The organics vs synthetics aka stat/trends punters vs the knowledgable

Your right m8.But this thread has been created to fuel nasty argument.So i would like to know how many winners Graeme the visionary expects

It was created to get an opinion on an approach that many of this board seem to use. If you can't debate like an adult Jasey, then i suggest you take  your opinions elsewhere. Nothing about this thread is remotely nasty, until your throw in your tuppence worth in. I think there is a discussion to be had with regards to stats and alternative approaches. Everyone else seems to have accepted my view, which was launched in reaction to people passing off stats and facts, and dismissing certain statistics whilst taking on board others. Sir Des Champs would be a prime example. He was fit stats and trends, but how many horses who have jumped poorly in 2 of their lastb 4 races prior to a gold cup then went on to win it ?

Is that a trend

Long run,not the best jumper but stayed on his feet

FFS SDC, like many horses jumps fences much more effectively on better ground. That predicted improvement AND backed by trends is why many, myself included fancy him.  Without the use of trends you are practically backing blind.

Yep really "adult" of you Graeme to create such a dichotomy between those "true" "knowledgeable" "organic" punters who "actually know about horse racing" and those damn philistines who have the gall to also factor selected relevant historical trends into their study.

In summary, put the rod away/do one

Joist, i think you are still mildly upset from our exchhange the other day, where lets just be kind and say your attempts to try and have a pop at me done a somersault and landed flat on their back. My thread was created for a bit of fun and insight. I suggest you and Jasey create an anti-Graeme club, and go and ruin other peoples threads. It's getting a bit tired now, and it has become obvious that some begrudgers are spreading ill will because they can't accept other peoples opinions.


JohnTucker - i think it's clutching st straws to blamme the ground. None of the other serious horses have any problems. I wasn't even impressed with SDC last time, and although he was carrying conidition, i want this horse to go well and do good things, but i think he has been too casual and doesn't jump in a manner i'd expect of a gold cup horse. I'm not a layer, but i'm giving consideration to place laying him.

you've got to be fishing with this thread Graeme?

Moron.

I've blocked the OP ages ago so I don't know what he's claiming as this mystical knowledge he is supposed to have that others don't.

Is he talking about the kind of knowledge you gain when you sit down and go through the entire careers of every horse entered in every race of the Festival. And then check that form against a whole bunch of statistical trends that have persisted for years. And then look at the ratings and performances of those horses that ran in the key trial races for the Festivals and reading all the quotes (I have Google alerts set up for literally hundreds of horses so that any time a story appears about them, their trainers and the races they are entered in I get a link to the story and I do read them).

This is real knowledge. It is gained by hard work, paying attention, gathering information, reflecting on what you've learnt and then observing again. I've been doing this work for a good 30 years and have accumulated a fair amount of knowledge, more than the vast majority of punters for sure. What I have also done is to work out how to apply that knowledge to betting on the Festival to give an edge.

For the first 15 years or so I too thought I could just work out who the most likely winners were on form, ratings and visual impressions. I did fine and backed some nice winners along the way. However, when I started to add the statistical approach my profitability improved instantly mainly because I avoided lots of shorter priced losers, who it turned out were statistically unlikely despite their excellent form.

This is real knowledge. It is gained by hard work, paying attention, gathering information, reflecting on what you've learnt and then observing again. I've been doing this work for a good 30 years and have accumulated a fair amount of knowledge, more than the vast majority of punters for sure. What I have also done is to work out how to apply that knowledge to betting on the Festival to give an edge.


Correct or not, that is just sick, end of story.

A trend that is appearing is that you are going out of your way to antagonise people and create conflict on what is otherwise an enjoyable  forum.

Not me john, I'm not getting into the stats/trends thing here, I'm just baulking at a touch of arrogance, simple as that.

Judorick - you can see me type. If you couldn't see me type, then you wouldn't have saw my thread you moron. As for 30 years knowledge, you are the complete and utter idiot who said "in my unconcious i don't think Unioniste can win because of Dom Alco". If that is what 30 years of watching races make you say, then you'll be able to tell the difference in colours in 100 years time. I'm not one of the clique as i don't need stats or statistics. If nobody can accept my opinion, then kindly don't reply and ignore me if you like.

