Meanwhile...

[TGJB]

You guys downloaded 406 Race Shapes the first day we put them up, and that does not include those who hit the link in the email and took them that way. I can\'t believe not one of you has a comment.

[fkach]

I\'ve been very busy. I\'m sure I\'ll have something to say after I use them for awhile. I already think the format is excellent.  I really can\'t see how people aren\'t going to like this product once they get used to using it. IMO, it\'s a no brainer to be a significant plus in anyone\'s handicapping.

[high roller]

jerry , no offense but the quirin points that were invented 25 years ago and are included in the bris pp\'s are the gold standard as far as race shapes goes, they consistently outperform anything that is on the market, THAT;S MY COMMENT.

[Lost Cause]

high roller Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> jerry , no offense but the quirin points that were
> invented 25 years ago and are included in the bris
> pp\'s are the gold standard as far as race shapes
> goes, they consistently outperform anything that
> is on the market, THAT;S MY COMMENT.


But how do you know if Quirin\'s is still the best on the market if you don\'t even try the TG product?...It\'s free to try so why not..
I will be using it this upcoming week and should have something to say then..

[TGJB]

Yeah, I remember another product that preceded us by 25 years that used to be the gold standard.

Unless Quirin is using wind, ground, an accurate variant, proper turn corrections for different distances at different tracks, and adjusting for runups, I think we\'ll do okay heads-up. And even better after we\'ve had a couple of months of feedback. and make any changes necessary.

Is Quirin expressing his figures in actual time, adjusted for the recent speed of the track they are running over today?

[miff]

JB,

Dr. Quirin\'s figs were called speed points and are almost none of what you have alluded to in so far as component makeup of your race shapes.I believe you would scoff at his methodology but it was ahead it\'s time in 1979.The book is called Winning At The Races,Computer Discovery in Thoroughbred Handicapping and you would appreciate it\'s content relative to the time it was written.

Your product and modern pace figs are an extension to what he set out to do years ago. I could shoot lots of holes in the theories being used today but they are absolutely better than no data at all.The manner in which you are approaching it(similar to Randy Moss) is very comprehensive but synthetic/poly will render these race shape figs less reliable than if all races were run on dirt tracks.When fields begin to have more of a mixture of dirt/synth/poly runners, there will be some head scratching for \"speed\" bettors, like me.

The actual first standard for pace figs that I saw goes back 40+ years to a \"system\" devised by disciples of Julie Fink and the \"speed boys.\" Astonishingly they factored at wind, gate placement, path, bias to name some elements. Not too many players had a clue about such matters back then. These guys were betting $1,000.00 per race when $50 bucks was considered a big bet.


Mike

[TGJB]

Miff-- my guess is that you know my friend Connie Merjos (The Beard). He also speaks about Fink and all those things he and others were doing before Ragozin invented them.

You should be able to pick out the poly lines from each horse and use those, if they\'ve already run on it.

[high roller]

Jerry, wind, variant and such have absolutely nothing to do with race shapes, the quirin numbers have for 25 years outperformed everything that has been invented, unless your race shapes can predict in high percentages what horse will be leading at the pace call or quarter mile call, they are useless.

i will forward you in percentage terms what the quirins produce so you can check it against yours.

[TGJB]

Yeah, you\'r right, how fast they\'ve run in the past has nothing to do with how fast they\'ll run today.

The way you know how fast they have run first quarters in the past is basically the same as the way you know how fast they ran for a whole race-- which means all those factors are crucially important. Especially since some times the first quarter has been wind aided, or the opposite, sometimes they are running around a turn, or not, sometimes it\'s an 8 foot runup, sometimes 100 feet-- little things like that.

I particularly like that you have made this judgement without looking at the Race Shapes for, say, 50 races.

[high roller]

Early% = percentage of time a horse with this speed point total is 1-2-3 at the first call.
Dirt Sprints (no wet tracks or maidens tested)
8 - 91.2
7 - 82.7
6 - 66.3
5 - 49.6
4 - 41.0
3 - 35.4
2 - 27.5
1 - 18.3

jerry, a horse with 8 quirin points will be 1,2,3 at the first call 91% of the time. let\'s do a trial (100 races)with your new numbers and see if you can match that or be in the same area.

[covelj70]

I think you are comparing Apples to Oranges here.

The Quirin points explicitly don\'t try to predict where a horse will be positioned in the race which Jerry\'s numbers obviously do try to predict.  It\'s one thing to know that a horse will be in 1-3 at the first call (which Quirin\'s numbers can predict) but not knowing where anyone else in the race will be after the first call (which Quirin doesn\'t help with) makes that analysis less useful

[TGJB]

Uh... out of curiosity, what do you do if 4 horses in a race have 8 points?

Match what? We don\'t give out points. And your percentages add up to about 400%, by the way.

If we arbitrarily said we would say our equivalent of an \"*8\" was a horse that came up 2 lengths or more clear on the Race Shapes, and threw out maiden races, I guarantee they would be 1-2-3 at least that % after a quarter. But is that really the only question you care about?

[elkurzhal]

Just wondering if you guys have given any though to the other half of the races shape, the last quarter?   Would be a huge tool for the slow paced turf and poly races, which may be more predictable with the race shapes first 1/4 numbers.  Seems like it would be all the same methodology.   Either way thanks for the free trial!

[TGJB]

Several people have asked this and related questions. We\'re not rating the horses, or trying to measure ability with the Race Shapes-- just trying to give some idea how the race will set up.

[dehere]

High Roller - your stat amazed me a bit based on my experience with QP. So, to double check I ran a quick study from this year\'s spring KEE meet. Perhaps KEE is not the best meet to run this study but stats should be stats right?

Anyway, out of 1,388 starters in the KEE meet spread among 151 races over 16 days there were 478 horses that were in the top three at the first call (in some races there were four horses in the \"top 3\" because of ties in beaten lengths). That leads to an average field size of 9.2 horses per race.

Here\'s the results of the study based on QP and position at first call.

8 QP = 26 of 32 for 81%
7 QP = 28 of 35 for 80%
6 QP = 86 of 142 for 61%
5 QP = 72 of 128 for 56%
4 QP = 59 of 135 for 44%
3 QP = 49 of 191 for 26%
2 QP = 42 of 175 for 24%
1 QP = 47 of 222 for 21%
0 QP = 21 of 162 for 13%
FTS (no QP) = 48 of 165 for 29%

So, at least for this meet the QP trend is not quite as clean as indicated. I guess what is also noticeable to me is that 45% of the horses who were in the top 3 at the first call had QP between 4 and 6 - clearly not all that great a predictive tool as one might imagine. Another way of looking at this is that only 2.3% of the total starters had 8 QP with another 2% having a 7 QP.

Anyway, just some data to mull over.