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FU # 56 Form Cycle Analysis
The x and o's go back to the early 1980's and are in the Yellow Manuel. It was considered a fast, simple,and highly effective procedure to analyze the form of a horse.
Form is one the most important handicapping factors that tends to be ignored, any high ranking in a factor is worthless if the horse isn't properly placed as to distance, surface and is in form. Essentially they use the program or any program as a black box ignoring one of the most important factors in horse racing.
Not only is it one of the most important factors, its also the hardest to evaluate. Someone once said; " Its like trying to nail jelly to a tree." Perhaps the difficulty and inability of the player is why it gets ignored and places the black box approach in vogue. It is a learned skill but there are tools we can use to make us more proficient in this task.
Taulbot said; "Every race a horses runs it is either improving or declining in form." Therefore the last race is extremely important as to a horses condition. Sartin said the last race should always be evaluated for form or condition.
In the program Valuator Sartin started experimenting with rating each line and had a user select lines and then hit the F6 key, each race would be evaluated making life easer to access the form of a horse and picking a line. Initially this was rather crude, the Preceptor was born from this concept. It was refined by adjusting the distance of each race to todays distance,also using the 7 Primary Factors and finally matching up each race with the Match Up against itself to determine which race was best.
Something impossible to do without a computer because of all the math involved which would be prone to mistakes and forever to do by hand.
When it comes to form one could still use the old X and O's but why waste time, be prone to error when this is already done for you in the present-day RDSS.
Additionally the Preceptor is the best tool for picking the correct pace line ever devised. Also within RDSS each race is rated for Total Energy which is another way to evaluate the form of a horse, one can easily see if the Tot. En. is increasing or decreasing. Lastly the Pace of the Race (POR) is also given for each race. All of this is on the Original Screen of the horse.
Every program of Sartin's was an improvement over the last. Some thought he was just interested in selling programs and ruled by the almighty dollar, but the evolution of the computer and more memory placed much of this on a fast track.
pg.22 "As you view sample races you will note that while we do often use a contender's last line, when justified, we will just as often go back several races, when appropriate." In short, they zig and zag, altering their procedure after each loss,only to discover too late that it would have proved successful in the next race had they stuck with it. Procedural inconsistency has been the bane of handicappers for generations." Not only does this apply to pace line selection it also applies to contender selection as well. Even with all this you'll probably lose one out of three races.
Form cycle analysis also helps you to detect NTL horses, suspicious dropdowns etc. It will increase one's winning percentage's and your results will improve greatly. I go back and forth from the original screen of a contender to the Bris PP's because the Bris PP's give me additional information not found in the TrackMaster PP's.
I also evaluate form in the Bris PP's. This combination of analysis allows me to downgrade contenders or completely disregard them, greatly increasing my win percentage.
There are other ways I evaluate form as there are several ways, generally I use several. I strongly suggest you find one or two and employ it. Sartin gave you some with Preceptor, Total Energy and POR for every race within a horses chart. Ignore it at your own peril.
Mitch44
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