Using track variant to your advantage
 

I am posting this race because I believe that it stresses the importance of paying close attention to the track variant (DTV) and knowing when you should move off a certain line in favor of a different one. Bill V. tuned me into this over time with his numerous examples and I encourage others to do the same.

Our "laboratory" is the dirt surface of Gulfstream Park - Sunday, March 19, 2017.

Attachment 42913

I established 6-3-4 are our top CR horses. Next step is finding a fulcrum, which I used #3's last line of 23.4/47.7.

Let's now mark the tandems. Here were the most recent. This will come in handy later, trust me! :)

Attachment 42915

Now let's handicap... I will start with the top CR, #6:

Attachment 42914

I chose "No Line" off Line 1, which is the 2nd tandem race, as it was beat pretty badly. Line 2 was technically a + race, but at a non-comparable distance and defeated by 16 lengths. Line 3 is back to a sprint, but a "0" line. Non-contender. I will move on to #3...

Attachment 42916

Line 1 is our fulcrum pace. It is a "Big Win" + line at today's distance and this horse is also the winner of the 2nd tandem. Open and shut paceline selection, right?

Wrong.

Part 2
 

Let's review Line 1 more carefully:

Attachment 42917

The big thing sticking out is the DTV: +30 or 30 points slow. Whenever the DTV is extreme (I don't know what Bill V's or anyone else's guidelines as far as an "acceptable" DTV cutoff if there is one, or if it is merely intuitive), my experience has been to view the line with skepticism. Remember, RDSS (and all aspects of the Methodology for that matter) are "user-driven" - the old adage "garbage in, garbage out!" comes to mind. If you "buy" a line (take a line at face value), that is the line you are measuring the horse against everyone else in the field. An out-of-whack adjustment on a single line can have a negative impact on the handicapping of a race. In other words, you risk either overrating/underrating a horse (giving it a line that might be out of whack with itself), or a group of horses (in this circumstance, a tandem in which the condition/speed of the track may have had an altering effect of how the race was run).

In this circumstance, I decided to move off the win line and chose Line 2. It was an Early Press effort and a technically + line, although the horse was 3rd beaten 7.5 lengths. However, the DTV of -2 is within reasonable parameters.

Part 3
 

Now the rest of the field:

Attachment 42918

I chose Line 1, which happens to be the 1st tandem listed. The horse was a bigly tandem loser, but it was a plus/zero race. However, Line 2, while a + line, is our +30 race. We are not going to rate this line. If you go further back for a + line, you have to look at September 8th on a sloppy track. At this point, you can either rate Line 1 - warts and all - or designate it as a non-contender. I don't like eliminating horses too early in the process, so I kept the line, with the reasoning being that if its TE stands a good chance of not passing the Energy screen test.

Attachment 42919

This was a standard last line use. + line, somewhat fair DTV, 1st tandem best finisher and a strong race against a faster than the fulcrum pace of race.

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Once again, this is where the fluke DTV alters our paceline. Line 1 is a +, but due to the +30 DTV in that 2nd tandem, we are not considering that line. Since the + line opens the window, we will look at its 2nd line down. It is a win line against a faster pace than the fulcrum. Perhaps this one was impacted by the track last time out. We selected Line 2.

Attachment 42921

Just like #4, this one was potentially impacted in its tandem by the +30 DTV. Line 2 on a "normal" track was a win line against a faster pace than the fulcrum. We use Line 2 on this horse.

Attachment 42922

Line 1 was my choice. While technically not a + line, the horse was within 2 lengths in the front half of the field. Line 3 seems to validate, but I didn't see a real need to go beyond the last line.

Energy screen/TPR/Segments
 

Attachment 42923

I selected lines for 6 out of 7 runners. I like narrowing my horses down to the top 5 on Total Energy. At 165.8 and not coming up roses on most of the corollaries on the Energy output, #1 was the first to go.

Moving on to PMTR/TPR:

Attachment 42924

This was in my opinion, the "case cracker" in this race. #3 is our top EPR runner, but on LPR, drops to last, 3.5 points behind the next ranked LPR horse. On TPR, it is 1.5 points worse than the next ranked horse and 4 POINTS worse than the top TPR horse.

As a final validation, I examined the Segments screen:

Attachment 42925

While #3 races fairly close in F1 and is the top F2 runner, the TS+F3 show a horse falling completely apart.

#3, at 7/5 ML was my final hide in this race.