It depends on the stats, if they have evidence to support them then it is often wise to take note of them. The old classic is backing a horse for the Grand National who has had several runs in the current season before the race - i think a huge % of winners over the last 20 years had run between 4-6 times in the current season before the Grand National itself (one exception from the top of my head was Ballabriggs who i think ran 3 times). If you actually consider those stats, then it arguably has substance to it as a horse needs to be very fit to win over such a long distance but doesn't want to have had too long a season so it's over cooked for the big one. Horses like State of Play and Cappa Bleu are their own worst enemy as they go well fresh but in my opinion lack peak fitness for such a long race which is why they are/were good place bets but i couldn't consider them for the win.

There are some stats which I think are pretty random and i don't consider at all when it comes to placing a bet but each and one to their own and all that

got to say I'm a stats man to a certain degree and I use it logically as a tool to dismiss horses in a short list.

Sometimes though stats are weilded like light sabres on here to dismiss a horse with an excellent chance.... or to get excited about an average runner.

Some moronic stats do exist, 4yo do badly in the bumper for instance - they actually do very well, but statistically as 95% of runners are 5 or 6 the stats say you need a 5-6 yo. Those age stats are particularly dangerous. 5yo have started to have an improved record in the CH too.

Most horses trying to regain a GC are usually getting on and had a few injuries - that was not the case for Kauto and neither is it for the 8yo Long Run this time. So you have to be careful of a stat/trends origin or reason.

That said of all the stats you end up following one religously and mine is the Supreme stat.
Why has a Supreme winner not followed up in a Champion Hurdle since 1971?


GL ALL - and I look forward to more of your stats posts Judo

Ming_the_Merciless 28 Feb 13 17:14 
Sometimes though stats are weilded like light sabres on here to dismiss a horse with an excellent chance.... or to get excited about an average runner.


Bloody good point ming, that's it in a nutshell for me

One thing that does frustrate me a bit with the line of patter many trends gurus wheel off is that there rarely seems to be talk of profit/loss. It's one thing to state that backing horses that meet the trends would have produced a profit of x over the last 10 backfit years, and that may be right, but just as any horse can buck even the strongest of trends on any given day, it is highly likely that you will make a level stakes loss by following the trends at a given Festival. Maybe we can have a mini challenge?

Statistics and trends can not prevail, but merely provide coincedence. For example, if we look at the big races at the festival, we should be able to dismiss some horse without referring to pre-requsite trends. My argument is that knowledge is stronger than statistic, because knowledge will prevail, whereas stats and trends can fall and crumble. Stats can also be converted into knowledge. For example, someone who doesn't think Dynaste can win the RSA, should perhaps be more confident in their view, and say something like 'i don't think Dynaste can win because he shows too much finishing speed over 3 miles, and i'd prefer more of a slogger'. Instead someone will say 'I don't think he will win because he won the Feltham', as if there is some sort of Papa Shango curse on winning a top class race. It's the same as the 5y/o world hurdle trend. Perhaps someone should say "it's difficult to see this horse winnign as the other are older, stronger and have more experience, especially on this sort of track".

Last years feltham, Geraghty said that BW ran as if he had a bag over his head, are we saying that thank god he was ailing that day and struggling to breathe because if he was fit and healthy and managed to win, it would have finished his chances for the RSA.!! no, of course not, but he made the trends for an RSA winner because he was ill in the feltham, stats won't give you an interpretation of individual horses nuances and circumstances leading them into a given race.

Duffy..
If Grands Crus was good enough he would have won feltham and rsa.
I am a trends man,but no  way would i dismiss a horse because he won a certain race.

Graeme 83 what a _anker you are

I totally and utterly agree with crownbarman

duffy 28 Feb 13 17:12 Joined: 28 Mar 03 | Topic/replies: 8,342 | Blogger: duffy's blog
Not me john, I'm not getting into the stats/trends thing here, I'm just baulking at a touch of arrogance, simple as that.

It was the op I was referring to.

Graeme83 has very strong opinions here but anyone calling him a w_nker for expressing them is totally out of order. He's just coming at this from the opposite angle to people like judorick, who has posted some excellent stuff on his own thread (albeit stuff I think you should take with a pinch of salt).

