Standard Times

You got it in one ... with your closing Comment.

Jul 24, 2023 -- 3:42PM, onlooker wrote:

You got it in one ... with your closing Comment.

I suspected I might answer my own question, the inaccuracy if the going day in day out should frustrate anybody who enjoys trying to solve the puzzle of a race. This faux thinking of horse safety has gone too far and clerks are clearly now overwatering artificially.

Can anybody have a bet confident in the prevailing going or any track biases being adopted as jockeys try to overcomplicate things?

There's little point in calculating speed figures if you're just using someone else's standard times. Your speed figures will simply end up with the same errors as theirs have, so you might as well just use their speed figures.

But if you can produce your own standard times, well, now you're talking. The question is, how to go about it? The answer is to start off by doing precisely the useless thing I mentioned in the first paragraph - calculate speed figures via someone else's standard times, but to do so consistently, day-in day-out, until you start noticing which distances at which tracks are consistently generating speed figures which are too low or too high. Adjust those standard times appropriately, and your speed figures will be more accurate than the published ones, and you've got the edge which make speed figures so valuable.

From that point of view it doesn't really matter whose standard times you begin with, since the whole point of the exercise is to spot where they're wrong. But I have to admit it's a lot simpler if the standard times you begin with are relatively accurate in the first place. It's easier to spot anomalies that way. So, from that point of view I'd suggest purchasing a time machine and going back two decades to when Ken Hussey was still around. Failing that, you may as well start with Topspeed's figures. At leest they're based on weigh carried, so are applicable to horse racing on a planet with gravity.

Mordin On Time by Nick Mordin covers this in depth. A very good read.

The accuracy of going descriptions is irrelevant. You calculate speed figures in order to estimate what the going was, not the other way round. Anyone who thinks you calculate speed figures from the going allowance has simply never calculated speed figures. You calculate the speed figures first, and from those figures calculate a going allowance, if you can be bothered.

Personally I've never bothered to calculate a going allowance, since that allowance also covers rails movements, and wind speed/direction as well. You can't isolate only the going from the going allowance.

Mordin On Time only works on the Moon, which, to be fair, was where Mordin appeared to be wired half the time.

screaming from beneaththewaves

Were you aware that - Several years ago - Topspeed (Dave Edwards) was instructed by higher echelons at the Racing Post to Increase his STANDARD Times - (ie - a 5f - 59 secs - increase to - just over 1 minute) - and comparatively for All other race Distances - Because ...

The Topspeed figures were running at a Lower Level than RPR Racing Post Ratings - and 'they' wanted them to appear more compatible with Racing Post Ratings .... (which, incidentally, in my opinion - run at too high an overall level, anyway)

There's ARTIFICIALITY for you.

What was the deal with the original Topspeed figures? iirc they were somehow rebased to the RPR each horse had run to, which meant Topspeed figures had to wait a day or three until the Racing Post form team had calculated the RPRs.

No, I didn't know that, onlooker.

It is a hazard with speed figures. You create them by identifying the race on the card which is closest to standard time compared with the class of horses running in it. Every other race on the card is rated against that one via the clock. Which means you get one race where the speed figures equate to the official handicap mark, or Racing Post rating, and every horse in every other race on the card gets a speed figure lower than the official mark or RPR. Which means that when you use those speed figures to assess future races, the ratings inevitably get lower and lower.

For instance, something in a maiden sprint on the Flat has an official rating of 70, but a best speed figure of 60, and gets beaten a length at level weights by something with an official rating of 60 and a best speed figure of 63.

Winner: OR 60 SF 63
Second: OR 70 SF 60 winning distance a length

The time is fast relative to standard. How do you rate the winner? 73 or 63? You got it right, and the official handicapper got it completely wrong. If you rate the winner 73, you're going along with the man who got it wrong; if you rate it 63, you're following the speed figures which got it right.

