Forecasts – Stage 2

Forecasts!

I've done some more analysis of the Ratings for the last year; in order to identify some trends for profitably betting on Straight Forecasts.

Now, the first thing that I looked at was the number of runners in a race.

But...

Then I got an email from Gary T who said... "I have bet a reverse forecast on the top 2 horses where the third rated horse has a confidence level of less than 80%"

So....

I took a look at both strategies and this is what I found....

Number of runners

I wrote some code and created a new spreadsheet which would help me identify any trends.

The file may be found here...

Forecast analysis file - version 2

Now, I should warn you that it's a pretty big file (21.3MB) and, thus, might take a while to download.

A walk through the file...

So, the file has 4 tabs at the bottom.

1). The first tab (called Complete) contains all the data that you'd normally expect to find on a Results spreadsheet but...

With an additional 2 columns on the right hand side of the spreadsheet.

The first additional column shows the confidence of the Third rated horse.

The second additional column shows the rounded (to the nearest 5%) confidence of the Third rated horse.

2). The second tab (called Races) contains all the data in Complete but, only for the top rated horse.

Thus, it lists just one line per race rather than the 3 lines for the Complete sheet.

3). The Third tab (called Runner Analysis) shows the results based upon the number of runners.

4). The final tab details the Confidence level of the 3rd rated horse.

Now, I've rounded the Confidence to the nearest 5% - that just makes it easier to analyse the results.

Runner Analysis

So, I'll start by looking at the number of runners...

The graph quite clearly shows that...

The fewer the runners in a race, the more likely that we'll get the forecast.

If you click on the graph, you'll see it full size - just don't forget to use your back button to return here.

Now, there are mathematical ways of identifying the crucial cut off point but...

I'm going to go on a hunch and suggest that races of 12 horses or less is about right as a starting point?

3rd Rated Confidence Analysis

The graph quite clearly shows that, as expected, the lower the confidence of the 3rd rated horse, the higher the expectation of getting the forecast.

The second rated horse always has a confidence of 100%.

So, the further away from the top two rated horses the 3rd rated horse is, the more likely that the top 2 rated horses will come 1st and 2nd (or 2nd and 1st.)

We'll probably need to look at the confidence of the top rated horse to ensure that we get the forecast rather than the reverse forecast?

If you click on the graph, you'll see it full size - just don't forget to use your back button to return here.

Putting it all together...

So, we've got the race types (below) which seem to be more successful for forecasts.

Race Type	Race Type 2	Handicap	Races	Strike Rate
Flat	Conditions Race	Yes	1	100.00%
All Weather	Auction Stakes	No	2	50.00%
Flat	Claiming	Yes	7	28.57%
Flat	Claiming	No	53	15.09%
Flat	Selling	No	66	13.64%
National Hunt – Chase	Graduation Chase	No	8	12.50%
Flat	Conditions Race	No	62	11.29%
National Hunt – Chase	Novice	No	129	10.85%
All Weather	Selling	No	74	10.81%
National Hunt – Chase	Juvenile	No	39	10.26%
National Hunt – Hurdles	Novice	No	391	10.23%
National Hunt – Flat	Intermediate Race	No	25	8.00%
All Weather	Amateur Race	Yes	13	7.69%
Flat	Charity Stakes	Yes	14	7.14%
All Weather	Maiden	No	465	6.67%
All Weather	Nursery	No	15	6.67%
National Hunt – Chase	Novice	Yes	212	6.60%
Flat	Maiden	No	868	6.45%

We've also got two other factors (no of runners and confidence of the 3 rated horse) to allow us to narrow the field and focus on a smaller range of opportunities.

So, I just need to create a spreadsheet which just shows the interesting race types where the number of runners is 12 or less and the confidence of the 3rd rated horse is 80% or less.

I'll be doing this later on today.

Your thoughts please?

Am I going down the right here?

If you have any thoughts on what I should be looking at then please leave a comment here and I'll take a look.

Perhaps you might want to discuss forecasts (and a potential strategy) on the forum?

And make this a community effort?

Anyway...

As always...

My kindest regards