BL/BL and Rx Tiers
 

Here were the tiers on both BL/BL and for those beta testing, Rx:

Attachment 42926
Attachment 42927

Based on live odds, this set up a tremendous 2-horse or multi-runner Win dutching opportunity:

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$25 on a top ranked BL/BL runner/2nd tier Rx was overlay city. All because we took the contrarian approach of not accepting an outlying DTV.

Epilogue
 

For what it is worth, here are the TPR, BL/BL and Rx screens if we had accepted the +30 DTV line for the + line races. It is very, very telling:

Attachment 42929

Attachment 42930

Attachment 42931

The race winner (#4) gets bounced on the Energy test right out of the gate, while #1, who was an initial hide on Energy earlier in our example, gets bounced on TPR, setting the tiers up to favor #3 and #2. Ultimately, our selection of a line likely influenced by a freakish track would have burned us huge, as #3 failed to hit the board and #2 (2nd tier on both BL and Rx) could only collect the Show.

I would rather lose money using my intuition as to when a DTV doesn't seem to smell right instead of lose money using a line influenced by a DTV that doesn't smell right because I know my process is sound enough where I will compensate for the losses over time.

I hope you enjoyed this "lesson". Feel free to chime in! :D

Jeebs, nice workup, with an excellent result, but I have a question concerning the DTV.

This may be a question for Bill?

In the configuration-setting tab, the recommended setting is for 50% of the DTV (so the 30L would be 15L) and then you have the option of min and max length (in my case I have it set at 15). Therefore, if you have the recommend setting with the max lengths the actual adjustment would be 15 (which may be too much for your liking). Now if you have the setting at 100% DTV you would have the full 30 lengths.

With all that being said and if I am correct (if being the key word), you should be able to adjust the configuration tab to the min and max lengths you are comfortable with, example.

Say you are comfortable with a min and a max of 10L, you should be able to set up the configuration tab to 50% of DTV and adjust the +/- to 10L and this way the calculations would be correct.

Regards, Mike

HI Mike
 

I don't touch or change any settings.
I just use RDSS just as Doc had Validator set
I am in favor of doing races exactly like Jeebs, I let the horse ability in its + or (+)
lines tell me when a races is aberrant, or wacky because of a too fast or slow DTV.

I am not saying its wrong to use RDSS adjustment options, I just do not want to start messing around with things I am not sure about,

IF I jumped around and played multiple tracks , it probably would be better to adjust the adjustments, but I really only bet serious money at Southern Cal SA or Del Mar
The main reason is because the dtv issue is almost non existent.
I do play pick 4's at Parx and Aqu, but after 20 years I know what a wacko DTV line is at these tracks , soI like Jeebs did , I work around them .

Good Skill
Bill

Back in the early 90's the average variant was 17. We use to accept as normal 7 to 27. Over 27 or under 7 they were considered abnormal. Plus back than each point was worth 1/2 length so a 27 would be slow 5 lengths and a 7 was fast 5 lengths. So with the "Doc's" recommended adjustment of 50% its not a huge adjustment either way.

Most Eastern tracks tend to run over the 17 normal variant and tracks in Texas, Arizona and California tend to run under the normal of 17 because of lack of rain and not having as much cushion as eastern tracks.

I tend to use and view 7 to 27 as normal. However the very best way to handle this is to put it in context of all the other runners in the race. In the winter at MYV its common to see 40 and plus variants and for all horses, therefore a 20 could be out of line for that particular race and horses. Or in Cailf. all your runners have -5 etc and you have one with a 17 normal. The very best way to deal with it is in the context of the lines for other horses. And when you have that oddball such as a shipper from the East going to Cailf. its better adjusted to the fast track its going to encounter and to the other horses.( by the trk. to trk. adjustment) This can also happen when a MYV horse from very bad tracks runs at a different time of the year over the same track. If not shipping I select another line that's more normal. On shippers you may not find any normal lines especially if going from the east to a west coast track. The track to track adjustment will account for this and adjust for the line you choose.

A valid question is: Is this horse shipping? If not select another line. What is the average or normal for the other horses in the race.
Mitch44

In the example given by Jeebs a 30 variant is abnormal as all the other horses had lines from GP and were 12 or under. The horse wasn't shipping therefore another line was called for and the correct call to make in this case. Not because the horse won and paid good that just a bonus. Even if the horse ran out of the money it was a correct call. Great call Jeebs.

Mitch44