So your ratings/speed figures inevitably slip, and, in my case, after four or five years nearly everything had a negative speed figure! Minus ten, or things like that. Which wouldn't have mattered, except I used to share my speed figures with Eddie Fremantle, and it just got embarrassing.

I got around the problem by simply adding 100 to every rating, and everything looked and sounded nice and professional again.

screaming from beneath -

That is your individual - and, may I see, unique way of operating

I can assure you - and other readers, that Topspeed does not calculate Speed figures like that - as he makes absolutely No correlation with Official Ratings whatsoever  ...
Witness some of the Lowly Topspeed figures for Listed races and Group3s, as an example.

------------

Ramruna  -  No - As posted above - Topspeed and Racing Post Ratings do NOT work in unison

I cannot see just where you are coming from with your question.

The Change that I mentioned came about - Because ...

When they were Outputting the weight-adjusted Topspeed Figures and Racing Post Ratings onto the RACECARDS -
The Topspeed Figures were running at a STONE, and MORE, Lower that the Racing Post Ratings - ON the Racecards.

Presumably - By Increasing the Topspeed Standard Times - Horses would appear to run Faster  - (NOT run Overall Faster, of course  )  But run NEARER to/Set against the 'New' Standard Time.... when the Topspeed Rating was being calculated against Race Results.

So, If the race Standard Time had been Increased by just over a Second - Then that would give the illusion that The Horse has run to a Topspeed figure which was (NOW) just over a Second faster (than it would previously have appeared to) - in comparison to the Standard Time.

The Winner finishes a 5 furlong race in, say, 1 min 1secs

Previously - at 59 secs Standard Time - It had run 2 seconds Slower than Standard
Now - Set against the 'New' Standard Time of 1min 0.3secs (a 1.3 secs Increase, from 59 secs) - The Winner has run 'only' 0.7 seconds Slower than  (the 'new') Standard (Not 2 seconds, as previously)

At approx 5+ lengths per second - and 3 lbs per lengths - for a 'new' Standard Time of just over a Second (1.3 secs) higher = circa 20 Points Faster/Higher/Better - when calculating the 'new' Topspeed Figure. 

That is the kind of methodology I was led to believe.

I haven't made myself clear then, omlooker. My whole point is that when calculating speed figures you lose correlation with official ratings (or RPR), and hence the speed figures get lower and lower. That's what rating races according to your speed figures rather than official ratings does.

@screaming from beneaththewaves

Yes, I know RPR & TS are independent now; I was trying to remember how Topspeed began, long before the Sporting Life's Dave Edwards took over after the merger.

OK a quick Bing finds this 20-year-old thread from the old uk.sport.horseracing newsgroup discussing different speed figure compilers.
https://uk.sport.horseracing.narkive.com/SiQW440U/topspeed-formula

I love this snarky post:-
I stopped paying attention to these particular speed figures a couple of seasons ago when James Underwood's Digest pointed out they'd given a runner in a seller had a higher speed figure than some of the field for another race the same day: Group One, 3 year olds, Epsom, Saturday after first Wednesday in June -- you know the race?

Anyway, there is also a post about Topspeed and Postmark (now RPRs) which answers my question:-
The original Topspeed, Tony Harbidge, used to relate his figures to the Postmark rating each runner ran to. This makes most sense but had the obvious drawback that he could not compile speed figures for a couple of days until the Postmark handicappers had done their work. (And if Postmark screwed up, so did Topspeed.)

There is also a note that Dave Edwards described his method in the Sporting Life Guide to the Flat, 1994.

I love this snarky post:-
I stopped paying attention to these particular speed figures a couple of seasons ago when James Underwood's Digest pointed out they'd given a runner in a seller had a higher speed figure than some of the field for another race the same day: Group One, 3 year olds, Epsom, Saturday after first Wednesday in June -- you know the race?


Epically missing the the point of speed figures. Occasions like that are precisely why they can be so valuable.