Using Speed To Assess A Horse’s Chance

Let me begin this piece by asking a (loaded) question:

“If you were to place a bet on the likely winner of a 100m race, would you bet the fastest man in the field or the man who won his last two races against inferior opposition?”

I hope that you answered “the fastest man” and, if you didn’t, I hope that by the end of this, you will be converted.

Having said that, it’s not always the case that the fastest man will win. Although in 100m races, this is typically true, sometimes athletes fluff the start and have too much catching up to do.

In races of 1,500m or more, there may be a tactical situation where the fastest man loses his speed advantage over the full distance, and is usurped by the man (or woman) with the best finishing kick.

As it is true for track athletes, so it is also true for cyclists, auto racers, rowers, and horses.

Time waits for no man (or beast). The evidence of the clock is incontrovertible.

However, while the time a horse records in winning a race may be unarguable, the elements that conspired to that win – the jockey, the pace in the race, the going, the wind speed and direction, the track constitution, and whether the ground staff moved the running rails – are all open to interpretation.

This makes the ‘science’ of speed assessment an inexact one, and it is precisely this inexactitude that makes for potential profit.

In this country, there are a number of ratings services who increasingly rely on the evidence of the clock, in conjunction with other imponderables, to identify the likeliest winner in a given line-up. The most obvious one is Timeform, and there are numerous others.

In the US speed guru Andy Beyer’s seminal work, “Picking Winners”, he espouses the virtues of using the evidence of the stopwatch to find winners. In his foreword in that book, Beyer writes,

“Surely it doesn’t require much imagination to conclude that races will often be won by the fastest horse. Yet in 1975, this idea was considered heterodox, even preposterous. Horseplayers believed in class, not speed, and experts would often pose a hypothetical question like this one: A $10,000 [claiming value] horse runs six furlongs in 1:11.0. A $20,000 horse runs the same six furlongs in 1:11.6. Now they are matched against each other, who will win? The overwhelming majority of people involved in American racing would have answered without hesitation that the $20,000 animal’s superior class would enable him to prevail. Even Tom Ainslie, the most astute and literate author of handicapping books, espoused the supreme importance of class.

Of course, there were in America some bettors who recognised the importance of speed and profited handsomely by betting the $10,000 horse who could run faster than his $20,000 rival”.

Now, personally, I don’t think that in this example, where there are only three-fifths of a second between the two runners, that it is necessarily the case that the fastest horse would win, because that time difference would equate to only four lengths on a traditional interpretation of times (see below). And that sort of difference could easily be countered by a troubled passage or a missed beat at the start.

However, the more likely winner, would unquestionably be the faster horse. So the bet would have to be on the faster horse.

What was true in America in 1975 is still true today here for many racing punters. A formerly smart handicapper dropping to claiming company is often assumed to be a good thing, even though the numbers may indicate he is by no means the fastest horse.

The stats for this are instructive.

If you had bet £1 on every horse running in a claimer over the last five years, that had had its previous run in a handicap, you’d have lost a whopping £1618.08.

Even if you limited those runners to horses who appeared in the first three in the betting, you’d still have lost an eye watering £192.08.

Although class can help as an indicator of form (as we’ll discover another day), speed is a more quantifiable measure.

So how does one actually go about calculating speed ratings? It is obvious to even the newest of newbies that it is not simply a case of clocking the time for a race. This would make no account of the numerous variables already touched upon, particularly track constitution and going.

So, in order to factor some of these elements into the calculations, and to create a degree of uniformity, we need some reference data.

Firstly, we need a set of ‘standard times’. A standard time is simply a constant approximation of the time a horse would take to cover the race distance for a particular class of race at a particular track, usually whilst carrying a specific weight. From there, the individual race times on a given day can be derived, and a ‘track variant’, or going allowance, can be calculated.

Although this may sound complicated, it really isn’t. I’ve set up a little Excel spreadsheet for the four all weather tracks that enables me to calculate the ratings for the race winners on a given day in around ten minutes.

The number crunching to manually enter all the data into another spreadsheet takes me a little longer, but the actual calculation part is simple and broadly automated.

If any reader is interested in the spreadsheet template and my set of standard times, which I got from speed guru, Nick Mordin, please let me know and I’d be happy to share them.

So, the process for working out the speed figures is as follows:

1. Enter the distance and race class for each race on the card
2. Enter the actual times the winners recorded
3. Calculate the track variant
4. Work out the ratings for the beaten horses

The first part is simple, especially using my spreadie.

Point two is equally straightforward.

Thereafter, life gets a bit more interesting. Lest you think that everyone who does this will get the same results, and therefore the value is diluted, let me disabuse you of that notion.