I think it is all too easy to label someone a guesser for using their own insight to put up a selection, especially if it gets beaten after falling down on a perceived long-standing trend that others have been championing. But to me, some of judorick's (not having a go by the way, it's just his thread is the best known for stats followers on here) stuff is totally illogical; why do so much work with backfitted data and then pick arbitrary means of dismissing certain horses. In that thread, and the other trends analyses I've seen on here, the posters have typically said that they "have to eliminate horses by some means" and have just chosen certain angles to do this.

Surely the strongest 'trends' are those that apply to the actual horses in question, rather than those that are superimposed from other horses? For example, rather than saying Oscar Whisky is an unlikely World Hurdle winner because he has not won a Grade One hurdle race with more than 15 runners before, surely he is an unlikely winner because he has tried to win three times at the Festival before and failed each time. Or, for the Graeme83's among us, why not just say he's an unlikely winner because he doesn't stay three miles?

When a pattern occurs m8 its not backfitting data,their is a reason for a certain pattern.

Agree we can do without the abuse, but all this trends stuff strikes me as a bit clinical and dull.  But the way it is presented is that stats people win, everyone else loses, which I think we all can agree is not true, can we? Can you feel the love?

When a pattern occurs m8 its not backfitting data,their is a reason for a certain pattern.


Sometimes you are right, sometimes you could be completely wrong, and this is exactly why so many people get wound up by the stats-based approach. Even with a seemingly obvious explanation (like five-year-olds do poorly in the World Hurdle because they are not fully mature for such a stamina test), you are still guessing as to whether that is the reason.

Grey horses have a bad recent record in the Gold Cup. That does not mean it is because they are grey.

have to say i use trends to a degree but am not a huge fan as think i lose on the back of it as it hinders my ability to get to the root of the race and racing changes so much from year to year...

the feltham stat in my opinion is more to do with the horses being early season types... this is because of the preparation they have imo in regards to winning the race on boxing day...trained to win and thus hit there peak performance...someone mentioned the trabolgan race this is very relevant as the winner had been trained hard all winter and was ready to race for his life in the novice race where as trabolgan hadn't

a hard race in the feltham then the horse doesn't prep for cheltenham on the back of hitting his peak and thus on the back of such a hard early season are past there best come the festival, that isn't to say i would overlook him if i truly believed these affects wouldn't bare out...the trouble will be for dynaste this year is has he peaked and in which case can he peak again?? for the record i don't believe he will has his overall profile leads me to believe his best race is behind him and this makes it likely for me he will under perform...

personally i was told dodging bullets cannot win the other day because he hadn't run a speed figure which he had no right to do this season in the slowly run races he has ran in and on ground he wouldn't of liked...he may well not win and that is born out in the fact of his odds...for me he is trained by the top trainer and ridden by the top jockey plus has a progressive profile and he will get the better ground he desires...whether he is good enough we cannot make a firm judgement as he has been running on bottomless ground all winter...

some really good responses there folks

There are good trends and bad ones,its up to the individual how they apply them.
I start my ante posts in October,so i have no idea if my selections will be trend horse's.
Following trends at the festival makes profit for me.

how much level stakes profit are you making jasey?? after all you said you had 13 winners at one festival...

tell us this year trends horses for you?? then tell us how you are staking them?? and we can have a look back at the end of the festival and see how you have done...also add your other wagers from october you say you have had and we can then see how much profit we could of made or will make following your predictions

thanks

Nice one Graeme,  you don't half read some bollocks on these trands analysis threads.

Harry, i will tell you the truth after the last race.

Tho tbf there are a few trends that make you think about the game a bit differently.

ah now I understand jasey...tell us how many winners you have had after the meeting lol

I am not like that m8.I am sure it will be documented on here if the trends boys are taking a pounding.

so you are following judos tips?? or joci??

if you read the opening post of my thread you might have noticed that the work I've done is MAINLY for the benefit of my own friends, family, punting mates and one poor guy in particular who suffered a massive stroke and is completely paralysed and unable to speak

I do this document for them every year but I don't need to do it for my own punting. I then choose to post my findings on here as it only takes a copy and paste from my Word Doc to do it. If you lot don't like it then fine, don't read it. Instead, why not put YOUR own bets up with full reasoning on your own thread more than two weeks out from the Festival so we can all see what you've backed.

