Items on BL BL screen and Pace Balance speed

[CC Brown]

I have three questions.
1. What is VDC on the BL BL screen and how is it calculated. It looks like the ranking is from the ranking of 5 factors to the right. Is this correct?. If so I can find the spn-speed#, FX#,TS-total speed, TPP-looks like CPR#, but what is Epsalon?(E). I don't see that anywhere! What is and how do you use a Binder number when the ranking go 1-2-3-2 or 1? What are the fractals and how are they derived and how do you use them? I assume E means early, L means late- what does N mean?
2. Pizzola comes up with a pace balanced number to give a horse extra credit for being able to run and finish well against a fast pace. Is there such a Sartin number? At first I thought-energy, but if two horses run the same times no matter how you add up the velocity fractions they add to the same thing. Example: H1 22.5 45 110 1 1 1 1 H2 23 46 110 1 1 1 1 These still total the same energy don't they? Even though H1 is a better horse.
#. On the bl bl there is something denotes as BAL I also so it on another screen.. What is it and how do you use it?
Thanks for a reply.
CC
PS I watched one of the training videos and it got thorough the Velocity and Energy screen then stopped and coould not find one that followed.

[Charlie D]

Hi CC

Bill's excellent "glossary of terms" thread may help with a couple of your queries.

http://paceandcap.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5609

[Charlie D]

Binder

http://paceandcap.com/forums/showthr...inder+improver

http://paceandcap.com/forums/showthr...inder+improver

[Charlie D]

VDC

http://paceandcap.com/forums/showthr...y+deceleration

[CC Brown]

Thanks Charlie I could not find that stuff when I searched.
CC

[barb craven]

HiCC

I just clicked on the threads Charlie gave you and the items in question came right up. Why don't you try them again.

Good luck

Barb

[CC Brown]

I meant to say I found them from Charlie's stuff but when I searched before posting I could not find anything under BL BL. Thank you again Charlie.
CC

[Ted Craven]

Originally Posted by CC Brown

I have three questions.

1. What is VDC on the BL BL screen and how is it calculated. It looks like the ranking is from the ranking of 5 factors to the right. Is this correct?. If so I can find the spn-speed#, FX#,TS-total speed, TPP-looks like CPR#, but what is Epsalon?(E). I don't see that anywhere! What is and how do you use a Binder number when the ranking go 1-2-3-2 or 1? What are the fractals and how are they derived and how do you use them? I assume E means early, L means late- what does N mean?

2. Pizzola comes up with a pace balanced number to give a horse extra credit for being able to run and finish well against a fast pace. Is there such a Sartin number? At first I thought-energy, but if two horses run the same times no matter how you add up the velocity fractions they add to the same thing. Example: H1 22.5 45 110 1 1 1 1 H2 23 46 110 1 1 1 1 These still total the same energy don't they? Even though H1 is a better horse.

3. On the bl bl there is something denotes as BAL I also so it on another screen.. What is it and how do you use it?

Thanks for a reply.
CC

PS I watched one of the training videos and it got thorough the Velocity and Energy screen then stopped and coould not find one that followed.

Hi CC,

Your questions are all excellent ones, and if I understand the gist, are essentially 'what factors should I be paying attention to' and also perhaps 'which ones should I ignore'.

1. What is V/DC

BL/BL is the central, summary screen. All the other screens are feeder screens, or fancy ways of impactfully portraying the ratings as they progress from Raw to Adjusted to Compounded. In the centre of the BL/BL screen is the Bottom Line Score - the weighted Line Score derived from the 7 preceding Primary Factors, which themselves are portrayed in more detail on the tabbed screens to the left of the BL/BL Screen. The BL Score is highly co-related to Total Energy (TE). To the right of the BL Score is an Odds Line (and definitely not one summing to 100%), above which odds a given horse may be a wager, depending on how many horses you will bet, what your historical edge is and net odds offered by all your horses.

To the right of that is V/DC. It's in the centre of the screen co-equal to BL, and for a reason. V/DC is NOT derived from the Supplementary Factors to its right. The V/DC ranking as shown, is a Compound of 2 things: 1) the BL score itself, plus 2) the actual underlying V/DC formula which measures for each race segment the deceleration in that segment relative to the average velocity during that segment, then sums them. Often the V/DC rankings match the order of the BL rankings. For a given paceline, where the component #2 would otherwise rank higher than component #1 (i.e. velocity/deceleration outranks BL), the V/DC component rank is shown for that line instead of the BL rank, thus tied V/DC ranks are common. So, a horse (or paceline) whose V/DC rank is better than its BL rank is showing an ability to better overcome the pace of the race than the mere weighted BL line score would portray.

