MODELING - Does it matter?

[Bill V.]

Hi FTL

I agree, Tom was special
This is from the Pace line manual

" Tom Brohamer
Is Pircos only handicapping purest. he is thoroughly grounded
in every aspect of what he calls "the game".
He has read and digested every valid work on the subject and writes and speaks with an authority born of knowledge and experience.
A professional athlete from a family of
professional athletes, he approaches the races as a golfer
does a new course
sizing up each fairway,approach and green; then making a game plan
appropriate to his analysis and knowledge of his own skills.
he would make a top flight baseball manager,shrewdly playing the percentages.
Having been once burned in a private business venture,
he is the most conservative of this tutorial staff. He concentrates his handicapping efforts on the type of races that he knows
are most predictive using his approach.
He often sacrifices high mutuals for pin point accuracy;
although still enjoying some long priced ventures.
If the variant making procedure of Andy Beyer, the form cycle evaluation of William Scott and the classification guidelines of James Quinn
can be called conventional ; then Tom is the most conventional
member of our group. he also enjoys the highest win percentage "

Tom was a master and produced a daily variant and horse to watch list for both north and south California circuts
Thanks
Bill

[partsnut]

FTL:

This statistic produced these optimum profits from 3 race classes, maiden claiming, maiden special weight and claiming. Naturally, there were some tracks that did better than others. These results come from the tracks that did best. Without modeling, be it one track or multiple tracks, these profitable areas would not be known.

Your modeling efforts and successes are very impressive and I agree with your best type races classifications with the exception of maiden claimer type races unless they are on the turf.
I do not model but I came up with the same conclusions as you did with small exceptions.
Do you have figures for all type of turf races?

I am a follower of Brohamer. He set the precedent for pace handicapping as we know it. I am not faulting or criticizing him. From what I've been led to believe and what I've been told, the man specialized in just one track, Santa Anita.

[partsnut]

Originally Posted by partsnut

FTL:

Your modeling efforts and successes are very impressive and I agree with your best type races classifications with the exception of maiden special weights type races unless they are on the turf.
I do not model but I came up with the same conclusions as you did with small exceptions.
Do you have figures for all type of turf races?

I am a follower of Brohamer. He set the precedent for pace handicapping as we know it. I am not faulting or criticizing him. From what I've been led to believe and what I've been told, the man specialized in just one track, Santa Anita.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Correction:

I meant Maiden Special Weights on the turf.

[lsosa54]

Tom specialized in both the SoCal and NorCal circuits and did his variants for both. At the time, Golden Gate & Bay Meadows in NorCal and the same tracks as today in SoCal. I believe he used to take Fairplex off. Of course, all the tracks had dirt surfaces back then.

When Tom went to Vegas he played multiple tracks and as he went around the country to seminars, he played the nearby tracks. He used his same concepts and was successful everywhere. Par charts and the "Brohamer Model" were keys to his success.

While an ex boss who took me to the Turf Club on closing day 1988 is responsible for me getting interested in handicapping, the hour that Tom spend with me privately at a McDonald's near Santa Anita in 1989 at my request was probably what spurred me on. I had the privilege to spend time as part of many small groups with Tom and at Santa Anita with his friends Quinn and Romano.

I also participated in Dick Mitchell's handicapping classes at Cynthia Pub in the early 90's in the evenings. I would drive from Pasadena where I worked to Studio City once a week - think they lasted about 7 weeks. Gordon Pine, Ron Ambrose, and Kitts Anderson manning the front desk were around Cynthia then.

I also paid for a day at Hollywood Park of private handicapping with the trio of Dick Mitchell, Ron Ambrose, and Barry Meadow. Watching Barry watch the monitors with his overlay charts was fascinating - don't know how he did it.

I consider my style mainly Brohamer with a touch of Quinn and Mitchell, and a pinch of Meadow. I currently use a mix of AOdds and EXDC Thoromation to fine tune my contenders into potential bets.

BTW, I fully agree with FTL's opinion on the value of modeling in whatever way works for the individual. Since we can't win all the races we invest in, it's about putting as much of the percentages in our favor as we can. That's also why Dorianmode's approach sounds logical.

If the last 30 races at 6F have been won by E types running close to the lead and my analysis comes up with a couple of S horses as my win candidates, why buck the percentages? The only reason would be ego centered and any time I've gone that way, it's cost me money. Either re-analyze or pass. If one of the S types does end up winning, just smile and move on.