Bunch of facking tw@ts most of you. I work phacking hard, think extremely deeply, watch hundreds of race replays, study ratings, have hundreds of horse alerts, montitor markets constantly and go over and over.

What the fack do you lot do? Most of you just want to post a winner to act the big man. The abuse you get on here for posting your hard work is ridiculous.

Harry,i buy paul jones book,but Joci and Judo's threads are very informative,and both do something that i could not.

Bunch of facking tw@ts most of you. I work phacking hard, think extremely deeply, watch hundreds of race replays, study ratings, have hundreds of horse alerts, montitor markets constantly and go over and over.

What the fack do you lot do? Most of you just want to post a winner to act the big man. The abuse you get on here for posting your hard work is ridiculous.

I think people line up to have a pop at you for these arrogant comments, not because you put a lot of hard work in. It's especially galling that you assume most people don't put the work in because they don't post up long-winded analyses on here.

I work phacking hard, think extremely deeply, watch hundreds of race replays, study ratings, have hundreds of horse alerts, monitor markets constantly and go over and over as well. I just don't post threads about my thoughts...

Judo,
I'll leave myself open to a right old bashing from you here, but anyway,here goes, the problem is not the stats/trends thing at all really, it's your attitude to how you deliver them and your reaction to anyone that differs /questions what you've put.

Anyone can see that you put in a lot of hard work and effort here but there is an arrogance, patronizing tone to it and woe betide anyone who disagrees with it because as we can see from your last post, abuse is an absolute cert to follow.

It seems to me that and I'm admittedly guessing here, you have an attitude that you are on a higher plane of understanding and is happy to educate people who don't quite get it as well as you, and you don't understand why we're not just bloody well grateful for it.

jasey i know they are informative i was just trying to get an angle on what you were backing or do you just digest jonesy's book and judo and joci's analysis and make your own judgment?? or do you follow them in...

I follow Paul Jones selections really m8,but i include my own as well,and listen to lots of people on here or in the media who know lots more than me.I just love the Festival.

he would be proud lol... i'll tell him he has a follower on the forum his ego will grow even more...i hope to dim that a little when i relieve him of a hundred pounds sterling when silvi conti beats sir desmond in a match bet...

do you subscribe to his tipping line??

Do you know him?
SDC is a big winner for me,but i have just started having a few bits on Conti

yes know him very well had dinner with him sunday...

he likes sir desmond

Has he lumped on SDC?
His he a good tipster?

*Is

he doesn't really lump on anything as such...

he runs a cheltenham service some tips i like and some i don't...he runs at a profit i believe i'm sure it will be in his book...

not sure but know he has a wager with me on the race...bit like myself can't say i have really bet on the gold cup apart from a treble with long run in it...not my kind of race as the race is sucked by every punter in the land...give me an amateur race all day long

Pair of impassioned but overly-aggressive punters.

I hope you both have tons of winners at Cheltenham - and that neither of you are anywhere near me when you do.

Bunch of facking tw@ts most of you. I work phacking hard, think extremely deeply, watch hundreds of race replays, study ratings, have hundreds of horse alerts, montitor markets constantly and go over and over.

What the fack do you lot do? Most of you just want to post a winner to act the big man. The abuse you get on here for posting your hard work is ridiculous.

i find it hard to believe that you,ve been doing this for 30 odd years when you throw the rattle out the pram like that; if i were you id look for a job, get from in front of that computer screen and get some fresh air...

most of us have posted our bets months before the event, not based on historical references, but based on what we have seen with our own eyes

The trouble with not applying a method - and that is really what judo and JOCI are doing, just theirs is fundamentally trends/stats based - is that you are unlikely to be disciplined in your approach. It is very difficult to be rational under pressure when you have no method. I'm very grateful for their input and use it extensively but not to the exclusion of other factors.....like Hendo/Mullins/Nicholls will probably win up to half of the races between them and are very likely to dominate the championship races. Why?.....because they are given the best horses because they are the best trainers, who also employ the best jockeys. Virtuous circle sort of thing. It may of course be that the trends/stats will also satisfy my additional factors but I would be very worried if the selections gave these 3 trainers less than 9 winners between them.

