPR horses are and record that in the margin of my notes.

Hi Bill. I first met Howard Sartin 22 years ago or so, back when Synthesis was the main program or becoming the main program of the methodology. I was trying to make a living on betting on thoroughbreds and was getting frustrated with so many things. Turf races were a main gripe of mine, so being young and knowing everything, I stated to Howard that turf races are impossible. I remember him looking at me quizzically and calmly saying, "what do you mean? turf races are mostly just LPR and Hidden Energy". After going back over races that I had lost, I was completely floored by this casual revelation. I worry how much knowledge is being lost as people who were involved in the methodology in the 80's, like my dad, pass away.

[Bill Lyster]

Thanks Dan, its always good to get some "old" new info.

I will check it out.

[Bill Lyster]

Hey Dan,

Just wondering if you got anything more specific from Howard, especially about the inclusion of HIDDEN factor and its interrelationship, if any, to the LPR.

The Primary screen shows the values of the various factors, so there is a basis to make comparisons of what we might call real numbers as opposed to just the rankings 1-2-3-4. The primary screen allows a little more perspective on how close is close or how good is good, when a horse is ranked above another.

Thanks,

[DanBoals]

Hey Bill,

All my notes and copies of the old software code are on my physical hard drives and the motherboard on my PC went kaput on Monday. My motherboard and CPU are from 2012, so I can't just swap out the old motherboard. I ordered replacement parts which should be in on Saturday from Amazon, and then I can rebuild my system and should be able to check my documentation and source code and have some answers for you by Monday. Yes, I really should have a backup system.

I went thru the manuals that are online here and did not see what I was looking for... At one point or another, Howard documented just about everything in the methodology, so it is more a question of finding it than whether it exists. It has been 20+ years and my memory is not what it used to be. Sometimes when I hear something or see something, it jogs loose an old conversation, but normally I have to check my notes.

Sorry for the delay,

Dan

[ranchwest]

Hey Bill,

All my notes and copies of the old software code are on my physical hard drives and the motherboard on my PC went kaput on Monday. My motherboard and CPU are from 2012, so I can't just swap out the old motherboard. I ordered replacement parts which should be in on Saturday from Amazon, and then I can rebuild my system and should be able to check my documentation and source code and have some answers for you by Monday. Yes, I really should have a backup system.

I went thru the manuals that are online here and did not see what I was looking for... At one point or another, Howard documented just about everything in the methodology, so it is more a question of finding it than whether it exists. It has been 20+ years and my memory is not what it used to be. Sometimes when I hear something or see something, it jogs loose an old conversation, but normally I have to check my notes.

Sorry for the delay,

Dan

I am guilty of not having enough backups. If you want to do better than me, keep at least one backup on site and at least one off site. Sometimes backup media fails... I know.

[tom]

Storage space in the cloud is cheap, and well worth it.

[Bill Lyster]

Hey Bill,

All my notes and copies of the old software code are on my physical hard drives and the motherboard on my PC went kaput on Monday. My motherboard and CPU are from 2012, so I can't just swap out the old motherboard. I ordered replacement parts which should be in on Saturday from Amazon, and then I can rebuild my system and should be able to check my documentation and source code and have some answers for you by Monday. Yes, I really should have a backup system.

I went thru the manuals that are online here and did not see what I was looking for... At one point or another, Howard documented just about everything in the methodology, so it is more a question of finding it than whether it exists. It has been 20+ years and my memory is not what it used to be. Sometimes when I hear something or see something, it jogs loose an old conversation, but normally I have to check my notes.

Sorry for the delay,

Dan

Sorry to hear about that Dan. I was not aware that you had so much info that you could access. Any info that relates to the LPR and Hidden data would be great. I did go back to the first of the year and after mine line choices, listed the top LPR and top Hidden horses. There appears to be a correlation especially when the same horses are top three in both factors. I am looking to see what happens when a top 3 LPR is not top 3 Hidden and vice versa. I will report about it when I get a coherent set of data.

Thanks for your interest.

Bill

[DanBoals]

Not to dump my life history on you, but to give a little context as to why I have some info that was not made public... I bought Synthesis in 1999 while living in LA and working as a software developer. I was having a hell of time trying to be profitable with the Trackmaster version, I loved not having to enter data, but was miserable at using the software successfully. Somewhere around 2000, I called to get some help and spoke with Howard and he said if I have a day off, to drive out to Banning and he would see what I was doing and offer advise.

When I went to his office, we got to talking and when he found out I wrote software, he asked me to look at Synthesis and figure out what it would take to make a Windows version. I spent a couple weeks going over the Synthesis software, which is why I have the source code for it, and I made some minor recommendations to it, which Guy implemented, things like using the same constant in the equations on all the different pages, so that something like SPN would show the same value on every page of the software and therefore be a little bit harder to reverse engineer. Once I had a decent idea of what Synthesis did and how it did it, I spent the next couple weeks talking to Howard about what he wanted in a Windows version of the software, and I still have a lot of my notes from those talks. This is how I got straight from Howard the theory of what a lot of variables meant.

[DanBoals]

Just a follow up note. I was a pretty amateur handicapper and I was dealing with one of if not the best of all time people at understanding how to analyze and bet a horse race.

To say that Howard's words to me were like throwing pearls before swine, is very accurate. I wish I could go back and listen to him again with the experience I have now.