I also agree with FTL's thoughts on class that he has posted before and class is critical to my handicapping but that's a discussion for another day. With few exceptions, horses do move up and down a track's class levels in an orderly and logically determined manner and there are no bargains at the track.

[For The Lead]

Originally Posted by partsnut

FTL:

Your modeling efforts and successes are very impressive and I agree with your best type races classifications with the exception of maiden claimer type races unless they are on the turf.
I do not model but I came up with the same conclusions as you did with small exceptions.
Do you have figures for all type of turf races?

I am a follower of Brohamer. He set the precedent for pace handicapping as we know it. I am not faulting or criticizing him. From what I've been led to believe and what I've been told, the man specialized in just one track, Santa Anita.

I must point out that these three race types were best, but ONLY for this particular statistic. As you can see from my first post here, no maidens fared well with that statistic.

With regard to Brohamer, I have read and heard all the same things, moreover, not only did he play Santa Anita, but more specifically, the OAK TREE meet.

My point, however, is in those days EVERYBODY "specialized" or "played" just one track, so he can't be faulted for that. There was no simulcasting, no internet, no off shore betting and etc. You either went to the track or you didn't play. (bookmakers aside)

Yes, I have figures for turf, but they are meaningless. Aside from Florida and the West coast, turf racing is basically a summer event. There are too few races when it comes to turf racing to allow for "breaking them down" and garnering any meaningful statistics.

In a given year there are roughly 1,000 turf races for maidens...at ALL the tracks combined. This leaves very few per track, per race type. The results, therefore, are not conclusive.

Consider that even during the summer months, turf races (of any race type) do not dominate the racing card, there are just a couple of them mixed in.

[For The Lead]

Originally Posted by lsosa54

If the last 30 races at 6F have been won by E types running close to the lead and my analysis comes up with a couple of S horses as my win candidates, why buck the percentages? The only reason would be ego centered and any time I've gone that way, it's cost me money. Either re-analyze or pass. If one of the S types does end up winning, just smile and move on.

How VERY true!!

[For The Lead]

Originally Posted by alydar_David

Interesting. It's the opposite for me. Although this is slightly off-topic as it deals with record keeping and not modeling I offer the following as an incentive for you to keep your own records and find out what works for you.

For Single Horse Win bets:

*Dirt Claiming and Allowance sprints generate my highest win percentage.

*Turf routes have the greatest ROI.

*I've lost money on artifical surfaces with the exception of Woodbine.

Based on fixed odds of 7/2, and pari-mutuel odds of 4-1 at post time my overall ROI for year was 1.13 (or a $Net of $2.26). However this is somewhat overinflated as rebates are included.

So, based on my record keeping the only artfical surface I'll be win betting for 2012 is Woodbine.

Record keeping -- it's a pain in the keister...but without it...well, you get the picture.

I don't think you are giving yourself enough credit.

Record keeping, while not the modeling of rankings and such, does give you useful information as you have shown.

In the information I have posted here, there is an underlying set of statistical information that was accumulated first. Once having that information, you can go on and learn things about different tracks, surfaces, distances, race types, age, sex and etc.

I'm sure you didn't arrive at your conclusions without a set of underlying statistics of your own. It seems modeling would be a "natural" for you.

[pktruckdriver]

There must be something in the air, all these great players sharing so much lately, with us, let me say a Big Thank You, for all of us.

These post's of late have been classic, almost like follow ups themselves, with a touch of today in them, really great stuff, guys.

patrick

[alydar_ David]

FTL, I *do*indeed model. As a matter of fact virutually all of my monster hits have come from modeling.

I was keeping modeling, record keeping, win bets, exotic bets, etcetera as separate topics. That's all.

One of the nice things about Dick Mitchell's old All-In-One programs was the automatic modeling it would do. For example it would start with 6F dirt races. Then when it had enough statistically significant data it would break it down by sex, age, race conditions, track conditions, etc.

I no longer use those All-In-One programs (I think I had three or four versions starting with 3-in-1) and manually create track models.

When I was younger and more industrious I'd have several models. Now I only model GP then CRC when it opens.

It will be interesting to see what Ted comes up with for RDSS models.

[alydar_ David]

Addendum: I have Bettor Keep Track and used to update it daily.

It's a fine program, but the manual entry just got to me after a while.