Interesting reading so far.

But the way I see it, everyone has a "system" wanted to be developed.
So there are many "systems" and many ideas,and If I can relate in contrast to a poker game, there are 2 ways I know how to deal a deck, as an "object".
1 "object" deck of cards is with 52 cards ( Full Deck)
2 "object" deck of cards is 32 cards ( 7's up to Ace)
But both method of play can still have a full house on Aces and Queens for example.
It's how one play's the game.

So what has this got to do with a horse race program ?
It's relatively the same in principle.
1 wants to use form
2 wants markets and/or form.

At the end of the day it has to come down to a factor when selections are obtained either from form, then bet according to price available ?


Both require data feed. ( form data feed and market price data feed )
The computerable data feed, where is it's most stable "raw source" going to come from to compute a method of selections, and be commonly agreed upon ?

And why ?

You can't achieve the impossible. If a horse hasn't raced before, as far as I'm concerned it's an unknown quantity. I don't take any notice of trials as they don't neccessarily reflect a horse's true form. I have a "what if" program which tells me how much I would have won or lost if I'd done whatever. I use it to see what my return would be if I allowed no runners without form, then I'll do a run to see what happens if I allow one new runner in a race, etc. In my old system I allow up to 50% of the field to be new runners. Slightly less PTO but compensated by the increased number of bets. 50% (for me) was a nice cut off point. Betting Quinellas I don't allow any races where there is an untried runner - I find that works better for me.
Once a horse has run it has form in my book, some may improve or get worse greatly at the second run but then many other horses aren't particularly reliable at the best of times either. Again, my what if program tells me my PTO is better if I make it a rule that every horse has to have had 6 runs but that cuts the bets down so much that the overall profit is diminished.
Just use common sense, work with what you've got and don't cry over races you can't rate, there's always another one tomorrow.

KV

Hello Siam, how many records do you have in an Access database and does it go slowly when doing searches on queries?

Tailwag

hi KennyVictor
thank u for the thread, it is not what i need unfortunately.
u see my way of betting is based on tab prices at jump time,certain conditions need to be met and i do not know which horse/dog i will be betting on till secs before jump so i have to sit here in front of the screen for each race , make the brief calculations then place the bet as late as i possibly can to avoid/minimise wild fluctatuions in the prices. ideally what i need is software that does all this for me,it just contains the % and parameters , if that is possible.Then i could set it up, go out for the day , come home and verify results and bets.
today is a case in point, it was a real beauty, one of my best days ever in terms of strike rate but it was along day with 177 bets . thats why im on this site at midnight, but i hate to miss the winning opportunities so i have to persist manually for the time being i guess.
thanks again

persisting manually will send you blind........

Hi Pardon me,
My goal is a bit like yours, I hope to have a program where I can set it up in the morning and let it run and make bets for me.
I can see a way I can achieve this but it is going to take at least a couple of months till I'm there (started learning Java yesterday as a possible way to do it). If I have any success I will make it known on this site.

Cheers,

KV

I am not sure if this program would suit anyones needs but i found it a long time ago but have never realy looked in to it http://www.autoitscript.com/autoit3/index.php
this program is free it will create scrips to automate anything....you could use it in conjuction with excel create the paramaters you need in excel and at the right time you could execute your script to place the bet

Shaun,
it's sems like a good start and it has a forum. The problem with many forums on most devlopment software, is the experts are not "Horse Racing" literate.
Many good programmers no doupt in their respected field.
Try asking on their forum, " I want to develop a horse racing program and I want it to get data from here and go to there, rada rada."
They don't seem to understand that once the race starts, it'a all over.
They don't understand "late Scratchings"
They don't understand,
So how on earth does a punter with an idea ask, "how do get this to happen"?
and it's not about some cad program, paint-shop-pro, web design, etc etc ?

It seems to me no one wants to answer the obvious and logical

HOW DOES A PUNTER WITH THE WINNING EDGE ASK IN A PROGRAM FORUM,
"HOW CAN I MAKE *my* OWN HORSE RACING PROGRAM AND NOT BE IGNORED OR STEALTHED OF THE IDEA !?

Bluetown,

The only ways I can see are:
A: Learn to program yourself.
B: Get together with someone who programs that you can trust and build it together.
C: Pay squillions to a reputable maker of custom computer programs safe in the knowledge that they will be dweebs and very unlikely to be interested in horse racing for profit.

Programmers often have 3 figure IQs and can get their head around something like racing if you can explain what you want clearly. I've written custom computer programs for people on many and varied obscure things in the past. I learn enough about what they want in order to write the program, make sure they are happy with the result then take my money and promptly forget about it.
If you wanted Partypooper's "One at the bottom of the list if it has a C or D next to it approach you'd probably get out of it for 10 grand. :-)

KV