Morning News

Good morning...

Preconceptions are very risky.

I think that one of the reasons that Focus Ratings is where it is today is that I had absolutely no preconceived ideas when I started it and, thus, had to test everything out myself.

However, when I started the Speed Ratings I had this silly idea that only recent speed figures would accurately predict the speed of a horse.

How wrong was I!

After a busy day's testing yesterday, I can now clearly see that, the more races I use to generate the Speed Ratings, the more accurate that they become.

Anyway, I'll get to that, firstly let's get on and take a quick look at yesterday's results in more detail....

Yesterday's Results

Yesterday's Results, show a strike rate (for our top rated horse) of 20.59%.

The Overall Profit Index. If you had blindly backed every top three rated horse in all of the races you would have had 99.11 units returned to 102 units staked. The Overall Profit Index was, thus, 97.17%

Top Rated Horse - If you had blindly backed the top rated horse in all of the races you would have had 23.61 units returned to 34 units staked. The Top Rated Profit Index was, thus, 69.44%

2nd Rated Horse - If you had blindly backed the second rated horse in all of the races you would have had 26.5 units returned to 34 units staked. The Second Rated Profit Index was, thus, 77.94%

3nd Rated Horse - If you had blindly backed the third rated horse in all of the races you would have had 49 units returned to 34 units staked. The Third Rated Profit Index was, thus, 144.12%

Forecasts

There were 2 forecasts yesterday.

Thurles 14:45:00 - The CSF paid £5.21

Taunton 16:05:00 - The CSF paid £7.94

Reverse Forecasts

There were 0 reverse forecasts yesterday.

Tricasts/Trifectas

There were 0 tricasts/trifectas yesterday.

Reverse Tricasts/Trifectas

There were 3 reverse tricasts/trifectas yesterday.

Thurles 14:15:00 - According to the Tote, the Trifecta paid £1,198.50

Ludlow 14:50:00 - The Trifecta paid £35.30

Taunton 15:00:00 - The Trifecta paid £4.90

Winners

From the 34 rated races there were 18 winners (from the top 3 rated horses.) 6 of those were at nice prices.

Course	Time	Horse	ISP	BSP
Thurles	14:15	Perfect Promise (7)	13.00	13.87
Ludlow	14:50	Blameitalonmyroots (4)	6.00	6.69
Ludlow	15:20	Global Power (5)	7.50	7.36
Ludlow	15:50	Seaviper (5)	9.00	8.56
Southwell (AW)	16:50	Al Muheer (7)	17.00	23.48
Thurles	16:55	Rebel Cry (12)	7.50	10.03

The Portfolio

There was a Banker's Bet (but not a Chancer's Bet) yesterday.

Banker's Bet = NH Chase - Mares who are top rated and came 3rd last time out. - where R4 Status = 1 and where Race Type = National Hunt - Chase and Horse = Mare and where Position last time out = Third

Selection = Back to ISP - Thurles - 14:15:00 - Carrigeen Kigelia (2)

Races (over last year): 19 Wins: 7 Strike Rate: 36.84% ROI: 149.94% Author:Keith Eckstein

Carrigeen Kigelia came second.

On the Portfolio Page there is now a link to the Banker's Bet Proofing Page and, also to the Chancer's Bet proofing page.

You may subscribe to my Portfolio. To do so, you need to go to your Members Page and change option 4 on the Your Profile bit.

If you haven't subscribed, the button will say Yes - just click on it and you'll be signed up.

Live Ratings

There were no non-runners (from the top three rated horses) and so the Live Ratings had the day off.

Speed Ratings

In order to improve the new Speed Ratings I spent most of yesterday played around with the numbers and the result is clear (by a country mile!)

It appears that, the more races that I base the Speed Ratings on, the better the Strike Rate.

I'm not sure why I'm surprised about this (as it makes mathematical sense - the larger the data set, the better the accuracy) but I somehow felt that, like humans, horses would get slower as they got older.

Perhaps, unlike humans, horses are only required to compete when they are fit to do so?

Anyway, the numbers are overwhelming and so I have to go with them.

The ASF (Average Seconds per Furlong) that I report are going to be the Average over all the races that I have in my database (which goes back to the 7th of July 2013) for the relevant code.

I will also show if a horse ran its last race at faster or slower that its overall average.

Please be aware that this only currently applies to All Weather and Flat races.

Comments...

Yesterday's Speed Ratings can bee seen here... Speed Ratings - 26th February 2015

Now, I am still using my test data set and so have not got any races for the last 3 months.

Over the weekend I shall import these races and I expect to see an improvement in accuracy as a result.

Then there'll be a week of auditing and writing the code to update the Speed Ratings on a daily basis.

And I anticipate publishing the Speed Ratings on a daily basis from Saturday the 7th of March.

Obviously, I need to find a way of reporting on the Speed Ratings on a daily basis.

Bearing in mind that the Speed Ratings are incomplete, we had some success with them yesterday...

Southwell 14:10 - Our top rated horse as far as the AW Speed Ratings are concerned was Come Uppence who was our second rated horse as far as R4 is concerned. Come Uppence came second at 3.25 ISP (3.55 BSP.) Betfair paid 1.43 for the place.

Southwell 16:50 - Our top rated horse as far as the AW Speed Ratings are concerned was Dark Diamond who was our fourth rated horse as far as R4 is concerned. Dark Diamond came third at 3.5 ISP (3.6 BSP.) Betfair paid 1.65 for the place.

Chelmsford 19:10 - Our top rated horse as far as the AW Speed Ratings are concerned was Forceful Appeal who was our second rated horse as far as R4 is concerned. Forceful Appeal won at 4.0 ISP (4.4 BSP.)

Chelmsford 20:10 - Our top rated horse as far as the AW Speed Ratings are concerned was Golden Amber who was our sixth rated horse as far as R4 is concerned. Golden Amber came second at 17.0 ISP (23.15 BSP.) Betfair paid 7.07 for the place. This was a six furlong race.

So, no massive results but it's a start. With the complete data the results should improve.

Then we'll have to learn how to use them; I feel that they'll be of more use for the shorter races but I've learned my lesson about having preconceived ideas.

Today

Today's early test ratings show 34 rated races from five meetings.

Today I shall be taking a day off as my head is filled to overbrimming with numbers and I'll only make mistakes if I try to plow on.

Have a great day's racing!

Once again, if you've got anything to say about Focus Ratings, please wander over to the Focus Ratings Review at Tipsters Review and have your say.

The income that we make from sign ups from that site keeps me in Red Wine and Smelly Cheese!

As always...

My kindest regards