The track variant is interpretable. What I tend to do, in line with the Nick Mordin approach outlined in his book ‘Betting For A Living’ and stated in full in the excellent ‘Mordin on Time’, is throw out the fastest and slowest (after applying the class allowance elements) run races.

I then look at the subset of data I have left to see if there are any further outliers (i.e. race times that are obviously out of kilter with the remainder).

For all of the remaining race times, I calculate the average, based on the adjusted time difference per mile. This then becomes my track variant.

It really is a lot easier to do than to explain, but if you’re interested in learning more, I heartily recommend you get a copy of Mordin on Time. (It’s available on Amazon for about eight quid).

To calculate the ratings for the beaten horses, you simply divide the distance beaten by the race distance in miles, and subtract that from the winner’s rating. So for instance, a horse beaten two lengths in a one mile race, would get a rating of two less than the winner (2 divided by 1 = 2). Likewise, a horse beaten three lengths in a six furlong (or 0.75 mile) race, would get a rating of four less than the winner (3 divided by 0.75 = 4).

I need to clarify two points here:

Firstly, the numbers create a relationship between time and distance beaten, by assuming that one point on the ratings equates to one length beaten over a mile or, in time terms one fifth of a second per mile. So, in theory, a horse beaten a length over a mile has run to the same relative mark against the race winner as a horse beaten two lengths over two miles. (I hope this makes sense).

Seco
ndly, you’ll notice I’ve made only passing reference to weight in my assessments. This is because my experience, and that of much better qualified judges, suggests that the influence of weight is overrated, especially on all weather tracks, where I focus my attentions.

It’s true that a horse due to carry a stone more weight may struggle, but a pound or two here or there is rarely as important as the horse’s winning / trying attitude.

By following this simple rating procedure, you can quickly build up a database of numbers against horses. And you will find that sometimes a horse will surprise you with a very high rating. Do not be afraid to accept that a horse can improve significantly for a change of surface, or if unexposed on the surface. Be more sceptical if the horse is more experienced and suddenly throws in a freakishly fast time: the chances of a repeat are slim.

I mentioned recently that Les Fazzani ran very quickly in what seemed a fairly ‘run of the mill’ race at Kempton. She came out and won again next time by four lengths at odds of 5/1. (I didn’t back her because the race was on turf but, had she been running again at Kempton, I’d have pulled the boots on! And she’d surely have won).

It’s this type of information that is not necessarily available to the public, and that is fairly objective (remember, there is some interpretation in the numbers) that can be so powerful.

Before work commitments precluded me spending the time on them, I kept ratings for Lingfield, Southwell and Wolverhampton for four winters in a row. I made money each and every year.

I plan to reinstate the ratings for this winter, which is why I have been dusting off the old spreadies, and why I’ve acquired some up-to-date standard times.

I’m very much looking forward to a profitable winter season!

[Note, the reason I only look at speed ratings for all weather tracks is because generally there are many less variables to deal with. For instance, the running rails are never moved and therefore the distance is always as advertised; the going changes much less markedly than on turf tracks; horses who act at a track once are pretty likely to replicate that; horses who don’t are equally likely to replicate their failure; and there is a good chance that horses will continue to run consistently at the same location, due to the number of fixtures from October to March.]

One important note of caution which is worth repeating: as I mentioned at the top of this piece, a fast horse can only run a fast time in a fast run race. I appreciate that may be a statement of glaring obviousness.

But remember that small field races, or races where there is no obvious front runner(s), or races over a longer trip (a ‘route’ as they say, Stateside), often become tactical and any advantage a fast horse has can be nullified unless he also possesses a turn of foot.

This brings us nicely onto pace as a means of identifying race winners, which I will discuss in more detail next time…

Matt

UK Form And Its Shortcomings

Under the reign of Queen Anne, during the period 1702-1714, horse races involving several horses on which spectators placed bets took over from match racing and horse racing became a professional sport, with racecourses founded throughout England, including the track at Ascot, founded by Queen Anne herself, in 1711.

In 1750 in the Star and Garter pub, Pall Mall, the first meeting of what was to become The Jockey Club was convened.

Their initial remit was to ensure that races run on Newmarket Heath were done so fairly, and the statutes they instated were soon embraced by many of the racecourses operating in Britain at that time.

The estimable daily racing newspaper, The Sporting Life, was first published in 1859, and lived until the ripe old age of 139, before being amalgamated with the Racing Post in 1998.

The reason for this selective and potted history lesson is that between the robust regimen of the Jockey Club, and the widespread dissemination of information propagated by the Sporting Life, horse race wagering became much more common practice from the middle of the 19^th century.

Wagering had been a part of horse racing since the middle 1600’s, but it gained a new aura of trust and respectability with the publication of both rules of racing and official form and results.

