Spec or Val Mode?

[Ted Craven]

Hi,

Sorry, was gone for a few days. The distinctions between Validator4 mode and Speculator160 mode of RDSS are these, probably in descending order of significance:

1. Spec mode uses a fixed value for beaten lengths (8.333 feet). Val mode uses a variable value for each fraction depending on today's distance. This fact is the sole reason why Doc Sartin advised Val users to NOT represent a horse from lines where the horse was beaten more than 7.75 lengths (the beaten lengths were under represented, thus the third fraction would end up being too fast compared to its actual lengths back from Pace of Race performance). In Spec mode, what you see is what you get: 10 lengths back at the finish means beaten 83.33 feet and the time value effect on the third fraction which results from that. It's both a philosophical distinction and a physics one. If you want a ringside seat to Doc's long running argument about the time value of a beaten length in different fractions, read The Dynamics of Incremental Velocity and Energy Exertion (in the library) and enjoy. After 5 years on my part, and longer by other Speculator users, I favour Spec mode.

2. In my opinion, Spec mode does a better job of projecting sprints to routes than Val mode. Val mode tends to make the resulting route (projected from a sprint) too fast, unreliable. The extraction of a sprint from a route line is almost identical for each mode (short sprints less than 6f extract a little faster in Speculator).

3. Various readouts: The Computed Beaten Length (CBL) screen did not exist in Valdiator - only the 2nd call beaten length portion (SCBL), and the calculation for Val mode is slightly different than that of Spec mode (you will often get different computed beaten length values, less often different ranks)

On the same Tab, the right-most panel (F3+Total Pace) in Val mode is the VDC rank (duplicate of that shown on the BLBL screen) and the relative value of the underlying VDC number itself, shown by the horse positions. In Spec mode that formula is different - it shows the average of True Speed and F3 (from the Velocity screen).

Some rounding differences exist between Val and Spec (some calculations round to 2 decimal places for Val, some to 1 for Spec, which can result in differences of a rank, which can extend to different BL/BL values).

That is all the material differences between the 2 modes. If you asked me, I would say that Spec mode is the better one - that's why it is the default. In future, likely it will not be called Spec mode anymore, merely 'Default'. But Val compatibility will always remain. I think you will get more winners ranked more highly in BL/BL and CBL and F3+TP in Spec mode than in Val mode. And you don't have to tip-toe around not using races where the horse was beaten badly (i.e. over 7.75 lengths) even though it ran competitively through the stretch, or against a faster POR than anyone else today - just because Doc said so. Again, remember, that we don't care unto delerium so much if the horse ranks 1, 2 or 3 on BL/BL - we should be looking at ALL those horses both in a pre- and post-HIDE mode (i.e. HIDE a low odds favourite for Win) when seeking a 2 horse-entry wager. If Spec mode makes a 1 point difference between 2nd and 3rd rank and Val mode makes a 1.5 point difference, or vice versa, but the same horses are all in the top 3 - who cares (most of the time).

Important note: Validator versions prior to Val4 and Speculator versions prior to Spec160 (i.e. the old DOS software) should be avoided - you're getting more random results than you know, and missing out on consistent predictions of good contenders. Again, this is because of the TrackMaster/Equibase 2006 Speed rating change and the omission of Intertrack variants from Speculator prior to version 1.60.

Hope that answers most of the original question, JimG, but let me know!

Ted