How did Leverage Pace work at the Breeders Cup?

[kahunab]

55061

[Jake]

55061

Dick,

How did you do for the day playing your key horse with Leverage Pace?
It seems the trick still remains getting the right horse as the proper key here.
Did the Leverage Pace method of pace pressure, NP, and Low/High Pressure
SR Range get you there with your own picks? Thanks.

Jake

[kahunab]

Dick,

How did you do for the day playing your key horse with Leverage Pace?
It seems the trick still remains getting the right horse as the proper key here.
Did the Leverage Pace method of pace pressure, NP, and Low/High Pressure
SR Range get you there with your own picks? Thanks.

Jake

I won two Exacta, Trifectas and should have won a third had I got my bet in on time. But the major point is this approach gives a solid point to start from. That is all we as handicappers can hope for. As Jim Bradshaw always said, "It is just a dang horse race."

[Lt1]

Well done Dick.
Tim

[Jake]

I won two Exacta, Trifectas and should have won a third had I got my bet in on time. But the major point is this approach gives a solid point to start from. That is all we as handicappers can hope for. As Jim Bradshaw always said, "It is just a dang horse race."

I don't believe that it does give you a solid point to start with, Dick. I think that the Pace Leverage Method actually obscures what is working here. You documented the percentiles for Top 5/Top 3 RDSS factors and the Composite Ratings factors with two summary graphs in the your overview PDF, generously shared by the way both by you and Bill Lyster. Immense amount of work there.

It's in those numbers that tell where the strength of the method lies, Dick. The real focus should be in the Blue Arrow contenders and the composite ratings that can be married to a flexible exacta key or trifecta key horse approach. Conceptually, while it may seem a logical approach, I see no evidence that following a pace pressure route thru NP and the pressurized Speed Range brings additional handicapping value here.

Sometimes, statistically, less is better. A skinny Leverage Pace might just work best for some here.

Thanks, Dick. Appreciate all your work, even some I disagree with. Keep the teaching going.

Jake

[dadams6357]

Dick
Thanks for sharing
Don

[kahunab]

I don't believe that it does give you a solid point to start with, Dick. I think that the Pace Leverage Method actually obscures what is working here. You documented the percentiles for Top 5/Top 3 RDSS factors and the Composite Ratings factors with two summary graphs in the your overview PDF, generously shared by the way both by you and Bill Lyster. Immense amount of work there.

It's in those numbers that tell where the strength of the method lies, Dick. The real focus should be in the Blue Arrow contenders and the composite ratings that can be married to a flexible exacta key or trifecta key horse approach. Conceptually, while it may seem a logical approach, I see no evidence that following a pace pressure route thru NP and the pressurized Speed Range brings additional handicapping value here.

Sometimes, statistically, less is better. A skinny Leverage Pace might just work best for some here.

Thanks, Dick. Appreciate all your work, even some I disagree with. Keep the teaching going.

Jake

Jake, I love the conversation going back and forth because I learn from that too. When I say, "a good place to start", I am basically referring to the arrow horses. Even at the Breeders Cup with full fields and a lot of great horses, look how often the arrow horses, for lack of a better term, provided the win or place horse. When you can use RX3 to get to 5 contenders. Then examine the arrow horses knowing you have a great expectation of having the win or place in 2 or 3 horses. At the Breeders Cup there were 14 playable races and 13 of the races had the Win or Place in the 2 or 3 Arrow horses. How you choose which one to bet or leverage can be different. I like to figure out the match up and the amount of pressure and which horse those factors favor. The starting point for me is getting down to 2 or 3 horses quickly.

Thanks to you, Tim and Don for your continued interest.

Dick

[Jake]

Jake, I love the conversation going back and forth because I learn from that too. When I say, "a good place to start", I am basically referring to the arrow horses. Even at the Breeders Cup with full fields and a lot of great horses, look how often the arrow horses, for lack of a better term, provided the win or place horse. When you can use RX3 to get to 5 contenders. Then examine the arrow horses knowing you have a great expectation of having the win or place in 2 or 3 horses. At the Breeders Cup there were 14 playable races and 13 of the races had the Win or Place in the 2 or 3 Arrow horses. How you choose which one to bet or leverage can be different. I like to figure out the match up and the amount of pressure and which horse those factors favor. The starting point for me is getting down to 2 or 3 horses quickly.

