It's not the software
 

It's not the software that matters basically they are all the same,the horses and pacelines that you put in is what really counts.There was a race yesterday at Fort Erie where I didnt go deep enough into a horses pp's[Pino pointed ths out to me].After the race ended I went back and entered that line and darn if that horse didnt come out on top and he paid 20-1.I was guilty of this myself going from software to software when the one that was screwing up was myself.I hope none of you fall into this trap as I did.Jeff

Hi Jeff,

What you said was so true. The paceline selection is, in my opinion, the single most importment item in handicapping.

Stay cool man. It's hot tamale hot here in Texas! :(

Bud

Five Step Approach to The match Up by Jim "The Hat" Bradshaw




Select the right paceline and you should be able to elimate the pretenders in a race, which then leaves you with the "true" contenders


All you have to decide then is, are these "true" contenders a good investment

Against The Crowd by Alan Potts (UK Professional Punter)

Bud,It's been hot up here in the DC area ,stay cool as well and root for those Texas Rangers.Jeff

There is no uniform way of using the Match Up: it is a concept open to evaluation and application. "There are no rules" supports that contention all the more.

THIS ia another reason why you have to get the flavor of each horse, not to mention the FORM cycle, by using multiple lines for each.

Once you get an idea of the contenders, go back through to see if the proposed paceline was an abberation or another example of how the horse naturally responds to pace pressure. ALSO, very important, to LEAVE OUT pace lines that were far too slow early: another abberation that will give skewed results since those lines make the horse look better than they should since they had little pressure early and more "gas in the tank" late.

Hey Shoeless,

Don't be so hard on yourself in picking or not picking a paceline. If this horse was 20-1, i'm guessing his form was off, or appeared off. So was there any reason or reasons to go back to the paceline you reffered to? Was there any reason to believe this horse would revert to that paceline again at this time? I guess what i'm trying to get across is this, depending on what criteria your using to pick the line, probably in one of their pacelines every horse in the race would have a line that matchs up favorably for the win in the race. In my handicapping if a horses highest number is more than 3 races back, & or 5 or 6 months then i have to start evaluating his current form to see if he's just bad at this point in time or is he on the upswing again. Just like they about in sports how "potential" is just that, only potential i guess you can also say that in racing what a horse did "then" is no guarantee of what he'll do now. Well guys, hope this wasn't to long.
Frank

Frank,
Welcome to the board...you will enjoy. I agree with you, form must always be determined. Old pace lines, angles, whatever are really of little good or concern if the horse isn't in form or rounding into form (some sort of life last out, or next to last). I do use any line showing for the purpose of finding the horses inate ability and as a guage of it's class. A horse with good numbers back a few lines and some life just tickles my ivories.
Cecil
ps...no your post wasn't toooo long.........never to long

A computer programs main purpose is to process information and lay it out in a manner which makes it easy for the user to see the results.Paceline selection is the key, this is one area where a program can be of some help if it has the capability to print out all the lines for a horse and then compare each line against one and another and the remainder of the field.The program can simulate the what ifs that we would otherwise have to do.


Ideally it is of much more value if you can have a program custom made for you and one which mimics YOUR thought processes eliminating the repetitiveness thought processes. We all have a given set of steps which we do over and over again when we break down a race why not have a computer program do these steps. When I do an update of my program I rarely am adding a new rating, most of the time I am just having the program do one more step in my handicapping, saving me time.


Mike.