Workouts - how do you evaluate them?

[chris]

A furloung a day, the longer the workout the better. I begin, the cycle from after the horses last race. Large gaps are a concern and I factor that into my final decision; for me, it's just another variable to juggle. However something like 30 furloungs in 30 days will catch my attention.

regards,
chris

[cdax]

Originally Posted by froggy

Unusual Hottie in the 2nd at Hollywood today had a great workout pattern. Two 5f and three 6f in 30 days.
Something like that is worth a win bet.

Froggy

I try to keep my eye out for the furlong/day rule as chris stated above. That was the first thing to come to mind when I read Froggy's post.

28 furlongs in 30 days.

[big49010]

Hello all, I am new to board, and doing some research on workouts.

I was reviewing the Fast work pdf, which I find interesting, but wondered what someone would think about putting multiple days together to get a tab above 81+ works, and how many works you would require to put the horse in the exceptional criteria?

[noddub62]

What about WO's on training centers that don't report.

Unless all horses are working out at the track(s) in question the workouts don't mean much.

I gave up on using that as a means of handcapping. However, I do use WO's when looking at the major races.

Bud

[big49010]

Originally Posted by noddub62

What about WO's on training centers that don't report.

Unless all horses are working out at the track(s) in question the workouts don't mean much.

I gave up on using that as a means of handcapping. However, I do use WO's when looking at the major races.

Bud

I am sure there are many works that are missed completely, at training centers, miss timed, etc. but you have to work with what you have, and finding ways to weed out a few excellent first starters, layoff horses etc. are worth doing a little extra work.

[Ted Craven]

Originally Posted by big49010

Hello all, I am new to board, and doing some research on workouts.

I was reviewing the Fast work pdf, which I find interesting, but wondered what someone would think about putting multiple days together to get a tab above 81+ works, and how many works you would require to put the horse in the exceptional criteria?

Where would you get the other day(s) workout info from - from other horses' info sheets on the same race card who had worked within 7 days, at the same training track as the horse in question? Perhaps, from Equibase or other sources of daily Workout info, compiling your own stats?

Just musing - in RDSS, for a given card of races, say 10 races x 9 horses per race = 90 horses. So workout info for 90 horses, many of whom will have worked out at the same track (even today's track). So, for a given horse, instead of ranking it on just one day's work of workouts (per the Fast Workout PDF), rank it on 2 consecutive days? Or any 2 days within the last 7? You could do this by hand now (or by program, at some future point ...) - if there was a good value.

What is your reasoning for changing the total number of works (over multiple days) to find the percentile rankings at the various count groupings? I.e. why not just use the same count groups over multiple days?

Some days (at some tracks) there may be 90 workouts per day. Other times, there may be 90 workouts over 2 consecutive days. What's the difference? Whether a horse gets to work today rather than tomorrow must be often a case of 'how it looks' that morning, or availability of riders, or other serendipity of trainer schedule that day.

Did I follow your reasoning correctly? If so, interesting!

Ted

[big49010]

Ted

I have been playing with a database, where I take every workout for a card I download and put in the file with the specific trainer attached to the horse. Depending on the track, if I group say 5 furlong works at Gulfstream together for a week, I have over 400 works. Gate works might be 50? A trainer like a Pletcher might have 100 gate works for the meeting. If I rank these by track, it is giving me an idea of where par, for lack of a better word for a horses work at a track would be when the horse could be ready for a big effort. If you look at the works for S.S. Pinafore in the 7th yesterday at GP, I thought she should be claimed because she was displaying works that were equal to many horses at a higher level than her, and perhaps like a full brother of hers who was a stakes horse she was figuring out how to run at 4 years of age. We'll see, we didn't get her, someone else won the shake!

[Ted Craven]

Big,

Agreed - she had some fine workouts! The public (and apparently other trainers ) were onto her the last 2 races turning to the Turf - some nice closing moves. Is your workout database analysis mainly used for the purpose of claiming horses, or do you use it for handicapping as well?

[big49010]

Mostly to handicap, but I work with a trainer and give him some ideals.

[Lt1]

Hi folks. I just found the site a while back. I was in the methodolgy in the 90's until Doc passed. Anyway I thought I share some info with the group. I conducted a survey of horses that had not raced or worked out in the last 15 days before todays race. The survey consisted of 5000 horses. The results were eye opening. These horses failed to win or hit the exacta 87% of the time. The caveat to this is that you must keep a record of the trainers whose horses do win despite the lack of activity in 15 days. The tracks covered were all 3 NYRA trks,FL, all3 Fla tracks,Parx,Suf.CD Del,Mth. I did not concern myself with the times of workouts just that they had one or a race within 15 days. Don't know if this will help anyone but thought I put it out.
Tim Gagas