At some point, and I can’t find any evidence of when, some clever soul must have realised that if all horses raced as equals (i.e. with just a saddle and a jockey on their back), some of them would prevail too regularly to sustain betting.

The reason for my contention is that horse racing as a sport would surely honour the fastest horse, just as athletics as a sport honours the fastest athlete, rather than try to find ways to give slower and less capable horses a chance to win.

However, in order to make betting more interesting – and therefore more popular, and in turn therefore to generate more revenue – measures were needed to even out the theoretical chances of all horses in a race.

Thus ‘handicap’ races were conceived (anybody know when?), where the best horse is allotted the most weight to carry, in order to attempt to level out its chance against the other contenders.

This weight measurement became the pre-eminent unit of form analysis in British horse racing. Weight equals lengths, and lengths beaten – or in front of – another animal is still taken as a fairly literal interpretation of the respective merits of the beasts in any given contest.

To my mind, this is patently ridiculous. There are so many basic imponderables ignored by a study predicated on this concept.

Elements such as the pace of the race: that is, how fast was the race run? Was the race run at a similar speed throughout? Or was it stop / start? Did the winner lead off slowly and ‘steal’ the win? Or did it come from far back, outstaying tired runners who’d shot their bolts?

How can you infer that in weight and lengths?

Elements such as the going, the distance and course: what were the underfoot conditions? And when they recorded the going as good to soft at Cheltenham and horses were breaking track records, did they think we didn’t know they were lying? (For God’s sake, let’s get out of the dark ages and use a common scientific turf moisture measuring tool, like the penetrometer or some such!).

The distance of the race: yes, it was a mile on the race card. But did you know they’d moved the rail in ten feet? Around a two furlong turn, that makes a significant difference to the overall distance.

The course: A beat B by five lengths around the turning 5 furlongs at Chester. Therefore, he should win by the same margin on the straight course at Sandown with all other things equal, right? Wrong.

What if B is a huge tank of a horse? He’d have no chance of finding any kind of rhythm on the bullring that is the Roodee. Much better suited to a stiff galloping dash like that at Esher’s finest. I’d take B to put five lengths into A on a straight track.

Of course, you will rightly identify that most savoir faire students of form will factor in a number of these elements and, indeed, this information is now much more freely available thanks to the wonders of the information age.

Nevertheless, UK racing still has at its heart, lengths beaten and weight carried.

Furthermore, there is some evidence that weight actually makes very little difference to a horse’s performance. Sure, if you put an extra two stone on its back, then that has a bearing. But if you put the equivalent of a bag of sugar or two on the lumbar of a ton of rippling equine sinew, do you seriously think that will do the trick?

The fact is that horses going up a few pounds win far more often than those going down a few pounds.

In Nick Mordin’s excellent “Betting For A Living”, he did a survey of 222 races over a three year period, where in each case two horses who had previously finished close together (within two lengths) were going head to head again.

When the weight differential remained the same, or the loser from the first meeting carried more weight, the loser lost again 56 times out of 96 – or 58%.

When the weight differential allowed the loser to carry less weight, it lost 73 times out of 126. Or 58%.

In other words, an average weight pull of 2.45lbs made not one iota of difference overall to the chances of the losing horse from the first time reversing the placings next time they met.

According to weights and lengths, that weight turnaround should allow the tables to be turned on each occasion (distance depending).

Looking at this from another perspective and, irrespective of collateral form between runners or mutual previous adversaries, there is a distinct pattern in handicaps. Take a look at the following data:

Years: 2004 2005 2006

Weight Rank - Descending (handicaps)

CATEGORY WINS RUNS STRIKE% LSP LSP% VSP%

1st (top weight) 1354 10842 12.49 -1721.74 -15.88 -8.39

2nd 954 8291 11.51 -1630.81 -19.67 -11.58

3rd 860
8235 10.44 -1577.51 -19.16 -15.08

4th 849 8324 10.20 -1979.05 -23.78 -11.32

5th 770 8104 9.50 -1438.82 -17.75 -12.85

6th 710 8138 8.72 -1692.27 -20.79 -13.90

7th 556 7641 7.28 -1960.25 -25.65 -21.59

8th 518 7239 7.16 -1777.71 -24.56 -18.17

9th 396 6461 6.13 -2102.38 -32.54 -22.22

10th+ 1187 23035 5.15 -6503.10 -28.23 -21.29

There are two points to make here:

1. There is an exact linear relationship between a horse’s weight position in the handicap hierarchy, and its win strike rate (‘chapeau’ to the handicapper!!). Top weights win just about once in every eight handicaps, whereas those tenth or lower win only around one in twenty.
2. Losses are limited the most when solely backing top weighted horses in handicaps, with about 84p returned for every £1 wagered at SP. With horses at the tail of the handicap, you’d lose pushing 30p in every pound!

