On account of this book I mentioned being about a hundred pages,I haven't got 1/2 way through yet.
But I dare to suggest perhaps only 5% seems to have any relation to speed ratings.
And that would be the chapter about time and speed.
There are 20 or so other chapters on other stuff,like odds and stories.

punter57,
Although we don't agree on keep betting or stopping for the day, I just loved your post and have to agree with you completely, how can a kilo make difference in a horses performance.
I watched a race recently (can't remember where but has stuck in my mind) the fav was fighting it out with a 20/1 pop head to head in the straight and the 20/1 saluted the judge, the race commentators reaction was that the fav was beaten because of the pull in the weights.
I have never heard so much crap in my life, the weight difference was 1.5 kg's.
The 20/1 pop was just better on the day.
Beaten lengths is another misconception, and I have to agree with you it all depends on how the horse was ridden out in the final stages.
Did you see the post of the person that broke into a racecourse with his tape measure to check the marks on the rail to see how far a length was so he could put it into his data base , I have never laughed so much in a long time.

Cheers, and good punting.

You seem to make comments that are illogical.
Try this tomorrow morning.
Run a lap of your block tomorrow morning and time yourself.
Next morning do the same only with a housebrick in a knapsack on your back.
I've got to abmit I've never tried it,but logic tells me I must run a slower time because I would get more tired and have less energy left.

Would knock the hell out me BUT I weigh 80 kilo's think about it.

Yes that is correct moeee but when you have an animal which weighs, 600-700kg (correct if I am wrong there but ballpark) how much difference is 1 extra kg going to make.

The book is an interesting enough read and there is some mathematics in it which may take a little time to grasp, but it's not War and Peace.

It is basically taking a time that a horse recorded for a distance in a previous run, usually the last or 2nd last run. Converting it to todays distance with an adjustment for weight, up or down and Hey Presto.

moeee,
Don't want to bother you but I just went and and weighed 2 housebricks, the one with the holes weighed .5 kg and the one without the holes weighed .6 kg, which one do you suggest I use as I know it would make a difference to my performance. I suppose if I used the .5 kg I would be 2/1 and if I used the .6 kg I would be 10/1 according to your theories. THATS how much 1 or 2 kilos would make the difference to a horse. It's the BEST horse on the day that wins the race. How you work that out I don't know, and that's why I bet the way I do.
Money talks, learn to work out what is going on in a race ( if anything and if not leave it alone ).
When you see a 50/1 winner and there is an even money fav everybody jumps up and down BUT I bet the trainer of the 50/1 backed his horse, because he knew what the horse was capable of ON THE DAY.

Cheers and I mean that because I am not as bad as you think.

Yep, I agree kenchar - weight is overrated.

More and more myths and wives-tales.

Consider if a horse is 700kg and carries 2.5kg more penalty.
That's 1/280th of it's mass.

So if Kenchar weighs 80kg (sorry mate), then he has to carry 286 grams around the block.

I don't think that would impact on his time

He'd be running home from the corner shop with a jar of jam for his toast!

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I agree.
A kilo here and a kilo there will not make to much a difference to a horse that weighs 500 kls, now if it was a human running around the paddock that would be a different story.
I have read Garys book many times and i think it has merit but................
it dos'nt work.
Time and weight ratings i have found, dont not find the winner enough to make a level stake/return profit.

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Knowing a little bit about carrying weight on my person (green backpacks) i would say that most people i know try to remove as much weight as possible, if one walks 40 kilometres, thats say 1 metre per step, which is 1000 steps per km, therefore 40,000 steps, times that by .286 kg would mean you would be lifting an extra 11.44 tonnes over that 40 kilometres, therfore over 1600 mtr, a human would be lifting (carrining) over that distance an extra 458 kilos, a horse ???

Just a thought

Dingo

Hello on a great morning in Paradise! I'm feeling fantastic and went for a beach run (soft going today: firm last time out!!) carrying an extra 250g in my singlet (fruit and nut) to put this all to a real life test. Must say there appeared to be an unexpected IMPROVEMENT despite the weight increase. Could this be because on Saturday morning (previous start) I was feeling a bit rough and didn't let on (to my trainer or the stewards) that a barking dog had kept me awake all night? If only the horses later in the day had let me know how THEY were feeling I could've eliminated quite a few of them.
Anyway,what really illustrates the "fallacy" inherant in miniscule weight variations is that the TOP weight wins most often (in Hcps of course!!) followed by the second toppie,then the third etc. Remember that the Handicapper has,basically, decided that as horse X is the "best",it should carry the most and be No1. After deciding which is 2nd best (and so on) and all the weights are assigned, OVER TIME, the handicapper is proven right in his assessment of the "class" of the animals BUT his weights haven't stopped em!! You might say the toppie should've been more highly weighted but in that case we're back to where we started from:when is enough enough? How much weight DOES it take to stop a train???