Ted Craven - September
 

Sept 20

BEL R3
$25 WP 1-3

Attachment 30350

Attachment 30351

BEL Race 6
... $60 Win 11
... $40 Win 8

BEL Race 7
... $25 Win-Place 12
... $50 Win 2

BEL Race 8
... $50 Win 5
... $50 Win 1

BEL Race 9
... $50 Win 9
... $50 Win 3

--nice pickin in the pa contest Ted

Big Win Ted
 

Ted's Big Belmont adventure

Race 6 $40 win on a $35.00 gem

Attachment 30331

Thanks Mike. There were a few nice prices at Woodbine last night! I meant to use those same 5 races here in this contest, but I couldn't get it together.

Bill, looks like today is working out well so far :) Still crossing things off my list after a few weeks away ...

I'll get my screens up in a while.

Ted

...

...

Over to Presquile Downs tonight :)

PID Race 3
... $50 Win 10, 12

Attachment 30373

PID Race 5
... $50 Win 2, 11

Attachment 30374

PID Race 7
... $50 Win 2-4

Attachment 30375

PID Race 8
... $25 Win-Place 2
... $50 Win 4

Attachment 30376

...

...

September 22 - Belmont Park

BEL Race 3
... $50 Win 1,2

BEL Race 4
... $50 Win 7,3

BEL Race 5
... $50 Win 8,10

BEL Race 8
... $50 Win 5,6

BEL Race 9
... $65 Win 10
... $35 Win 7

Way to go Ted!

...

...

Thanks Bud. I don't understand the mutuels at Belmont this week!

Ted

...

Ted great job,in race 4 at bel 9-22 you put the 6 into the secondary contender list even though he was #1 BL BL,could you explain your reasoning why,I am new and trying learn something.

Thanks
Cody

Cody,

My (almost unwavering) process, after determining which races I want to or need to work, is: use the paceline Selection Strategy tool (Best of Last 3 Perceptor, Comparable distance/surface) to get initial line selections and a BL/BL ranking. This initial process produced the following initial BL/BL set:

Attachment 30499

Now I pare this down to 5 (preferrably) horses who are true Contenders. With the new Grouping facility in RDSS2, I try to leave horses in the Primary (upper) group which I think can actually Win the race. I try to group horses who might finish in the money into the Secondary group, and (sometimes, though I get lazy) mark those I judge have NO CHANCE as Non-Contenders.

In this race, I eliminated the bottom 3 horses from Primary, grouping them as Secondary. This leaves me my normal 5 Primary Contenders:

Attachment 30502

Before eliminating ANYBODY as a Win Contender, I reviewed every horse to see if I agreed with the software's assessment of a line representing what the horse may do today. I chose to switch lines for the #3 horse from 2nd to 1st line even though it was a worse Perceptor #, because - a) doing so did not change it's BL/BL ranking (4th), it was a more recent effort, c) the E/L distribution appeared more in line with the majority of its Turf route efforts (i.e. rather later than the 2nd line).

Then I re-reviewed the remaining 5 Primary Contenders to be sure I still though each one could actually win, and compared to the remaining Primaries. The critical horse was, as your question pertains to - the #6 horse rated on Top. So, he had better be True Contender.

Attachment 30501

Compared to the other 4 Primaries, I judged that this horse was least likely to Win, given so many of its recent not-quite-there performances. My eye drifts to the lack of colour - please see the PPs for the rest of the horses in the following post and compare the others to see how much more colour there is in all of their Stretch and Final Call positions.

I believe it is important to not engage in too many subjective judgements about a horse's energy disbursement ability based on how he ran in visually apparently mediocre performances, thus I try to look closely at every horse with an apparently top Total Energy (and commensurately other top) ratings. Besides no recent colour for the #6 (not closing sufficiently to get the Win job done), I note that his apparent Top Total Energy is largely attributable to the Pace of the Race, i.e. the horse(s) who set the pace in its 2nd and 4th lines, which the #6 ran against but did not produce himself. You could say that the Top Total Energy figure for the #6 belonged not to him, but to the race pace-setter(s) - and they're not running today!