Thanks to you, Tim and Don for your continued interest.

Dick

Dick, allow me to clear the air a bit here. You're a remarkably gracious man, with a strong learning and teaching motivation, which is apparent. I went back and have read all your posts back to 2012, watched all the Zoom videos, and read or seen yours and Bill's presentations. So, I know how long you have personally been trying to solve this puzzle, and the huge amount of cognitive work you have poured into this long endeavor.

As you know, I contacted you privately after failing to get answers from you twice while you were traveling for a number of weeks. I sent you a private message with three written questions about your reasoning behind your pace trilogy: Quirin Points for pace pressure determination, the New Pace numbers, the low/high pressure concept with SR ranges. Instead, of a simple written responses to those questions, with a few succinct answers, you offered my Zoom time with you. That told me what I needed to know, Dick, which is why I deferred and told you I would go back to my own data projects with AI on this.

Here's why I asked you on this thread about your Breeder's Cup experience. Not about the Blue Arrow horses, but because of the questions above involving the rest of the process for finding the key horse, all relative to this pace trilogy.

Here's what I know from my own analytics in handicapping data over 35 years, with heavy large-size databases from Bris, and HSH data, among other sources.

First you can use Quirin Points for a lot of things which are helpful to understanding pace and matchup, but what you can't do with it is determine total race pressure for all 3 fractions. In fact, it uses the wrong fraction to even attempt this. It's good for determining first fraction individual pressure match ups, but that's about it, with a few exceptions. Mitch44, Dan Boals, and others have this absolutely nailed this, kudos here, and deserve some revisiting of their old threads.

Secondly,and this is connected at the hip with the above comments, is the New Pace numbers. They are badly flawed for a similar type of reason; and Dave Schwartz has finally figured this out in his new AI program: here's a quote from his deTERMINATOR page--"just decide how the race will be run."
"Pick the call that matters
E - 1st call
EP - 2nd call
LP - After 1st Call
SR - Stretch Run"

With New Pace and Quirin Points, you are often sampling in the wrong fraction! Get it wrong and your pace match-up and pace pressure falls apart.
Going to the SR ranges at this point won't save you.

Finally--sorry this is so long-winded--this ultimately still begins and ends with the correct paceline selection. Without the right one chosen, all this is moot. I have strong opinion on this, but won't bother to share them.

Dick, I learned a ton from your work, so this thanks is sincere. I like to think that I understand most of your method quite well; if I'm mistaken, this too will be reflected in a para-mutuel feedback loop that is never shy at punitively reminding us of our overconfidence.


Jake

[dadams6357]

To All:

Handicapping is a lot like psychotherapy.
If it does not resonate with you then discard it.
If you find it has value then use it.
When one programs a computer there is no set way to program it.
I myself have written small programs where the computer could run it
and get the correct results, but the instructor was saying no way.
There is more than one way to skin a cat..
In regards to AI half the population thinks it is going to overthrow mankind(which might not be a bad thing..just keep the ponies and the handicappers)
and the rest think it is the best thing to come along since the wheel.
Here again is a fine example of if you can use it...we get the point.
Twinspires offers AI in analysis of races...I know for sure it does CT...other ones I am not sure. One can go to the site and take a look see.
My personal opinion of AI it might beat chess ,but I will put TIM against any AI system in regards to handicapping.
I myself am trying to develop Z-scores to apply to all of the relevant data.
Yep AI is going to help me do it. Do I have any delusions that it will surpass TIMs handicapping, NO.
These are just my rambling thoughts (at 74 , Ah I think it sounds right)
I do enjoy the discourse so keep it coming folks.
Don

[kahunab]

“As you know, I contacted you privately after failing to get answers from you twice while you were traveling for a number of weeks. I sent you a private message with three written questions about your reasoning behind your pace trilogy: Quirin Points for pace pressure determination, the New Pace numbers, the low/high pressure concept with SR ranges. Instead, of a simple written responses to those questions, with a few succinct answers, you offered my Zoom time with you. That told me what I needed to know, Dick, which is why I deferred and told you I would go back to my own data projects with AI on this.

