Richard, sorry I got caught up in another thing. I'll get back at this later on tonight.

BTW, here is the 'paperclip' icon in the message editor, for uploading attachments.

Attachment 23710

You get this message editor when you click on reply in a thread.

Ted

Here is what we are seeing :

Attachment 23716
Attachment 23717

Per the BL/BL screen, the #2 and #6 are VDC ranked 1: the #2 gets its rank 1 from its BL/BL rank 1 and the #6 from being the rank 1 on the underlying VDC factor. In fact, the #2 has the worst VDC number ( = 2.1% worse than the best VDC number of the #6). So the #6, despite having the worst Total Energy (rank 5) has the best VDC and deserves to be treated equally as a contender (off the chosen paceline) as the #2 with the best Total Energy. We happen to call this #6 horse a 'Binder Improver' because its better VDC value improves its rank on the BL/BL screen sort.

Richard, I hear you reporting that you find that horses having tied VDC ranks but with the better VDC number should be considered superior to the other one(s) in the tie. I accept the evidence of your recent short-term study, but I'd caution against accepting this as a long-term truth. I'd actually recommend (in general) treating them as equals and breaking ties based on bet-time odds (or Morning Line, if you must).

The #3 has a better (i.e. lower) VDC% than the 2 (1.9% versus 2.1%) but has a lower VDC rank - because, as stated above, the #2's VDC rank 1 is because of it's BL/BL rank.

If it turns out that significant strength (and usefulness) is being found in the actual VDC number (represented by the VDC% differential from best), distinct from the traditional merged BL/VDC ranking, I might have to think about relabeling that original VDC rank # to something like BL/VDC (perhaps similar to how we have a rank for TS/F3), so we can treat the actual VDC number as an independent entity.

I have to say, that this new RDSS2 VDC% column (on Segments and Primary screens) has turned out to be rather confusing for a number of folks, solely because it has never been broken out before from the merged BL/VDC rank.

Ted

for what it's worth, after our gettogether on Alabama weekend I started to rely more heavily on the %vdc on the segments screen. From that weekend to the end of the meet, I showed a net profit on my selections.

Ted:
Here is a visual of the third frame VDC from RDSS1 & the third frame from RDSS2. (I presume) The horse icons positions in the frame indicate the differences in percent of the #1 ranked VDC contenders as well as the relative positions of the other contenders. The #6 Solar is the #1 VDC horse and the #1 Thoromation horse.
When selecting pacelines I use the Primary screen....use VDC ratings to evaluate how the horse ran his POR(TE).

Ken

Ken, did you omit an attachment?

Ted

Ted:
Did not forget. Don't know how!!!!
I use Screen Hunter to copy and paste.
Did not work.
May be a lesson in how to do this would be helpful.
Could be I'll get the hang of it.
Ken

Ted, Thanks for looking over and explaining the differences. I agree with you that it may be a little early to say that these %s might be used as a tie separator since I do not have that much evidence to prove otherwise. That is why I have started to track both.
Did you get a chance to look at race 7 from Del. that I sent along also?
Again thanks for all your hard work. It is greatly appreciated.

Del. race 7 ran 7 5.80, 6,4,8 exacta 1.00 15.00, tri 1.00 76.10
The 6was 0.0 and top pick, 4 & 8 were tied for 2nd and the 7 was 3rd with a lower % than the 8. I eliminated the 5 horse because it was ranked 5 on vdc.
I did not bet either of these races because the odds were not acceptable on my main contenders in either race.

Ted,
As you know, I am not an RDSS user, so I cannot speak to the ranking of VDC, per se. However, I rank a myriad of factors and have found over hundreds of thousands of races that the numeric difference between a horse ranked #1 and a horse ranked #2 is not the important factor. The fact that one horses' number is higher than another horses' number is all that is needed, regardless of the spread in that number from one horse to another. I just wanted to add my experience with rankings of numbers vs. the difference in value of those numbers for whatever value it may be to you. Whether or not this will hold true with VDC is yet to be decided. Best of luck with however it works out for you.

FTL,

So, when second call velocity = 56.61 fps for horse A and 56.59 for horse B, horse A has rank 1 and horse B rank 2 - a gap of .03 - are you suggesting that horse B ranked 2 is none-the-less equally inferior to horse A in that factor as in a different scenario when the second call velocity gap between the top 2 horses is much larger (say, 56.61 to 56.0) ?

In the first case, the velocity difference is likely completely attributable to chart caller error (was that horse behind 2.5 lengths or 2.25 lengths). Or, is there a certain minimal gap above which you start to consider the ordinal ranks to be absolutely definitive, regardless of the numeric value gap between ranks?

In general, I hear you suggesting that gaps between ranks are (relatively) unimportant. That would be a different way of approaching final contender analysis than I employ.

Ted