To cross-check for circumstances like this (i.e. potentially deceptively high Total Energy for a horse who, compared to the other Contenders, appears to be less able to actually Win or finish closely), I check the Pace of Race Total Energy (the column next to the Pace of Horse Total Energy on the Original screen, and on the Pace of Race Velocity screen). Here, the PoR was approximately equal to the PoH velocities for both the 2nd and 4th lines of the #6, which indicated to me that the horse's apparent strong energy (relative to the other Contenders) actually belonged to the Pace of Race, and not to him. Thus, I felt good about 'calling a spade a spade' regarding his apparent lack of visual closing ability. Thus he became a Secondary Contender - a potential in-the-money horse, but not a Win Contender.

And thus, the winning #7 became my top horse. Note that even if I had not eliminated the #6, at the final odds the #7 (still in 3rd tier BL/BL) would have been one of my 2 win bets. For the Contest, I had to pick Win bets based on Morning Line.

I hope that answers your question about my thought process regarding classifying the #6 as a not-for-Win contender. Although the foregoing may have been a lengthy response, my recollection is that the actual analysis took about 3 minutes or so, so it gets easier the more scenarios your work, I find.

I am adding the rest of the Primary Contenders' PPs in the next post.

Ted

PPs for remaining Primary Contenders.

Attachment 30504

Attachment 30505

As noted in the previous post, all pacelines were selected by the software except for the #3. I chose to switch lines for the #3 horse from 2nd to 1st line even though it was a worse Perceptor #, because - a) doing so did not change it's BL/BL ranking (4th), it was a more recent effort, c) the E/L distribution appeared more in line with the majority of its Turf route efforts (i.e. rather later than the 2nd line). It would not have made any difference to either the analysis or the outcome in this race had I made no change. But it is important to perform such a review, IMO - and to apply your own judgements consistently (because the software is absolutely consistent, even when it's wrong).

Attachment 30506
Attachment 30508

Attachment 30507

Thanks Ted you just you just helped me greatley,and thanks for taking the time to explain it step by step.

Thanks
Cody

Cody,

A pleasure.

An addendum, on reflection and FWIW, you may ask why - if my top 3 BL horses were 7-2-3 and the the 7 and 3 Morning Line in the neighbourhood of 3-1 while the #2 was ML 5-1 - did I not bet the #7 and #2 instead of the #7 and #3 which I actually bet.

Consult the PPs above, to see that the #2 is a recent Maiden graduate after many tries and the only line which makes it look ANY good is its Maiden Win (line 2, which I used), its best-ever rating. Normally I would like to rate recent Maidens from what they have done against other Winners and perhaps I should have here, given the result. Its last race against Claiming winners was a credible effort though against a slow pace, not an effort which would rate it well against the other potential Contenders.

When I came to decide which 2 of the Top 3 BL ranked horses would I bet, this recent Maiden status weighed in my decision making and I judged that between the 2 and 3, the numbers for the 3 were more founded in races against today's caliber of competition, and thus more reliable. I recall I left the #2 in the Primary Contender section, despite the afore-mentioned weaknesses, because it possessed the MOST LATE E/L rating of the Contenders and may be the one to collect against any tiring early pace. Perhaps an inconsistency on my part, in this instance.

FWIW.

Ted

Wednesday Sept 26

BEL Race 1
...$50 Win 7, 2

Win.

Attachment 30530

Attachment 30531

BEL Race 5
$50 Win 1-3

Loss.

Attachment 30539

Attachment 30540

BEL 7
$50 Win 3
$25 WP 6

BEL 8
$50 Win 2, 8

Loss.

Attachment 30544

Attachment 30543

Win.

Attachment 30546

Attachment 30547

BEL Race 9

$25 WP 3
$50 Win 12

Loss.

Attachment 30548

Attachment 30549

Sept 27

BEL Race 5
... $50 Win 8
... $20 Win 4
... $30 Place 4

Attachment 30564

Loss.

Attachment 30567

Nice Cycle Ted
 

Ted

congrats on a very good 20 race cycle

Attachment 30570

Thanks Bill! I think I'll leave it at that for this month, and start again in October. Not a great hit rate, but some nice prices, including several not quite profitable plays. Stayed even though, each day and moved forward as well. (Some nice exactas in real life to accompany these Win pool mutuels :))

Ted