Here's why I asked you on this thread about your Breeder's Cup experience. Not about the Blue Arrow horses, but because of the questions above involving the rest of the process for finding the key horse, all relative to this pace trilogy.”

Jake,
I am not sure what my offering zoom time communicated to you but my thought was I could better answer your questions by looking at races together and have a shot at clarifying questions. I want you to know that I was not blowing you off or not wanting to answer your questions. If I have miscommunicated, I apologize. I am not sure how I told you what you needed to know through my offer to talk.

Throughout all this, I have tried to share what works for me. If that does not resonate with you, I get it. Use what you can and let the rest go.

Speaking to what you call a pace trilogy, using Quirin Speed Points helps me get an idea of how many horses are going to break to the front. How much out of the gate pressure and how long will it last? Will it blow up the front runners? Is one of the Early horses going to break by himself and develop a lone early scenario? How many late runners does New Pace show? How many Early runners? How many horses expend their energy Early? How many expend their energy late? Are all the fast horses late runners? Early runners? One does need to do some handicapping to determine how one will bet. I don’t use Quirin Speed points or New Pace or Early Late energy or energy balance as absolutes. They are information sources that help me call the race Early, Neutral, or Late. I still have to call the race and sometimes that is a much art as science.

Sometimes playing a strong contra-energy arrow horse as the key works well too. I have gotten some big exactas and trifectas that way.

If none of that resonates with you then don’t do it. Unless I can figure out the shape of the race correctly, I don’t do well.

I get nothing out of this process other than the fun of discussing handicapping and sharing ideas. I am not doing this to sell you my method. I am an old handicapper who has been involved in the Methodology since the 80s. I am just trying to share and help build what we started back then. My whole goal was to share ideas and to share somethings that work for me. Mostly, I wanted to present the idea of leverage. There is so much information out there that Win prices have dropped dramatically. So I think in terms of leverage. How do we as handicappers take advantage of the environment we find ourselves in. We can still sometimes find the longer priced winner but not as often and not very often in a two horse or one horse wagers.

I tried to answer your questions about the pace trilogy. Not sure how clear and concise I was. I hope this helps Jake.

Have a great day and thanks for the interest and the dialogue.

Dick

[Jake]

Dick,
No personal injury was intended in my comments. Only a proper context of sorts. If it seemed misguided, my apologies here.

You started this thread with a chart showing how well the Blue Arrow horses did in the horses in the Breeder’s Cup. I tried to choose my question(s) carefully to you about how and why you chose to process those Blue Arrow’s selections within a pace matchup “trilogy” you have in the Leverage Pace Method. Exactly what you were actually trying to determine with your subsequent steps? That’s the puzzle part of this for me.

One way to frame Leverage Pace Method is as a 3- body physics problem, in handicapping terms. You have a set of 3 Blue Arrow horses which contain at least one horse that should run 1st or 2nd. If you assume that the Blue Arrow designation gives you the first leg-up—and your percentages and composite rating combinations strongly suggest that’s true—what’s next? (I agree about the power of your Blue Arrow horses, that alone is cutting edge handicapping advantage.)

So, let’s what might be the next steps here?

Handicapping for me reduces down to position and energy. The mechanics are the Sartin factors. RDSS is a great set of tools that allow you to sample both position and energy accurately, as long as your pace-line selection is appropriate. This isn’t rocket science, even if it sounds like it at times, but does lend itself to some rigorous logical inference. What you sample (factors) and when you sample (fractions) strongly matter. In fact, that provides the framework to envision likely matchups.

So, my questions which I have attempted to get answered by you, originate from those above premises.

Nothing is meant to be insulting here. I wasn’t offended by your Zoom offer. It just told me that you probably weren’t in a place to have this kind of discussion. The first part of Leverage Pace is brilliant, for handicapping ease, while the latter half of Leverage Pace seems badly ill-purposed to me; my reasons for saying this were stated in my last posts.


As you must know as a longtime educator, direct transmission of knowledge and understanding can often resemble at times a row boat with only one oar, always hard not to go in circles. So, yes, I do take a Zen approach to looking at handicapping. Best wishes to you, Dick. I appreciate all your efforts that have been shared.

Jake

[shoeless]

Jake and Dick

Good discussion about Leverage Pace

Thanks
Jeff