In summary in this post, I’ve tried to highlight some of the shortcomings in simply taking the collateral form methodology as a means to identify the most likely winner of a horse race.

I totally accept the accusation that I may have exaggerated the import of weight and lengths in relation to some of the more sophisticated readers’ approaches.

However, I still believe that the majority of ‘skim’ form students (i.e. those who look beyond the 1’s, 2’s and 0’s to the left of a horse’s name, but not much beyond them) perceive distance beaten and weight carried as informative determinants in their quest to solve the puzzle.

We’ve seen here that small deviations in weight actually have a very limited likelihood of instigating a form reversal and, in the case of handicap races, a highly weighted horse should – on balance – be seen as a positive factor.

In the next exciting (!) instalment, we’ll start to look at alternative approaches, starting with my favourite – and probably the most obvious – element, speed.

Until then…
Matt

N.B. the next piece in this series will not be until early next week. I trust that won’t spoil anyone’s weekend ;o)

Introduction

Horse racing as a sport has thrived in this country for over 900 years. It is said that the Crusaders returned from their battles with lightning swift Arab horses as early as the 12^th Century. Known as the Sport of Kings, it was the likes of Lord Derby (after whom the principle race in the UK flat calendar is named) and his moneyed cohorts who exclusively enjoyed the thrills of ownership for most of the intervening years.

Indeed, the colours of Lord Derby are still carried with honour, most recently by the incomparable race mare, Ouija Board.

Across ‘The Pond’, in America, it was also the British settlers who instigated horse racing as a sport. The first recorded US track was built at Long Island, on the East Coast, in 1665.

Both sides of the big watery divide, the single common element that increased the popularity of horse racing was that the outcome could not be predicted with any certainty.

And of course the consequence of an uncertain outcome is, and always has been, a wager.

Gambling continues to pay the way for horse racing everywhere, though for how much longer so much poor sport can sustain itself (especially here in UK) is in some doubt, in the mind of this scribe at least.

The point of this rather ragged and incomplete history lesson, lest you wonder, is to emphasise the fundamental role of betting in the sport.

Betting makes for winners and losers, and – in the case of horse racing – the result is binary. You either have a ‘1’, and a win and a payout. Or you have a ‘0’, and not a win, and a loss.

This risk / reward scenario has been embraced since time immemorial as an opportunity to make money.

Historically, when communications such as we have in this digital age were less plausible than putting a man into space, foul play abounded, and scams were commonplace.

It was a brave (or foolhardy) man who struck, or accepted, a wager. Of course, this ‘glorious uncertainty’ deterred neither the aristocracy nor the peasant classes from wading in with their size nine buskins.

In more recent times, with the formation of various governing bodies, from local to international levels, and the appointment of senior on-course judiciary, the scope for skulduggery has reduced manifold (despite what the conspiracy theorists and terminal losers will try to peddle to you if they think you offer even half an ear in their direction).

This makes the practice of trying to find winners more scientific and less susceptible to the unknown and underhand machinations of a preconceived plot.

With the possibility that science or at least artistic study could identify the most likely winner of a race among thoroughbreds, came the students to whose dedication to methodical analysis we owe everything we know today about what is commonly called ‘form’.

The interesting aspect, and the key theme of this mini-series, is the disparate evolution of horse racing form analysis that has developed on the two respective sides of the Atlantic.

The concept of collateral form – that is, A beat B by 5 lengths, and B beat C by 3 lengths; therefore, A should beat C by 8 lengths – is almost utterly alien Stateside. And yet it is the staple here in Britain and Ireland.

By the same token, the notions of pace, class and speed – which underpin US form study – are still the poor relations of collateral form in our verdant lands.

In the course of some of the following posts, I hope to introduce you to some of the key principles of US race analysis, and illustrate how prudent employment of these ideas can lead to real value in one’s betting here in Blighty.

Furthermore, if a methodology can identify the horse best suited to the prevailing conditions, or the fastest horse and, therefore, one to bet, it follows that the same methodologies can identify slow horses, or horses patently unsuited by the race makeup and, consequently, those to oppose.

In this day and age, this affords both bettor and bookmaker opportunities, and it is in both of these spheres that we should seek to take advantage of our window of opportunity.

And but a window it is. For, as with all systems and methods, its effectiveness will be finite and timebound. What works today because it is the premise of a minority of anti-establishment thinkers will tomorrow be the accepted wisdom of everyman.

Although it is sometimes difficult to take the less well-trodden route, it is unequivocally there that the path to financial gain lies.

Tomorrow, we’ll look at the history and evolution of UK form, and briefly consider its strengths and weaknesses as a means of identifying horses to invest in.

Matt