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Old 10-26-2010, 05:18 PM   #1
socantra
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Xtraction and Projection

Xtraction & Projection (Follow Up #75, 1999)

"Some clients are being harmed by their tendency to use the Projection – Extraction options in advanced Sartin programs...

Xtract Sprint from Routes ONLY when the 6 furlong time is EQUAL TO or FASTER THAN that of the fastest sprinters in the race. The horse should show a consistent tendency to be on or near the lead at the 6 furlong call in its Routes. This is a horse crying out for a Sprint despite persistent attempts to make it a Router. It should have won or be within one length at the 6 furlong call. I see too many Xtractions where the horse was behind as much as or more than three lengths at the 6 furlong call. It also helps to scan a horse’s complete past performance lines to see if it ever did well in a Sprint.

Projection is dangerous unless a horse shows some indication that it did well in a Route ANYWHERE in its past performance record. Horses that Project well fall into two dichotomous categories: (1) Those that ran fast 6 furlong times and won the race, and were on the lead or within one length at the 2nd call. (2) Sprinters that did less than well, were behind at the 2nd call, but had extremely high 3rd fraction and Hidden Energy Rankings. I see too many Projections where the horse had neither of these indicators. It also helps to scan a horse’s complete past record to see if it ever did well in a Route."

I stumbled across this again in my readings last week and realized how easy it is to overuse the xtraction and projection features with the Trackmaster download programs. They are right there in front of you and you forget that they are much chancier than normal automatic adjustments.

I realized that I'd blown several races recently by overusing the xtractions. and projections. Now, I've started taking a 2nd look at the original lines when the situation comes up and paying more attention to Doc's advice.

Any thoughts?

Dick...
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Old 10-26-2010, 08:03 PM   #2
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My only thought Dick, is thanks for posting because I victimized myself recently with a little too zealous use of those features, without some of the more cautionary checks and balances that you brought into the discussion.

Appreciate the post,

Bill
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Old 10-26-2010, 09:14 PM   #3
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Originally Posted by socantra View Post
Xtraction & Projection (Follow Up #75, 1999)

"Some clients are being harmed by their tendency to use the Projection – Extraction options in advanced Sartin programs...

Xtract Sprint from Routes ONLY when the 6 furlong time is EQUAL TO or FASTER THAN that of the fastest sprinters in the race. The horse should show a consistent tendency to be on or near the lead at the 6 furlong call in its Routes. This is a horse crying out for a Sprint despite persistent attempts to make it a Router. It should have won or be within one length at the 6 furlong call. I see too many Xtractions where the horse was behind as much as or more than three lengths at the 6 furlong call. It also helps to scan a horse’s complete past performance lines to see if it ever did well in a Sprint.

Projection is dangerous unless a horse shows some indication that it did well in a Route ANYWHERE in its past performance record. Horses that Project well fall into two dichotomous categories: (1) Those that ran fast 6 furlong times and won the race, and were on the lead or within one length at the 2nd call. (2) Sprinters that did less than well, were behind at the 2nd call, but had extremely high 3rd fraction and Hidden Energy Rankings. I see too many Projections where the horse had neither of these indicators. It also helps to scan a horse’s complete past record to see if it ever did well in a Route."

I stumbled across this again in my readings last week and realized how easy it is to overuse the xtraction and projection features with the Trackmaster download programs. They are right there in front of you and you forget that they are much chancier than normal automatic adjustments.

I realized that I'd blown several races recently by overusing the xtractions. and projections. Now, I've started taking a 2nd look at the original lines when the situation comes up and paying more attention to Doc's advice.

Any thoughts?

Dick...
My personal opinion is, if you are looking at a route line for a horse in a sprint race, because no sprint line is available OR for any other reason, perhaps you are looking at the wrong horse OR you are looking at the wrong race.
Here is some statistical information.

I looked at approximately the last 100,000 winners in my database and found that only a little over 1,000 winners came from horses whose last 5 races were route races and today’s race is a sprint. That’s a little over 1%. Is this really the group you are looking for? Are you really trying to “zero in” on that 1% in an effort to find a winner?

As a group, all of those horses whose last 5 races were routes and today’s distance is a sprint, only 9% of that group won. Are you really that interested in searching for that 1% of winners that comes from a group that generates just 9% winners from the group? Sounds like a tough way to make a buck to me.

For those who may be asking why I chose to research horses whose last five races were routes and today’s distance is a sprint, here is my reason. What other reason would you have for looking at a route race if today’s race is a sprint? If the horse has a sprint line, wouldn’t you be using it? And if there is a sprint race that is that bad that you can’t use it, then you’re putting yourself in a worse position by using a route line. Routes are routes and sprints are sprints.

You always have the option to “throw the horse out” or PASS THE RACE if the race presents that much of a problem for you.

Readers have to understand that many of these procedures came about at a time when there was no simulcasting and no internet with internet betting. The only thing that was available was going to your local track for whatever number of races it was that they were offering that day. Faced with just 8,9 or 10 races to play, one may have been faced with races where appropriate lines weren’t available, so procedures such as this were created.