Doc's idea with this was to point out horses which otherwise would rank lower in BL or TE but stand a good chance if the matchup favours their running or energy disbursement style today, or if the favourite loses (which it does about 2/3rd of the time...). These horses may look like longshots, but they have merit worthy of further investigation. A horse may have low TE for several reasons: in the line you're using (e.g. a recent one) it just didn't have to run that fast to get the job done, wherever it finished (a horse runs as fast as it needs to, not as fast as it can...); OR, the pace was fast and it finished perhaps non-descriptly, but never-the-less disbursed its energy well in the final fraction (relative to all the other horses today). If today's matchup features a number of Early or E/P horses, the horse with a good V/DC rank (say Top 3) may survive the speed duel or collect the pieces.

The so called 'Binder Improver' (BI) pattern (named by Bill V, aka 'Binder') appears as a #1 (or sometimes #2) V/DC rank in 3rd or 4th position (relative to BL, since the screen is sorted by BL rank). That horse 'improves' on its BL rank. Oftentimes, the odds will be better on such horses and above a certain (self-determined threshold, e.g. 5-1) figure this horse to finish at least in-the-money. Such BI's are also co-related with strong F3, so cross-check F3 on Velocity, L/ep on Energy and Total Pace+F3 on Segments (in Default Mode). For users of RDSS' Validator emulation mode, the relative magnitude of the underlying V/DC formula is shown in that same space on the Segments screen.

Doc stated that where the V/DC rank exceeded the BL rank, he would defer to the V/DC. Over the years, various users and researchers have reported that Top 3 and ties V/DC win between 66% and 75% of the time.

Hope that helps a bit on the derivation and uses of the V/DC.

Re other readouts - first a prologue: RDSS is intended to a faithful rendering of both Validator and Speculator. Though a few (arguably non-significant) readouts from each are missing, other readouts which I believe Doc would have canned by now anyway (i.e. because the concepts never quite panned out, or are fully redundant to other readouts) are still there, among them: SPN, Entropy ( Σ symbol) and Fractals. For that reason, I suggest you ignore them as 'too much information'! You are being well served by all that remains. Other largely redundant readouts are E/ep and EPR (E/ep was Doc's preferred representation of 2nd call energy) and L/ep and LPR (likewise L/ep is better) and thus CPR and TPP (TPP - Total Pace Potential is better). The crucial Early/Late Differential readout could be expressed using the differential between E/ep and L/ep (instead of EPR and LPR) and would be somewhat more accurate. Similarly ALL of the Segments screen is redundant to rankings shown on the Velocity screen (just shown in a different visually impactful manner). Look for the next version of RDSS to be simpler, do more with fewer readouts, more pictures (though all the existing and the above mentioned missing Val and Spec readouts will be optionally available to display and model if you've come to rely successfully on them). CC, if you really, really need to know more about Fractals, let me know. Anyway, I cannot give you any good advice on how to use those readouts other than to model them and see what they say...

Focus on Total Energy, E/L, E/ep, L/ep, TPP, BL, V/DC - then look for value to see if a wager is possible.


2. Pace Balanced Speed (PBS)

V/DC and Total Pace+F3 (Segments) will show you a horse best able to overcome its Pace of Race. Given that Total Energy Top 3 (not tied) will predict between 64% - 67% of winners from some major tracks (according to a few recent reports I received, over about 600 races this year so far), you could do worse than to triangulate those 3 readouts.

In your examples for Total Energy , I'm not sure whether the 1 1 1 1 represent beaten lengths or running position (i.e. 0 beaten lengths, gate-to-wire). Let's presume the latter. Time splits for Horse 1 are 22.5 22.5 25, each for 1320 feet or 2 furlongs - Total Energy is 170.14. Horse 2 splits are 23 23 24 - Total Energy is 169.42. This is a good way to pick horses' recent pacelines for the final Analysis process (try cross-referencing TE with Perceptor Total on the horse's Primary Screen).

To see the fastest horse(s) to the 2nd call, check E/ep for the top 2 ranked (particularly those with E or EP Running Styles) then check the TPP. Those horses with top ranked TPP and E/ep will have had good enough L/ep to stick around. Which leads to...


