It doesnt always work out

Today i backed Mister Unique in the first in Sydney based on him winning after setting a very fast pace last start. I expected him to lead on his ear today with no pressure. Instead Shinzig, who i expected to be near the tail led him clearly and outclassed him.

Still these figures are quite interesting and allow you to compile a Horses to Follow list.

The problem with sectionals to my way of thinking is that they measure the time of the leading horse at the 600 (or whatever) to the time the winner crosses the finish. For this information to be useful you would need to know the lengths a particular runner was from the leading horse at the 600.

A horse that was 12 lengths back at the 600 and finished close up would have run a faster sectional than a horse leading or close up at the 600, but in both cases you're using the same sectional time in your calculations.

Chuck explain what you are looking for....if you are after back data for testing i can't help there as i don't have or keep any....if you are after current form for putting in to excel to work out your own rating cool i can help in that department....but you will need to have some idea of the ratings you want to use if they are weight ratings or speed rating or form ratings....how they are structured and there values...if you can work with in a horses last three starts it can be done for free...if you need to use form involving more starts you will have to subscribe to cyber horse

I think you'll find the sectionals at sportscolour are derived from sensors in the saddles of all the horses timed as they pass certain points giving true times for all the horses. This is only on a few selected courses of course.

Hey guys I know this thread has been dead for a little bit but I have something valuable to add re sectionals:

Brave Chief (nice nick btw a great kind of horse to back, front runner in fast pace) you're looking into using indiv. secs to rate, etc, I have researched that a LOT and I have ABANDONED it, for MANY reasons, but one of which was this (I call this the Lonhro vs Mummify example)

Lonhro beat Mummify in the Underwood at Caulfield in a slow pace in which Mummify led. Lonhro sat off, out sprinted him, had him beat turning. Shortly afterwards Mummify set a new track record leading all the way in the Caulfield Cup.

Had Lonhro been in that Caulfield Cup (even if it had been over 1800m), he would NOT have run Mummify down, yet two (?) weeks or so earlier he brained him in a sit and sprint.

To further emphasise this - put Lohro against Might and Power at Caul over say 2000m when M&P leads fast. Lonhro flattens turning and M&P keeps on to beat him a couple of lengths. If it's sit and sprint with Lonhro still the same dist from M&P prior to turning, Lonhro outsprints him.

Definitely.

Point (if not gathered) is this - horses have different "cruising" speeds and different sprints. given a different race pace different results prevail. This makes using secs as a UNIVERSAL measure pointless.

Duritz.

You make some good points Duritz, but disagree with your last statement re sectionals as a measure being pointless.

It's knowing how to use them that's important as in predicting the likely pace in the upcoming race and which horses will be suited by that pace. There is someone (a commercial rival to Pro-Punt) who uses this technique to devastating effect 6 from 7 winners from his recommended bets a week ago and he builds his whole process around pace and the use of sectional times.

Your comments about Lonhro are interesting as analysis on his career performances indicate that he was at his best when he could sit and sprint in races with slowly or even early pace. Only on one or two occasions did he perform well when the pace was on early, one of those being when he beat Sunline in the Caulfield Stakes in near track record time - a race in which he stalked the mare to the turn and then sprinted down the stretch to outgun her.

hey Duritz.

I only use the figures to pinpoint potential improvers. That is, mark down a horse that ran the last 600m say, 4 lengths faster than the race average. I certainly don't bet the figures blindly. I'm a ratings man, but i've never accepted any ratings figures as gospel.

I like to try to predict pace, potential leaders etc even before i look at the form and go from there.

I'll probably abandon the whole thing soon anyway as i'm sick and tired of the amount of time it takes to maintain the db in Access. Not my cup of tea

Your point about Lonhro is well taken; he was the perfect sit & sprint WFA horse but was vulnerable when pressure was applied.

btw, the Chief was my all-time favourite animal, won a stack of races with me on board, capped off with his 25/1 win in the Sandown Cup This game would be easy if they were all as genuine as he was.

Yeah. La mer your point re their use is how they can best be used - in conjunction with anticipated pace or lack thereof. Problem is when one of those dole queuers in waiting takes off and "ruins the race" as a journo said once in Best Bets. That's the worry -- first to get the pace right, THEN to pick the right one based on that is an extra step. I look upon jockeys that if they were one foot taller they'd all be unemployed, and at any given time any one of the cretins could be about to stuff me up, so predicting what's going on in their tiny little minds is like predicting the weather here in Melbourne - futile.

Duritz.

PS - Chief I'm the same way with my ratings - best as a great tool, not as the be all, end all.

Duritz,
Your point about raw sectional times being unreliable (because of the differing pace of races) is valid. However it is possible to make adjustments e.g. If you determine the normal (standard, par ,whatever you call it) percentage of the final 600 sectional to the total race time for each track and distance you can then compare this standard with the actual race in question. i.e. if the final 600 proportion in a race is lower than standard (i.e. a sit-and- sprint) you can penalise the sectional times of all horses in that race.
The trick of course is coming up with accurate standards for both 600 times and the percentage of total race time. This is a pain - particularly with new tracks such as Hillside.

I primarily use Speed/Pace as the backbone of my handicapping.
To my way of thinking the Race is over when the winner crosses the finish line, drawing a line thru this, I compute the actual/approx. distance each runner has covered when the winner crosses the line.

I use two crosshairs to pinpoint each runners pace, the first is based on converting the beaten margin by winners speed and secondly using a speed based on Best Times to 99%.

Furthermore when analysising futures races instead of looking at the Distance of todays race its more about looking at each ontenders ability to race over set distances.

I'd love to add more to the above, but this is my substantial edge.

The more ppl turned off using times the better is my way of thinking.

But its food for thought.