In addition, “Doc” was a west coast guy. When you look at races from the 1970’s going forward, the west coast tracks were like running on concrete. Horses could hear their hoofs rattle as they ran. It wasn’t uncommon at all to see times like 22.2, 45.2, 109.2 for the first 6 furlongs of a route race, so it was easy to fit these internal fractions from a route race into a sprint race. That doesn’t mean those horses won, but it was a means to include the horse in the “energy” program for evaluation. I can tell you this, don’t try this on the east coast in the middle of the winter season.

Today, one can bet every single track in the country AND Canada every single day they run. Why in the world would you want to get involved with “extraction or projection”?

FIND RACES WHERE THE HORSES HAVE APPROPRIATE LINES!
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Old 10-27-2010, 04:24 AM   #4
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In other words, you agree with Doc that its not a good idea to xtract very often.
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Old 10-27-2010, 01:27 PM   #5
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Great Posts Socantra and FTL

Thanks Socantra for the great posts about extracting and projecting horses and also kudos go to For The Lead with his in depth analysis on the same subject.

I probably have hurt myself more often than not when handicapping races where I was extracting and projecting horses way too often. For The Lead's database confirms this.

Thanks for the reminder that just because we can extract or project pacelines it is often not the most optimal approach.
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Old 10-27-2010, 04:53 PM   #6
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In other words, you agree with Doc that its not a good idea to xtract very often.
Actually, I go a bit further than that.

I NEVER extract or project and my advice to others would be the same. There are just too many good opportunities for a handicapper without them getting involved with this concept.

Handicapping is tough enough. Don't make it harder!
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Old 10-28-2010, 11:08 AM   #7
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Actually, I go a bit further than that.

I NEVER extract or project and my advice to others would be the same.
I can't think of many things I can say I NEVER do and I rarely give much advice to others. I can say though that it has been a long time since I used an xtracted paceline..

Projection, on the other hand, comes up a bit more frequently. I work the Louisiana circuit a lot. Cheap horses but full fields with few late scratches. The problem of young horses stretching out with little or no route experience behind them comes up fairly frequently.

I know you say there are many races out there and we should just move on, but I don't handicap very many cards. My needs are for only $500+ a month in supplemental income and I don't like to work too hard to get there. I find that a limited subset of cheap tracks presents me with ample opportunities for wagercapping and the rewards are more than worth the risks.

I guess there are many different roads for us to take, depending upon our needs and temperament.

Dick...
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Old 10-28-2010, 01:29 PM   #8
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I can't think of many things I can say I NEVER do and I rarely give much advice to others. I can say though that it has been a long time since I used an xtracted paceline..

Projection, on the other hand, comes up a bit more frequently. I work the Louisiana circuit a lot. Cheap horses but full fields with few late scratches. The problem of young horses stretching out with little or no route experience behind them comes up fairly frequently.

I know you say there are many races out there and we should just move on, but I don't handicap very many cards. My needs are for only $500+ a month in supplemental income and I don't like to work too hard to get there. I find that a limited subset of cheap tracks presents me with ample opportunities for wagercapping and the rewards are more than worth the risks.

I guess there are many different roads for us to take, depending upon our needs and temperament.

Dick...
Well, I have to agree with you on that one. There is an old saying, "never say never", except in this case it is a "no brainer" for me, I just "never" do it.

As for the "advice", I am providing statistical information based on a large amount of trials, enough trials that if I researched another 400,000 winners from my database, the results would only be the same. For that reason, I am comfortable in passing along this information to others for their consideration. I call it "advice" because given the facts, I don't do it and I would not encourage others to do it. Perhaps I should have said, "my statistical opinion". Either way, it would not be a vote of confidence for encouraging the reader to employ the subject of this thread.

The point to my advice is not that you will "never" win a race employing the subject of this thread, but rather, there are just too many tracks and races where winners can be more easily found, at prices that are just as good, to waste time getting involved with methods that just aren't good and have inherent flaws.

The great thing about giving advice, is that the person receiving the advice does not have to commit themselves to it, they have an option, take it or leave it.

Like you, I prefer the cheap tracks. I also prefer tracks with long meets. For these reasons I prefer PHA (now Parx), PEN, MNR and DEL. Not only that, but I am an east coast, mid Atlantic region guy, so I have been playing these tracks for years and familiar with them.

In any event, good luck to all.
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Old 10-28-2010, 02:41 PM   #9
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Originally Posted by For The Lead View Post
Actually, I go a bit further than that.

I NEVER extract or project and my advice to others would be the same. There are just too many good opportunities for a handicapper without them getting involved with this concept.

Handicapping is tough enough. Don't make it harder!
yea! liking a pace line 4 lines back from another race and is #1 on top bl/bl then to change the line to its last @ the track and it drops out of top 6
then wins the race @ 18-1.
r3 kee
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Old 10-29-2010, 10:17 AM   #10
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yea! liking a pace line 4 lines back from another race and is #1 on top bl/bl then to change the line to its last @ the track and it drops out of top 6
then wins the race @ 18-1.
r3 kee
What is this have to do with extraction or projection?
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