"The abuse you get on here for posting your hard work is ridiculous."

Ignore the abuse, Rick, and keep posting your stuff. Most people appreciate it, I'm sure.

very entertaining, some people take everything to heart.

Why have 18 Feltham winners ran in RSA and all failed to win?


Wasn't the same "Trend" used for Reynoldstown winners until Albertas Run won the RSA. How many RSA winners even contested the Feltham. Most if not all of the Irish winners did not and alot of the British winners, Denman, SDMohaison etc...
Trabolgan was beaten a short head in it and won the RSA. Is a short head enough to justify a spurious stat like that?
No imho.

Winners of the rsa come from the feltham

yes but normally the beaten horses (like Bobs Worth was, 3rd in Feltham, won RSA) not the winner

very strange indeed but it is there to see, cannot be conincidence over 18 attempts especially as some have been very short like Grands Crus and Long Run. You would have thought that if it was just noise that at least one would have gone in. But no they don't

and as they are frequently short prices you are not missing much if one does pop up, I mean you're not gonna miss a 16/1 winner or something if you don't back it and it wins, are you?

makes sense to me to discount them and look for value elsewhere in the market

Who cares what way others bet? Do what you think works for you.

Spot on Davey. At the end of the day all that matters is your own personal P/L

Can someone tell Judoriick to get off my threads. He's a dirty dog taking a dump in my garden path, and i don't want him on my threads corrupting peoples minds before they get a chance to learn about punting.


Diamond Joe. It's not about what matters, but these synthetics are leading people astray with useless statistics. The Irish horses in the triumph is another in a line with no enhanced analysis.

It is you that should stop posting.

You're another one Jasey. Go and pester someone else. This is a thread that i made, so if you don't like it then go and post your useless statistics in someone elses thread.

Agreed you have a point of sorts, but tbh we all recognise stats and trends are just that, one point I do disagree strongly on is you say stats are coincidences,this is patently not true, as many posters have said there are reasons for every eventuality, we are attempting to define those reasons,in actuality this is impossible both using your method or pure stats.I'm a fan of Judorick personally and admire the effort he puts in, ok he can get a bit antsy at times but who doesn't. We should all use a combination of stats trends and form appraisal IMHO, carefully weighting the information we have appraised and evaluated. Stats etc are facts after all, the difficult part is interpreting such in a meaningful way.

Stats are facts from the past though,and imo if a horse is good enough it wont matter what stat or trend he has to overcome.
I dont use them at all,just watch races and look at form.

I really do not want to pick a horse out and then not back it cos of a stat/trend,and then watch it win.
Would do my head in.

Each to their own though,and its all personal choice.

I don't have a method EastAyrshire. I take each race on its merits, without needing to refer to trends or historical data. I'm aware that patterns can emerge with trainer and trainer jockey combinations, but as everything else there are facts behind patterns, and that fact is that the best horse on the day usually wins, or the horse most suited to the race. People who are using stats are being ignorant to real possibilities, such as the one about the Irish horses in the triumph. I mean, are we saying that Unacompanied didn't run a really good race, or that she is a better horse than Zarkandar ?...are they saying that Hisaabaat is better than Countrywide Flame, and only didn't win because he runs in Ireland ? they are talking about lay off trends and all the rest of it, but how do they know which of these horses were difficult to train or get ready ? As for you saying Judorick is nasty, well he just has to be that way to make up for a lack of knowledge. He mocked Barry Geraghty because his stats differed from BG's opinion(the jockey btw), and even said Unioniste couldn't win a RSA because he's sired by Dom Alco. He is taken seniority when he doesn't have a clue what he's talking about half of the time. Anyway, all garbage should be put in the bin, so that's where he can lay.

indeed Budd each to their own

I simply could not contemplate betting the way you do with no stats and no use of ratings. For me that is just guessing based on what your eyes tell you. But I wouldn't criticise you personally for doing so unlike some horrible ****s on this forum. I would argue the case but in the end you put your money down and see the results ... how we got there is a matter for ourselves. I know people who only follow tipsters, have systems of all kinds, spend hours with the Timeform black blook, back only their visual notebook horses all sorts

i enjoy the way i do things,and i know i will get losers,as everyone does,and no doubt i will back a horse that has no chance on stats and loses,but i will never change all the time im happy with my results overall,and the enjoyment i get from the time i start looking at cheltenham,normally about April.

