Mark Holder "stats a waste of time "

Doubtful any will show hard evidence…..

Not read it but don't have to in order to agree with him   

A sack load on YouTube Hayden…..

https://www.racingpost.com/news/opinion/comment/most-racing-statistics-are-a-total-waste-of-time-for-punters-take-it-from-someone-whos-made-their-living-out-of-the-game-ahYud5Y9YDVf/


Most racing statistics are a total waste of time for punters - take it from someone who's made their living out of the game

Of all the things I’m grateful for, the fact my parents brought me up to be respectful and polite is top of the list. Never would I have dreamed of calling their friends by their first name; they were either Mr and Mrs Hall or, if they were particularly close friends, Auntie Beryl and Uncle Tim. In fact, it wasn’t until I was closing in on my teens did I realise that neither Beryl nor Tim were related to me in any way. I found it all very confusing if I’m honest.

My courtesy has, hopefully, extended to people I disagree with when it comes to racing and betting. I would rather nod and say nothing than get into a full-scale debate of why I’m probably right.

However, there is one area where I do struggle to hold my tongue, and it’s when I must listen to anyone droning on, relentlessly, about irrelevant facts, systems and statistics. What I find staggering is that some people waste so much time working on them when they could be doing something more useful, like collecting deciduous leaves or spotting drain covers.

There’s just one very simple question we need to ask ourselves when considering the relevance of any fact or statistic: will it make the horse go faster? If the answer is yes, then it’s worth considering; if the answer is negative, then we should hastily move on.

I have made a living out of my betting for more than 30 years but I'd be significantly better off if I’d been given a pound for every time I heard a runner must have a great chance given that his jockey has “only gone there for one ride”. So what? The horse certainly doesn’t care; and are they saying that a professional rider would sooner stay at home, slumped on the sofa watching Escape To The Country, than do their job?

The same can be said about a trainer being present at the course where he has runners. I can say with a degree of certainty that the horse won’t be thinking, ‘The boss is here, I’d better try a bit harder’. It’s immaterial and nonsensical to believe it has any bearing on a horse’s performance.

Trainer stats at a particular course are usually irrelevant. While there are some courses where certain trainers will tend to introduce their better horses, these will normally be in maidens and novices, but why would we want to bet in races full of unknowns anyway? There are more than 13,000 races run in Britain and Ireland each year, so there is more than enough to concentrate on where the form of the participants is known and we may find an edge.

There are occasions when a trainer’s course record may be relevant if we can ascertain why they do well at a specific venue. Donald McCain, for example, has a great record on the hurdles track at Bangor. Is it because it’s local to him, or that he lays his horses out to run well there? No. It’s because he understands (or at least his jockeys do) that on a track where the horses are on the turn almost throughout, racing towards the inside rail is a huge advantage.

You will rarely see one of his runners more than one horse width from the inner. On the chase course, which is less tight, McCain doesn’t enjoy anywhere near the same success. (If you ever see a horse run well having travelled wide on the hurdles course at Bangor, they are almost certainly worth bearing in mind for the future.)

A jockey’s record at a particular track is something I would consider. A rider who understands the nuances of a course can make the horse run faster (or less slowly). Again, it helps to try to understand why a jockey does well. Is it because they conserve their mount’s energy at an important part of the race, or is it because they understand where the more favourable part of the track is? Figuring out why something works is often a way to finding subsequent edges where events have conspired against a particular horse, so better may be expected.

A trainer’s past history in a particular race is unimportant. Just because they have a decent record in a contest it won’t make their horse (unless it’s the same horse returning) run a stride quicker. Yet, once again, I’ve lost track of the times where a pundit has informed us that such and such “has a great record in this race”. So what? It cannot possibly have any bearing on how today’s runner performs.

When the big races come around there will always be an array of ‘experts’ who inform us today’s race has never been won by a horse carrying more than a certain weight, and that runners of a particular age have a better record. Well, that’s all very interesting to those who care, but punters who want to win should ignore it. These stats only work until they don’t.

Give me enough time and I will find a race in the calendar that has produced a vast level-stakes profit over the past 20 years had you bet every grey five-year-old gelding trained by a female who was once assistant to a Lambourn trainer who rode fewer than 100 winners over jumps and owns two Jack Russells. It’s not that difficult to find a system that worked well in the past; it’s just they don’t tend to work in the future.

In this space two months ago I wrote: “While I know what works for me, it doesn’t preclude other approaches from being more successful.” And I meant it. But any method that doesn’t work around sound data is doomed to fail. There is no prospect of continued betting success based on anything that doesn’t affect a horse’s performance.

So, when considering any stat, always remember to ask yourself: will it make the horse go faster?

thanks ram

Does Mark Holder still run a tipping Service , was a member twenty years ago and it was informative but hard get on at the prices .

noddy says not to take any notice of stats and then goes on to talk about something else

trainers turning up and jockeys having one ride and mccain winning at banger are observations, not stats. i dont look at them because i only bet i/r and im too thick too evaluate them anyway but i know of people that use them (speed ratings, primarily) with some success

Nick luck winding THE SHOE up about his stats last week
trainer in his best suit
trainer looking worried smoking a ciggie
trainer enjoying an ice cream
trainer pacing up and down looking nervous
etc etc
I suppose there as good as anyone elses stats

funnily enough he found a winner with his OXO ,your turn today stat ,in a race where 2 horses had met 6 times before

"There are lies, damn lies, statistics & then there is form!" From the Sayings of Dr Slicer, available at all not very good bookshops nowhere in the country.

