[Ted Craven]

I am sending everyone the actual software out now, though it will take me a little longer for a broader and complete collection of documentation (so please be patient with me :-). And of course, LOTS remains. That said, here is a VERY quick list of new stuff – though, brand new testers of RDSS 2.1 may have to wait a short while to fill in the blanks on stuff that’s been in 2.1 for a while:

1. Rx Analysis Screen. Previous interim Rx screens are removed, including the older Rx Research and Summary screen versions. Rx is a new composite Line Score factor which comprises weighted input from VDC, CSR, CR+ (the new Class rating), EL+ (see Point #6 below), a wild-card ‘power-number’ which can be Morning Line rank, more weighting of CR+, or an external public number like TwinSpires ProfitLine, or BRIS Prime Power. Like BLBL, the Top 3 ranks of each input factor are somewhat compressed.

In this version, we have 3 variants of Rx (labeled 1,2,3), which vary depending on which factor is used in the Power Number wild-card slot. Per the popup Tooltip when you hover your mouse over the Rx headers:

Rx1 – uses Morning Odds rank
Rx2 – uses another dose of CR+
Rx3 – uses ProfitLine (PL) from TwinSpires

FWIW, often they agree. Some people can’t get TS ProfitLine. In some races, at some tracks, ML rank(not necessarily ML odds) is more predictive. In data accumulation, PL remains strong, not necessarily useful on its own (except for FTS) but as a non-correlated to pace factor.

FYI – Rx3 itself is NOT the accumulation of points from component factors, but instead a normalization of those points to 100 (i.e. for use in the Rx Odds Line, see next point).

In future versions, in the Power Number ‘wild-card’ slot, I will add ability to incorporate BRIS Prime Power OR a user-chosen internal RDSS factor (e.g. a factor impactful for today’s race type, such as TPP, TSF3, HID, or whatever …)


2. Rx Odds Line. On the Rx screen, the column to the right of Rx3 is a 100% odds line based on the Top 4 Rx3. I may change this Odds Line depending on which Rx factor is used as the screen sort (see ‘Screen Sorting’ below). FWIW, I personally usually demote all but the Top 4 Rx ranks to Secondary, then check out everyone. The Top 4 Rx and ties wins a VERY high percentage of the time. I find ranks 3 and 4 particularly interesting, due to generally longer odds. (Please repeat after me, though – ‘it is NOT a black box …’).


3. Race results and Mutuels. At the right of the Rx screen, if you have connected the current RDSS session to TwinSpires via either the RDSS Desktop button or by retrieving ProfitLine or Mutuels once – you can fetch Race Results and Mutuels by clicking the Mutuels button – current day only. (Long term, we’ll use Equibase Result Charts in the Bundle data plan for comprehensive work with Result Charts.)


4. Screen Sorting. Most columns on most Analysis screens are now sortable by clicking on the column header in the green header section. If the column is sortable, the mouse pointer will change to a ‘hand’ icon. Example sort columns are: Raw call times (not Call 3), Running Style, Morning Line Odds, Adjusted Running Times, Adjusted Speed Ratings, Velocity columns, Segments screen columns, Rx flavours, Program # (i.e. to return the sort to default). I know which columns do NOT sort, so no need to tell me right now.


5. ProfitLine. If you have a TwinSpires account, you can enter your UID/PWD in the new inputs on the Configure screen. Then on the Card Summary, My Races, Entries and Rx (mutuels button), you can retrieve the current day ProfitLine # and Race Results. Retrieve ProfitLine for all your downloaded cards via MyRaces/Today/All Races, or on any single Card Summary screen BEFORE you assemble any races, and PL will be displayed on your Entries and Rx screens, and used as a component in Rx3. If you don’t like ProfitLine, simply ignore it! However, one side benefit of retrieving ProfitLine for a race (or the entire card or multiple cards via MyRaces) is it applies whatever Scratch info it has at the moment (i.e. Scratches for future races, which the Tote system does not fetch).


6. EL+. On the Rx screen, the Early/Late+ EL+ column will morph into a whole-performance-based E/L ranking, using typical energy disbursement patterns and typical running Positions for races like today and ‘population sample’ measurements as used in NewPace. For the time being, these ranks are indistinguishable from NewPace ranks. If you do not use (or like) NewPace in RDSS, don’t worry about it. This will be better than NewPace, and available to all.


7. Tote. Not new in this update, but for new testers: Tx2 or PW% (Place to Win) pool ratio has been added. Ad hoc observation is that it is as strong – or stronger – than the original Tote Xray pool ratio. Also, on the Tote screen, Place pool ranks are colour coded. (Stay tuned for MUCH more in the tote department ;-)


8. Modeler. While you CAN send stuff to the Modeler (Records Tab, next to Registration) by clicking on the Export icon in Analysis screens, it just sits there looking dumb (or promising) right now, and I have not worked on it for several months. It’s coming, just later!


9. Miscellaneous:

- For those using an earlier version with multiple new ‘CR-n’ factors on the Entry screen, we have settled on the (formerly named) CR3 as the strongest, now renamed to CR+

- On Original screens, the Race Conditions column for Named/Graded Stakes races now shows the Stakes Name if you hover the mouse

- On the Horse Original screen, underlines of the Final Position/beaten length (other than beaten by < 1 length) indicate a trouble trip (same as if you look on the Trip screen)

- if you use CSR, and you judge that it is compromised by clearly troubled or excusable low Speed ratings in the last 4 lines (more affected by the last 2 lines), you can recompute the CSR by clicking on its value in the Horse Header screen. The LOWEST rating in the last 4 is removed and the remaining Top 4 are used in a recalculation. (There are better ways to accomplish this, and will be in future, AND if you do more than 1 horse in a race, previous recalculations are lost – but that said, if you use CSR for a measure of consistency, and Top 5 rankings matter, and it is a component in Rx – then feel free to touch up CSR by hand if you like).

- Download Result Charts in Data Centre. If you have a Bundle data plan, check Download Charts to start collecting full Result Charts which you are already paying for. Sooner or later, we’ll start making use of those files. For now, just collect them. Don’t check Convert Result Charts – not yet ready for prime time.

- I have fixed a TON of internal bugs, hopefully also most of the circumstances where TrackMaster has reported errors retrieving data, formerly mis-interpreted by RDSS (though it will not surprise me if others remain)