Just for clarity, I didn't say Judorick was nasty, rather 'antsy', ie a little crabbit at times like us all :-),personally I have high regard for Judorick and his opinions, as do I when you make valid points, the facts are NONE of us KNOWS for sure about any of the plethora of variables we assign values/weightings to, it is highly likely many of us back winners and then assume why we picked it was a good solid MO, when in fact it was simply luck and the reasons for the winner were not why we backed it. One thing that stats/trends AND form appraisal gives us is a solid basepoint to build a judgement on, an MO to avoid random whim based picks, its not easy as we all know, and tbh we all must be a bit mental to be obsessed with this lol.

I agree with you there EA. I think i made that point in my original post, that just because someone thinks that their pre-requsite thoughts were useful, it doesn't mean they actually were. I suppose that could apply to beginners luck. I remember getting 4 or 5 in the trot in one card when i couldn't tell the difference between a hurdle and a garden fence. I would say for stats or trends to have more meaning, they should be more in depth, and also include more heindisght. Stats would only have some sort of credibility if the statstic or trend that wrote off a horse was actually writing off a horse who turned out to be better than the horses that beat him/her.

One thing not factored in above is price - single most important factor in whether I will place a bet. Will happily back a horse if I feel on current or past form he can win the race in question and the risk of it not winning is compensated by its odds.

I am far from a serious punter and it suits my personality. I do okay but it's more fun for me so going in depth about stats/trends is a little off-putting.

But each to their own and try very hard to never criticise someone else's style

I felt inclined to criticise, because i see others writing off horses and other peoples opinions because it differed from stats or trends. There was even a thread which stated that Dynaste can not win the RSA. Knowledge or experience based opinion will always take precendence over stats and trends for me.

roobuck -> I agree completely with your post. I am not a big trends/stats man at all but one element that seems to be overlooked by many people is the value aspect. We very often see excellent, detailed stats analyses that pinpoint a horse that comes out top based on the trends used without any justification of whether it is a bet at the price.

Anyone who says a horse with the best form for a race CANNOT win a race because of stats needs to be regarded as a bit daft Greame,so best ignore.
He can be dismissed from calculations if thats yer thing,but he can still win the race,as im sure Judo and others would agree.

The estimation of the 'best form' is open to interpretation though and is not written in stone and therefore no one can claim they are definitely on the 'form horse' unless it really stands out like Sprinter Sacre.

Who has the better form Silviniaco Conti or Bobs Worth? How do you decide that? If you think it's BW how come he's been beaten twice by SC?

The stats are indisputable. Their interpretation is not.

I think this is a great debate especially if we can keep our temper in order.
The thing is neither side is right now or will be after next week. Some trends will hold up whilst others will fall. It's about using both interpretations.

I always buy Paul Jones Cheltenham book  for me it's like buying The Radio Times at Christmas not needed but part of the tradition.

I like Trends, yet at the start of the season I backed Countrywide Flame for CHdl. I'm more bothered about the lack of pace in the race and the quality of his opponents than the fact that he is 5, yet at 3.35 on Tuesday I will most probably be cursing myself for backing a 5year old in the race.

there are no sides that's the point

everything is information and all we are talking about is different ways of analysing data to come to a conclusion

it's fecking pricks that want to turn it into a personal tirade as if it really matters what other punters do or don't do or if it affects them what others do

Its not about sides

exactly jasey, there are no sides just as I said right before you

there's prices and how you decide which are worth taking and which aren't

everything else is just peripheral

ok,i shall rephrase my comment.

