Recently I have had requests for help using RDSS to handicap because of my last article. I am going to attempt to help by trying to explain how you can use RDSS to do your matchup work for you. Before I do that, it is important that you understand where I come from in terms of beliefs and basic understandings. You need to know where I come from in order to put my comments in context and make some sense of what I say. So lets see what we can learn together.
Here is what I would like you to start with.
My Basic Beliefs and Premises are:
1. Handicapping horses is an exercise in probabilities. Las Vegas gets rich on a 5-10% advantage on the gamblers who visit there. We can too if we turn the probabilities in our favor. However, you must always remember that at times the probabilities will turn against you. That is how sometimes there are big winners in Vegas even with the odds against them.
2. Given My handicapping process, there are factors that are more predictive than others. I do NOT pick my own lines as I find that I "Weave and Bob" my way through the past performances and do not consistently apply selection criteria. I find that I can do better by letting the computer select lines and then I can adjust for layoffs and other special circumstances. I use the automatic best perceptor of the last 3 comparable but there are other criteria that may work better for you.
3.Running Style is critical. Early horses that can’t get the lead do not come from behind to win. If you can identify horses that are not fast enough to put themselves into their preferred position to win (first fraction speed) then you are looking at a horse that can’t win. Jim Bradshaw used to call those the fast horses in the race. A horse that can’t get into his preferred running style position may place or show but won't win.
4. Don't bet against the statistics. Ted and others have compiled a data base that indicates that the winner comes out of the top 5 CSR horses 90% of the time. Since that is a rating of more than just one line, it is a strong overall rating found on the entries screen as well as the BL/BL screen and does not change with line changes. Why would we ever bet on a horse to
win with a CSR rating greater than 5?
5. Keep your own statistics. Given the way you handicap, your statistics may be different than mine. You need to find the ratings that you have the most confidence in. Going to the window will become a lot easier if you do.
6. Watch the Early Speed points assigned to the horses. Especially look for horses who have an advantage say 3-5 more points than the rest of the horses. How do they run? When there are 3 horses with 21 Early Speed Points or more, how often do you get a late race and a really high priced winner?
7. At times it will all go wrong. If things go all wrong, it is time to go back to basics, review your thinking, relax, understanding the science of probabilities, and go back to the basic process that you started with and realize how far you have moved from your basic process.
8. Don’t “measure with a micrometer and cut with a chainsaw”. Keep in perspective that we can carry our calculations out to the umpteenth decimal place but horses actually run the race. Horses are not very precise creatures. However, we can look for patterns. The numbers can show us patterns that will help us understand the race. Doc Sartin used to write about “pattern recognition” as being a critical skill. We are trying to build skills at pattern recognition.
I would ask you to look at 20 races, non-maidens with every horse having at least 3 lines and at least 8 horses going to post. Focus on sprints and routes on the dirt. Turf can come later. In the first 20 it is OK to know the win, place and show horses.
1. Set the computer to pick the lines. Start with the best Perceptor last 3 comparable.
2. Look at the Segments screen. Look at the first fraction. Is the winner in the top 5 first fraction or second call? Are the 0.0 first fraction and the 0.0 2nd call horses different horses? Which side of the screen (the numbers or the horse graph) best predicts the race? What kind of a pattern can you see? Any that look like what you see below? Based on the pattern you see choose the two or three you might bet as winners (even if you do know who actually won).
3. Look at the BL/BL screen. Does the winner rank high in VDC and CSR? What do the other numbers give as a picture of your choices performance? My stats indicate that winning horses will have VDC ranking of 1 or 2 67% of the time and a CSR of 1 or 2 59% of the time. 9 out of 10 times the winner will have a CSR in the top 5. Does that hold true? What do you see? Do you see highly rated VDC horses who are rated outside the top 5 CSR?
4. Look at the velocity screen (PofH). Are your win possibilities getting into position in the first fraction? Second Fraction?
5. Of your 20 races where you knew the winner, did that winner come to these standards in 12 -15 of the races? Can you see cases where one of your top horses had great numbers but when you look at his past performances it is easy to see that we are experiencing "Fun with Numbers" and he can't possibly win? That can happen with routers in a sprint and the router just has never won or done well in a sprint. But his numbers look good. The same with a sprinter in a route. Always check your betting choices before you go to the window. If we can get to that percentage of winners then we can start to talk about leveraging our money doing exactas or multiple win bets.
Write down the process steps that seem to work best for you. Try to stick with the process for a while and see if it continues to work. Down the road you may need to come back to your process if things start to go wrong.
Now do 20 races where you do not know the win, place and show horses. Pick your choices, how did you do?
Let me know what you see when you approach the races in this fashion.
Hope this help you have a place to start.
Here are some examples of patterns you might see:
The Superior Ability Horse(s)
Notice that our top two total energy horses show up as the winners on both sides of the screen. The 5, an EP, shows to take the lead by the 2nd call as you can expect an EP to do. The 6 looks to be coming late. The finish show that they win by over 10 lengths. Of course everyone else at the track saw that they are better horses but it remains a pattern that we can look for.
The rest of the numbers verify what we believed. They appear to be the best by far.
The 5 shows as a presser he will be out front at least by the 2nd call. If you look below you can see that he was on the lead from the start. The 6 ran like the numbers indicated that he should. He got back a ways and ran well in the 2nd and 3rd fraction to finish 2nd. Using running styles it is easy to predict that an S router will get way back and unless he folds the EP sprinter will finish in front of him in this sprint. A straight 5/6 exacta is one way to take money out of a race like this.
