Tentative Derby EL 2.0 Contenders, plus Reasoning

[Dave Schwartz]

Changes to the Original Methodology

I know you guys like the M-word. When in Rome...

I am in constant contact with several key users of the NewPace approach, and am working on several interesting developments. One very large one is the melding of Improve/Decline (our form product) which I am very excited about. More to come on that later.

There are several changes - still labeled "experimental" at this point - that I have been using for over a month.

The first is that I have stopped using any of the 12-point/PoR stuff. It is simply too much work. I am not sure if it has hurt my bottom line but do not think so. It occasionally takes me off a very obvious odds-on horse and puts me on a huge longshot that loses most of the time. Frankly, I don't care. My $Net is currently - brace yourself - over $2.30 (after 1,100 races) driven on by high-odds $Net of over $3.00. (That is including the fact I wager over 3 horses per race on average!)

So, ease of use equals more plays. What do I care if it costs me a penny or two?

I have also dropped the complication of the swing horse not being involved in the PoR. Same reason as above: simply too much work.

My effort is to constantly simplify (if possible) the process. While some simplifications result in a significant lowering of $net, a few actually cause improvements. The reality is that the product you are using is the direct result of a serious simplification resulting in a huge positive shift in $net.

I had been playing with NewPace for about 12-15 months using a somewhat conventional pace approach. It was "conventional" in the sense that it used pace ratings to decide which of the E's or L's became final contenders. I actually gave up on it because after all that time (and handicapping roughly 50,000 races manually) I was unable to get within even 10% of being even. Flashes of brilliance, but nothing long term.

Understand that back then there was no "Early Pace Section." It was just two handicapping objects: Early and Late. Take the top 2 E's and the top 2 L's and move on.

So, I went on to work on Improve or Decline and left NewPace behind. (I actually joked to my wife that I should call it "DeadPace.")

One day I decided that I should build a pencil-and-paper handicapping product out of it. If you think NewPace is time consuming now, imagine how tough it would be if you had to MAKE pace figures as well! So the problem was, "How do I replace the pace figures?"

That was when I hit upon the idea to separate the field into two segments. The question, "Who will run early?" was replaced with, "Who is likely to create early pressure?"

(Side note: You will notice how I clearly state within quotes the question I am trying to answer. This is a powerful problem-solving technique. Try practicing it yourself.")

It turned out that the segmentation of the field was critical to the success of the approach! After that it was merely a problem of isolating which speed ratings would best indicate potentially long-term-profitable winners.

Research, research, research!

Okay so, back to developments... In my next post I will simply walk you through my actual REAL process. BTW, being able to change and tweak YOUR process is why we programmers resist just giving you a button that spits out:

E-E
-----
L-L

... which is my shorthand for the NewPace output.

[Dave Schwartz]

The Process

1. EARLY SECTION
I do that as we always have. Add the pcts until reaching 62 or more, then add 1 horse (who is labeled the "swing").

I ask myself, "Is there a dominant horse?" Specifically, does the top horse have a 58% edge over the 2nd horse and at least 25% himself? Notice 58% rather than 62%.

If the answer is "no," then I have no need of a PoR!


2. DOES THE DOMINANT HORSE QUALIFY FOR POR?
If there is a DomES horse, then I do PoR. I simply take the highest of the RegSpeedLow ratings to represent the PoR.

Remember, I am only trying to answer one question: "Does the dominant E horse have a fast enough RegSpeedHigh to qualify?" That is the sole purpose of PoR.

At this point I have either 0 or 1 EARLY horses.


3. SPEED RATINGS for EARLY
Nothing has changed here.
All the EARLY horses are ranked for RegSpeedHigh. The top 1 or 2, (break ties) will be considered for contenders. Obviously, if I have already qualified a DOM-E I only need one more.

Why do I ignore PoR? Because if I come up with only one horse that qualifies, I am going to simply assume that the PoR is at least somewhat unpredictable. Someone is going to chase that big, obvious PaceMonster.

I developed this rule because I had lost one-too-many long-priced winners to a race with an obviously bad pace-of-race prediction.

See, a horse with that big number is talked about by the trainers and jockeys. They make decisions about "what to do if..."


4. SPEED RATINGS for LATE
Everything here is EXACTLY the same. Top 2, break ties.


A few words about tie breaks
First, I chose jockey% because it was designed as a paper-and-pencil method.

We who use software have more sophisticated means available to us. Take advantage of those means. You want to use a high-level tie-breaker.

That is, you want to use a tie-breaker that looks at the horses from an intrinsic "who is the best horse?" question. Personally, I use:

PSR (weight 100)
CPW (weight 62)
RTG (weight 38)

PSR is HDW's "Projected Speed Rating." It correlates very highly with the final odds. Top horse wins 31% of starts. It is not even close to profitable because of the high correlation to odds.

CPW is simply an older version of PSR.

RTG is a high-level rating which uses 38 factors. Lots of ES, class, form and speed all mixed together.

Note that I use the same tie breaker for deciding who to bet under 7/2.

[Ted Craven]

Thanks Dave! I appreciate your time to update your latest thinking and research (which indeed never ends!) I'll be studying this for sure.

Derby day races are catching up to us, and I've some handicapping to do.

cheers,

Ted