Morning News

Good morning...

Yesterday, I said that there wouldn't be a Morning News today and, as usual, I was wrong.

But, it will only be a quick one as I have got to get on with the Speed Ratings.

So, here goes...

Once again, yesterday one of those weird days when you could have blindly backed every top three rated horse (to £1 stakes) in every race and...

You would have had £88.80 returned for an outlay of £51!

A pretty good day in my book.

And, for our top three rated horses, we hit a strike rate of 82.35%!

Anyway, let's look at yesterday's results in more detail....

Yesterday's Results

Yesterday's Results, show a strike rate (for our top rated horse) of 23.53%.

I'm pretty happy with that.

Forecasts

There were two forecasts yesterday.

Lingfield 12:50 - The CSF paid £3.38

Lingfield 13:55 - The CSF paid £25.65

Tricasts/Trifectas

There were no tricats/trifectas yesterday.

Winners

From the 17 rated races there were 14 winners (from the top 3 rated horses) - 5 of those were at nice prices.

Course	Time	Horse	ISP	BSP
Lingfield	13:20	Crystalin	17.0	25.0
Lingfield	14:25	Asima	13.0	17.5
Newbury	14:50	Smiles for Miles	6.0	6.54
Lingfield	16:10	Bookmaker	8.0	8.21
Kempton	17:40	Novel Dancer	15.0	20.4
Kempton	18:10	Drive On	7.0	7.21

Comments...

1). Lingfield 12:50 - We got the forecast in this race. The CSF paid £3.38

2). Lingfield 13:20 - Our second rated horse in this race won at 17.0 ISP (25.0 BSP)

3). Lingfield 13:55 - We got the forecast in this race. The CSF paid 25.65

4). Lingfield 14:25 - Our third rated horse in this race won at 13.0 ISP (17.5 BSP)

5). Kempton 17:40 - Our third rated horse in this race won at 15.0 ISP (20.4 BSP)

6). Kempton 18:40 - We got the first three horses - unfortunately, not in the right order.

The Portfolio

There was both a Banker's Bet and a Chancer's Bet yesterday.

Your Portfolio Selections for 2015-01-14 are...

Bankers Bet = Chase the Winners! - where R4 Status = 1 and where Race Type = National Hunt - Chase and where the Race is Not a Handicap Race and the Race\'s RC1 is greater than 70% and Runners was equal to or more than 7 and Runners was equal to or less than 15 and the Horse\'s R4 is greater than 4.0 and the Horse\'s Confidence is greater than 120% and Horse was a Favourite, Joint Favourite or a Co Favourite

Selection = Back to ISP - Newbury - 13:10:00 - Norse Legend (1)

Races (over last year): 7 Wins: 4 Strike Rate: 57.14% ROI: 170.28% AV SP: 2.98%

Norse Legend came second.

Chancers Bet = AW Seasonal Losers (to win!) - where R4 Status = 1 and where R4 is Greater than Average R4 and the Horse\'s Average R4 is greater than 2.5 and where Race Type = All Weather and where the Race is Not a Handicap Race and the Race\'s RC1 is greater than 60% and where Position last time out = Unplaced and the Month is January or the Month is February or the Month is March or the Month is September or the Month is October or the Month is November or the Month is December and the Horse\'s Confidence is greater than 140%

Selection = Back to ISP - Lingfield (AW) - 13:20:00 - Jaganory (1)

Races (over last year): 35 Wins: 19 Strike Rate: 54.29% ROI: 127.58% AV SP: 2.35%

Jaganory came sixth.

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.

Today

Today's 3am ratings show 31 races from 5 meetings.

All races today are rated.

I'm not going to waffle about any race today as...

a). I need to get on with the Speed Ratings and,

b). When I mentioned Newcastle, yesterday, they abandoned the meeting. I'm not sure if they abandoned the meeting just because I happened to mention it but...

It does seem to be a strange coincidence.

However, one of the members emailed me with an improvement to the way I look at the races and he's allowed me to republish it here.

On the 13th of January I wrote about the 13:05 at Fakenham; you can read my thoughts here... Morning News 13th Jan.

The words of wisdom that I was offered are as follows...

I think it is a good idea that you give your opinion on one race per day

It gives us an insight into your approach to a race, and your thinking behind it

May I say that, from this side of the fence, I think you left out one key element in your synopsis

The number of times a horse has run in that discipline

Zamoyski 5 runs 150.73%
Zip Top 1 run 100%
Shwaiman 1 run 85.40%

Therefore, my conclusion was
Zamoyski had no room for improvement
Both Zip Top and Shwaiman would improve from the one run to date

The rest of the field had a best of 80.66% and had many chances, so it would of been somewhat of a surprise if
any were good enough to win

The percentage call was Zip Top
Confidence 100% (2nd best on ratings)
Down 3 grades
Trainer 38%
A.P. McCoy only ride at the meeting
Will improve from first run to second
Only race to date at a grade one track (Kempton)

Does not usually work out as simple as that

Just putting an alternative viewpoint

Thanks for that, Peter.

Speed Ratings

I've finally compiled the Standard Times for the All Weather tracks.

If you want to see them, the spreadsheet (in CSV format) is available at Standard Times.

I do have to say that it's just a list of strange numbers - not that exciting when it comes down to it.

These Standard Times will be updated on the 1st of March and, on the first of each month thereafter. They will be based on data from the 8th of July 2013 and, from August 2015, will be then based upon the last 2 year's data.

Today I'll be working on getting some horse speed numbers that we can compare with the Standard Times.

I hope to get, for each horse, four numbers...

1). The raw Average Speed per Furlong over the last 5 races.

2). The Average Speed per Furlong over the last 5 races in the code of today's race.

3). The Average Speed per Furlong over the last 5 races over the going of today's race.

4). The lifetime Average Speed per Furlong over all races run in the code of today's race.

I have a feeling that the second number will be the important one; especially if we can add a plus or minus symbol (by using the fourth number) to show if the horse is getting faster or slowing down.

But, at the end of the day, only some intense analysis on the data will prove that one way or another.

I do have to say that, if we can have days like yesterday, when 80% of the winners come from the top three rated, then being able to choose the right horse (from the top three rated) by using a speed rating might be rather interesting.

There will be a summary post about Speed Ratings later on today. This will use some of your comments (those of you who have emailed me with comments) but I'll just use your initials to credit you; let me know if you don't want to be included.

So, as always...

Have a great day's racing!

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

As always...

My kindest regards