Anyone who says a horse with ARGUABLY the best form for a race CANNOT win a race because of stats needs to be regarded as a bit daft Greame,so best ignore.
He can be dismissed from calculations if thats yer thing,but he can still win the race,as im sure Judo and others would agree.

was reading this thread and to be fair i can see where everyone is coming from, what are stats they are figures from the past that add up to some thing being unlikely to happen or likely to happen.the problem is people getting crazy with stats as in the word and not why,i have on here stated why long run trying to win against the so called stats is nonsense as he was younger than most stats  figure out.yes stats will help when you look deeper in to them and then get angle why they might be correct,but then is that not you studying form now which i think is the thread starters point. but to counter act that i will give you all a true story that how i picked a grand national horse and you could say that was stats or form. this was when  the fences  where tougher i might add.

the first  i done was elemenated any horse that had ever fell,then i decided any horse that had pulled up in any race,this was my whittling down the field,then i decided any horse that had never run over at least 3 miles. once i had got all these form point or stats of there form out way, i now  looked at the form and anything that was clearly no form of note i scored them out.
with just about had every horse scored out by now, it left me with 5 horses to really digg in to form.
there was two horses i really could not make up my mind with to get my main bet on.now for the fun of elimination guessd what the 5 horsesi had not scored out where the first 5 home.so the form stats worked a dream, the two i could not decide between where first and second, namingly RUBSTIC AND ZONGALERO and to my amazing luck i decided to bet rubstic which won me a right few quid and likely my girl friend to at time lol , who im married to for 30 years now.swo the point is do trends work better than form ,ofcourse not they are all part of the analysing the equine equation because that is what we are effectivly doing,betting on the value of our mind over the mind of the horses that are running in the next race.

Mepoor you never used stats or trends for your national bet. You just drew up your own criteria and made your selections as a result for a difficult race. Good post.

DEAR oh dear Graeme 83 prize pri*k,read his post again without blinkers.

Lets be honest, the two approaches are chalk and cheese, if I fancy a horse on what I see of the horse but look for a stat to back it up and can't find one, I'll still back the horse.

On the other hand if the hard core stats guy should happen to initially fancy a horse based on his visual impression but found that it wasn't supported by stats/trends, once he'd decided not to hang himself, would then set about cleansing his soul by way of convincing himself that the reasons he fancied the damn thing in the first place were absolutely ridiculous reasons and put it down to a bad dream to which he was glad that he awoke.

In all seriousness what stats can't give you is an opinion on an individuals style of racing,it just gives you a rigid report of what has happened before, isn't it possible in fact from a stats point of view to not need to watch a single race throughout the season but to just turn up once all the runners are set and eliminate them one by one according to the stats.

duffy
Good post

Agree with that,however there seems to be this myth that all stats followers will use this approach alone?
The form has to be there,chelts is different to 95% of the dross we see in uk racing,most of the time we are looking for form in the book at chelts,not form hidden on the racecourse.

I don't see why people get so worked up by how other people punt, jump to conclusions like duffy just did about other peoples thought processes and then slag them off

what has it got to do with anyone else how somebody else chooses to punt? especially before the races have been run

judo, Thats not slagging anybody off, it could be descibed as pulling your leg a bit, I'll tell you what you won't find in any of my posts though is foul or insulting language if someone doesn't agree with me

there are no 'two approaches', there are hundreds of ways to look at all kinds of races so chalk and cheese is total bollox

ratings, performances, trainer form, trainer jockey/combos, visual impressions, race history, key trials, negative trends and anything else useful can and should be used in whatever way the punter chooses to address the question: what are the true chances?

I certainly do not just look at the trends, I've followed the individual horses, their performances (often over several seasons) throughout the year, made notes and observations, listened to and noted what trainers have said in post race interviews, studied and interpreted speed ratings, going and distance preferences and many many other things long before I even began to look at the trends for this years Festival. This notion that there is any difference between trends and any other data that can be analysed is complete tosh and is only for those that really just want to feel good about themselves when they pick a winner "oh look at me I'm a great judge"

With that I'll leave you to it. WALOFCs

Interesting thread but there's an inherent lack of respect for other people's methodologies here. Put simply no one can be 100% sure they have read a race right. Personally, the thought process is important as there will be finite answers as to why a horse won a race or did not win the race. Our job as punters whether for fun or serious is to create those angles/answers/theories and select the most convincing angle as to why a horse may or may not win. How we choose those angles/theories is up to us. Everyone is different. If everyone shared the same methodology, life would be very boring.