3. Balance

Balance is the sum of the E/ep and L/ep ranks. If you're winnowing down all horse's lines to say 5 or 4, you can use Balance > 8 as an elimination tool (for WIN), but Total Energy works just as well, IMO (i.e. eliminate to Top 5 TE). The theory is that, over larger numbers of races, the horse with balanced E/ep + L/ep (say less than 8, for a 5 horse set) will represent winners better than, say, 2+6=8 or worse 4+4=8, etc. But I feel this is largely redundant to looking at the underlying component ranks, and I would not recommend obsessing (or even recording) Balance. If E/ep rank is 1 and L/ep rank is 5 out of 5 horses, you get a Balance of 6, yet so do you with 3+3. It's more useful to know if that E/ep #1 rank belongs to an Early horse (distinct from a non-Early) and whether it will have any early pressure from other Early's or from other horses with competitive E/ep ratings, and whether its L/ep is also high enough to withstand such potential challenge - than it is to know only that its Balance was 5 or 6 or 7. The constituent E/ep and L/ep facts are much more fine-grained and useful information, IMO, and thus their aggregate - TPP, will tell you more than Balance.


4. APV and Class Rating (CR)

You did not ask about these ratings, summarized on the Entries screen and the top 3 CR labeled with RED/GREEN/YELLOW colour on the horse tabs and on Analysis screens Program # column, but here's a comment since there were a few questions elsewhere. Perhaps you will find that the Top 3 CR are highly represented among winners if you keep the records, but never have they been intended as a primary factor for final contender ranking or wagering decisions. Knowing a horse's Average Purse Value win competitiveness relative to today's Purse, and its in-the-money percentage (components in CR) is just a rough guide as to whom to start with when selecting pacelines - i.e. get the 'principal actors' first - even if some of their CR ranking is derived from last year, or from a previous segment of their form cycle - then move on to the other horses. Purse values are a fraught means of determining relative class - beginning with the classic 'Yellow Manual' in the late 1980's, Sartin always made the case that Class = Energy (and more nuanced: incremental Energy disbursement, or - the Match Up). That is why Total Energy or other means related to compounded velocity ratings are more signature elements of the Methodology (and will point to relatively more obscure, higher paying win and exotic wagers) than those measures based on earnings and consistency, or on man-made race class categories.

One way some people do use CR and APV is if a horse has recently performed relatively poorly compared to its previous form, or has been laid off for some time, consider using a Top ranked APV/CR today as an excuse to go back several lines to previous good performance, and better Total Energy. Be very cautious with this excuse, and insure against loss by demanding better odds on such a runner today, or bet not-for-win. In the case of a returning long layoff horse, also highly prefer some good workout patterns - anything to hint that there's a chance of resuming its former ability.

Another way to proceed through analysing today's runners is described by Barb Craven (and Richie P) here: http://paceandcap.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5881. Similar to that is: start with the Earlies and E/Ps, use the E/ep, E/L sticks and Segments Screen to visualize who will take the lead, how fast, how hotly pursued, etc. Then, work your way through the non-Earlies, watching how their addition to the Analysis set changes the mix and range of Total Energy and which Earlies finally retain sufficient Late to withstand the other Early competitors as well as the Late runners.



Re the (incomplete) RDSS Factor review video - yep, we never got past that first half, sorry! Please consider the foregoing discussion as a down-payment on the remainder! I've avoided doing videos for the past little while as I know the the next version of RDSS will look significantly different (retaining the familiar readouts and navigation style, though), so I don't want to contribute more to the educational libraries only for it to look fairly dated relatively soon. (Plus, it's a bit of work...)

If there are any questions as to what things mean, or how they relate (or how they are redundant) or how to perform analysis and make wager decisions with them, (after studying and thinking about it a bit), just fire away with more questions!



Ted

[CC Brown]

Wow, that clears up a number of things up. First and foremost Energy does include pace in it as your calculation show. Plus a low V/DC rank also denotes a horse that can run again a fast pace.

I listen to several of the videos and read the articles outlined by Charlie but none of that clearly said what V/DC was or how to use it.
Thanks
CC

[rjaymes24]

Ted or anybody,

Can you please give me a little information on how to get/ calculate HID# (hidden energy)from raw data on the velocity screen.

Thank you in advance.


RYan