Using the old MPH and entering TM variants

[Jeebs]

I had emailed Ken Massa the other day about manually entering track variants into the old MPH software, and he stated that when he and Tom Brohamer were doing their own variants, 1 point = .15 fps, so if a track was 3 points fast, they would enter -0.45, or if the track was 3 points slow, they would enter +0.45 for the adjustment.

I see that Trackmaster has a variant on their PPs, but am not sure how to interpret it. For example, if a variant for the race is 20 (20 points slow), does it mean that its 20 fifths (lengths) slow, 20 tenths slow (which would be 10 fifths slow), or is there no way to make heads or tails because their formulas are proprietary?

[Bill V.]

hello jeebs

Glad to see you got MPH working

What I came up with, might not mean much to others but this might be a starting point, when working with the TM DTV

After many trials of trying to figure out how the TM DTV could match the DRF DTV
I found a system that seems to be working fairly well.

What I did was establish a variant par of 18 for sprints and 20 for routes

When I use my Phase 1 program the numbers are adjusted based on the DRF
variant. So I needed to equalize the TM DTV to the DRF DTV since I use TM PP's.
What I did was find pace lines were the horse ran at the exact same distance and same track and ran wire to wire with no beaten lengths
I kept redoing the lines with different variants until the EPR and TPR
numbers were exactly out of the Pace Makes The Race Book And what RDSS shows on the TPR screen

Those numbers were 18 for sprints and 20 for routes

Now if the TM is 10 I take 1/2 of the 10 ( I round up odd number variants )
and add 5 to 20 and enter the variant as 25 in a route or 23 in a sprint

for example using this horse
#1 Dilatory
Line 1 The TM DTV is 6 and its a route
so I take 1/2 of 6 = 3 and add it to 20 and get a DTV of 23

[Jeebs]

Originally Posted by Bill V.

Now if the TM is 10 I take 1/2 of the 10 ( I round up odd number variants )
and add 5 to 20 and enter the variant as 25 in a route or 23 in a sprint

for example using this horse
#1 Dilatory
Line 1 The TM DTV is 6 and its a route
so I take 1/2 of 6 = 3 and add it to 20 and get a DTV of 23

I'm lost. Would I multiply that 23 variant by +0.15 (apx. the FPS value of a length per Ken Massa) to get a variant total of +3.45? Or, do I take the initial TM DTV of 6, multiply that by +0.15 to get a variant of +0.90?

[Bill V.]

Hi jeebs

No I was just showing how I equalize the DRF variant which comes from the
3 year best speed rating
The Trackmaster variant is the difference of a man made par time
If you want to use a old program that used the DRF variant
you have to make some kind of adjustment first

A TM DTV of 20 is not the same thing as a DRF 20

Lets me know how things work
Bill

[tom]

I think the TM variant is different for each distance, closer to a Beyer scale variant.

What version of MPH do you have?

I will see if I can decipher how to convert it.
If you download a TM chart, it might be easy - they used to have the raw time, the variant, and the adjusted final time all on the same line. I have not used their charts for a few years, so not sure it is still like that.

[Jeebs]

I have Version 1.3 from 1995. I have the option of entering in Beyer figures or an FPS variant.

[Bill V.]

Originally Posted by tom

I think the TM variant is different for each distance, closer to a Beyer scale variant.

What version of MPH do you have?

I will see if I can decipher how to convert it.
If you download a TM chart, it might be easy - they used to have the raw time, the variant, and the adjusted final time all on the same line. I have not used their charts for a few years, so not sure it is still like that.

Hi Tom

The DTV in RDSS which I need to adjust to the DRF DTV uses a total DTV for the day, Sprints or routes


Here are a few examples
March 11 had a good mix of route and sprint distance at Parx

The DTV is 10
I went back and found some sprinters and some route horses
who have run again and we can see their pacelines all say DTV 10
the same for routes, sprints and horses changing distances

[tom]

Maybe if you look at those lines on the Adjusted screen you could figure out how much the 10 changes the final times.

[Ted Craven]

Here is how RDSS treats TrackMaster Daily Track Variant (DTV) points:

As Tom mentions above each DTV point has a time value which varies according to the the distance of the race it applies to. The formula is simply: 1 point = (.0125 seconds * number of furlongs in the race).

Thus -

1 DTV point in an 8f race = .0125 x 8 - .1 or one tenth second.
1 DTV point in a 6f race = .0125 x 6 = .075 seconds
1 DTV point in a 10f race = .0125 x 10 = .125 seconds

RDSS uses DTV points to 'normalize' race times, at the final, and also at the 2nd and 1st call points (though the impact of DTV is less the earlier in the race you are). Thus, for FAST variants (or negative values, e.g. -5) we take the time value according to the above formula and ADD it to the race final time to normalize it by slowing it down. Similarly, we SUBTRACT the time value of SLOW (positive, e.g. +5) variants from final time to speed the final time up.

If we do this equally to ALL races, we have a normalized set of times for relative comparison. Of course, all race distances and their respective final and sectional times must be equalized so the slow or fast applications of DTV are truly 'normalizing' and not 'scrambling' the race times. Equalizing race distances is a separate discussion (and often fraught with ambiguity, but we must do something).

You can make the same applications to your own software or to older software which makes use of current TrackMaster DTV info. Another thing, though, which RDSS and other Sartin software does, is optionally limit the amount of DTV time value which actually gets used to adjust equalized race times. A DTV of -40 on a Turf route race run once that day or only a handful of days per year at a track is highly unreliable: it does NOT necessarily represent inherent track/surface speed that day (e.g. due to weather, precipitation, track maintenance, etc). Rather it is as much or often much more due to calibre of competition that day and how many slow or fast horses were entered in how many different races, AND/OR the particular matchup of competitors running in some of those races. For example, many Earlies in a race (or several different races used to calculate that days DTV for the distance structure) producing a fast early pace, who then burn out and are overtaken by a gaining plodder who wins in a relatively slow time - makes that race look slow but not because of weather. Or - an Early battle where one of the Earlies puts the other(s) away and then fends off a Presser in runaway time - makes that race look fast. But it would have been slower if the competition - the matchup during the race - were different. ('A horse runs as fast as it needs to, not as fast as it can.')

So - the DTV can be influenced as much by these non-environmental factors as by any weather or track conditioning. If you accept this proposition, some people choose to use, say, 50% of the DTV time value to adjust the race times, while others choose to use all of it. Further, some choose to set boundaries on how FAST or how SLOW a DTV influence they will accept (e.g. no more than 20 points, fast/slow). This gets around the worst excesses of penalizing a fast horse a LOT because of a very high negative DTV (e.g. -40), or over-crediting a slow horse inappropriately by speeding up its times a LOT with a very high positive DTV (e.g. +35, etc).

Hopes this adds some light to the current time value system of TrackMaster's DTVs - and how you can apply it to modifying race times (and the required caveats). These various complications are what keeps the game so complex and so interesting!

cheers,

Ted

.

[Bill V.]

Ted

In my post above On March 11 at Parx
TD Bob ran at 8.0 DTV = 10
Artful Persuasion ran at 5.5 DTV = 10
Aces Up ran at 9.0 DTV = 10

I don't understand what you mean the DTV is adjusted to the distance.
I'm not looking at how RDSS adjust the DTV to use for its calculations
I'm just looking for a raw DTV for each day that I can use and
that matches the DRV DTV
If it is in fact that a 5.5, 8. and 9 furlong race all get equalized to the same
DTV 10 for March 11, does that mean all those distance that day had a raw
DTV that multiplied, times those fractions you listed will equal 10 ?

Thanks
Bill