Stats is good, personal opinion is good too. A combination of the two is also very good too. Graeme83, Judorick, you guys seem to be on the opposite side of the debate here. JR, your work is always a good read as it gives me food for thought. My method is probably similar to yours and I always question why why why and push the envelope. It's time consuming but worthwhile and it is something I enjoy.

Graeme83, I'm not sure why you're so against the use of statistics. When you make mistakes, do you not revisit and try and learn from those mistakes? If you were a chef, do you not look at exactly how much of ingredients you used if the dish doesn't work? You remind me of self taught chefs that sneer at classically trained chefs who use exact measurements and tried and trusted cooking techniques. THere's nothing wrong with using tried and trusted methods.

Bottom line: you are effectively saying history is irrelevant but it applies to everyone who likes a punt. Call it stats, call it intuition, call it personal opinion, the point is we all look back at history in order to learn what it takes for a horse to win a race. Statistic is history. Opinion is history. What happened in your past makes you the man you are today. Like it or not, history in the various guise of statistics, opinions, intuitions forms your very opinion in the present. Best of luck to all! Happy punting (and studying!)

Cause and effect - my initial post is in counter to the the statos who are looking down at other posters and rubishing their opinion, because the other persons opinion doesn't fall in line with their stats. One even had the brass faced cheek to scoff at Barry Geraghty because Geraghtys expert opinion was not in line with the Feltham/RSA trend. I'm not saying history is irelevant. I've said that pre-requsite trends that may not have any influence should not be looked upon as having a bearing on tomorrows outcome, and if trends are met they can be done so by coincedence. History can have a bearing because of things such as course and ground form. The trends have facts behind them, and as such the fact is more importance than the trend. In short, the statistics and trend cater for the basics, and don't take mitigating factors into consideration.

I actually in regards to the topic there are broadly to schools of thought.

First you have those like judo and JOCI who use trends and stats as a starting point and will on the whole eliminate horses that way to provide a short list and then make an evaluation.

I, and am assuming others, however will look at either a horse or the race ( depending how far away the race is )and make a decision based on form, a visual impression and more pertinently on the flat for me its breeding. With experience I have learned to understand the requirements of winning a particular race and this information is almost like a sub-conscious referral to trends. But in a sense this is the secondary aspect.

There are are of course huge variations of the above but as I and others have said there is no 'right' way - there is the right way for each individual and I am sure these develop and change.

What I wouldn't do however is dismiss a horse if it failed to meet a stat. The obvious one at the moment is Dynaste in the RSA. I don't want to start another debate on that horse but for me I will not be backing it for the RSA purely on price terms. Visually for me I see it most suited to the demands of the Jewson but as I look at the probable field for the RSA, if it turned up for it I see Dynaste as by far on form the most likely winner. Not backing it would in truth be nothing to do with the stats, but the visual impression his win at Cheltenham made on me in that his speed is his greatest weapon.

@roobuck, agree with you about not dismissing a horse based on stats, and the arguement on dynaste is a most pertinent one. Just because he doesn't fit the trends doesn't mean he can't win. Those stats applied to previous runners and not to him. Dynaste would need to be judged on his merit for the race, not those that have preceded him. The Feltham one is the most controversial for me, its needs to be analysed as to what about 3m at Kempton may not be suitable to winning at Cheltenham. Does this factor impinge on Dynaste's chances in the race (if he turns up). The stats are useful but only to the point where they are actually applicable to the horse in question.

Couple of good,sensible posts there.
Probably cos i agree with them
But yes,they make sense,imo.

The Great Graeme83. With another magnificent post...still lookin for all his bets so I can lay them though...

Graeme has put his lays up on another thread.

I am not stats driven but I don't mind if people are guided by them more than other means, I just have a little poke at them in the context of this forum because they are delivered in a beligerent way IMO,if you question what judo says you will be abused and going by what another poster said you'll even be treated to a pm with an insult, the abuse happens regularly, in fact you could say that there is quite a trend developing

To be fair the abuse goes both ways. Non-stats people have a go back and neither is complimentary. Get over it and get on with it!

Where's this thread Jasey?

A page back m8.