Stats don't give answers they merely provoke more questions.

remember when holder said that hcap marks are irrelevant in hcaps...comedy gold

But Mr Bright, don't you think he might have a point? We all know some yards "prepare" their horses for some handicap races.

I think he phrased it badly

I'm an avid opponent of stats as a basis for betting, but at a loss to understand why a jockey going to a meeting for one ride or even a trainer being present at a track might not, at least at some level and in some instances, be construed as an indication of expectation. However, as pointed out above, neither of those facts is a statistic.

#No1 STAT

Trainers are creatures of habit.

Holder started up a podcast last year with some bloke from optimum racing...didn't last long.

Laughing off a jockey going for one ride etc because the horse doesn't know is a bit silly, the inference from connections is that the horse is fancied to run well.

for me some stats are usefull some are not , i dont use em much  i try to  keep  it as simple as i can ,i dont read too much if anything in  form write ups  , i find they can put you off more bets than they put on ,how many times you been put off a horse in the past by a write up .........prob one for handicaps ,needs to find plenty ,stable jockey prefers the shorter priced stablemate etc. each to their  own  i dont use times or those stride patterns too confusing and jumble my  head ,no 2 races are the same,different pace  different tracks different going different positioning ,

FOYLES, I hope you don't find yourself sitting next to McNae in a pub then. If all the stats were a route to finding future winners he'd be using them to make a living punting and not filling air time on RTV. RTV have gone OTT on all the RaceIQ stuff and it's a real turn off.

If stats tell you that a horse drawn  16 in a 5f sprint at Chester wont win. You would do well to listen ( or withdraw the horse if you train it ) As they do.

If a horse runs 25 times and wins 10 races, all going right handed and doesn`t even make the frame in the other 15 all going left handed, I think that is a relevant stat.

If a horse runs 20 races and wins 4, all when the going is Soft/Heavy and finishes way down the field in all the others on Good/Firm ground, I think that is a relevant stat.

It`s easy to give examples of stats to back up your stance For or Against them, but he takes it to the extreme above, i.e. Give me enough time and I will find a race in the calendar that has produced a vast level-stakes profit over the past 20 years had you bet every grey five-year-old gelding trained by a female who was once assistant to a Lambourn trainer who rode fewer than 100 winners over jumps and owns two Jack Russells. It’s not that difficult to find a system that worked well in the past; it’s just they don’t tend to work in the future.

trouble is with your 1st 2 examples everyone including the markets no that and act/lay accordingly, those looking for/creating systems are searching for ones few have heard of used and markets haven't adjusted for,99.9% of systems are out there dissected to the 9th degree .hence Blake,the captain etc obviously been reimbursed for throwing this stride length,turf trac,opta etc,etc down everyone's throat

James Willoughby likes his stats.

Wondersobright is right when holder said that hcap marks are irrelevant in hcaps...comedy gold.
Hard to believe a professional punter would say that?

to be fair John francome used to say a 1000 times what's 7lb,one decent jump

Maybe thats were John went wrong when e went training?One decent jump is not worth 7lb.

Shirley it's a stat that stats are a waste of time.

Some stats can be useful if used in conjunction with some other angle you have into a race. But, yeah I don't believe you should go overboard with them.

wondersobright
18 Sep 24 14:30

remember when holder said that hcap marks are irrelevant in hcaps...comedy gold



chuckle about that one most days when i'm adding to a horse's notes 'career-low mark when won...'

A lot of the example being used here are not stats. They're form characteristics for individual horses. The discussion on statistics is surely about profiling characteristics of different horses over a set of results.
Form has relevance, stats don't. That's the point.

Certainly likes to blow his own trumpet, I gave up counting the amount of times he said he makes the game pay.

The vast majority of punters and people on here do not understand how to interpret stats

Key gambling stats
117 to 496gambling-related suicides in England every year, according to a 2023 Office for Health Improvement and Disparities report
2.5% of UK adults are suffering “problem gambling”
9.1% of UK 18-24-year-olds who gamble suffer “problem gambling”
100,000+ UK children suffering from or at risk of “problem gambling”
86%of gross online betting profitscome from 5% of customers
20% of the UK population are directly or indirectly harmed by gambling
1 in 4gamblers are at substantially higher risk of suffering serious harm
6x online slots have a six times higher “problem gambling” rate than other products
35% increase in mortality rate associated with heavy gambling
78% of people engaging with micro sports (“in play”) betting suffer “problem gambling”, according to this study
£15.1 billiongross annual profit for the gambling industry
£1.5 billionspent by the industry onadvertisingeach year
35% of people suffering “problem gambling” receive daily incentives to gamble, compared to 4% of those not suffering gambling harm
15 xpeople suffering from gambling disorder are 15 times more likely to take their lives, according to research from Sweden

some interesting stats in there.

The problem is that those 'stats' are lies.

How can we possibly know how many suicides are linked to problem gambling, let alone how many are solely caused by it? Gambling is only mentioned on one coroner’s report a year, on average, which is presumably an under-estimate. In the absence of better evidence, OHID’s predecessor Public Health England turned to a study from Sweden which looked at 2,099 hospital patients who were diagnosed with pathological gambling between 2005 and 2016. Sixty-seven of them died, including 21 who took their own life. The authors noted that the suicide rate among this cohort of pathological gamblers was fifteen times higher than the suicide rate of the general Swedish population.

Upon this sliver of evidence, everything else rested. In 2021, Public Health England simply estimated how many problem gamblers were in England and then multiplied the number of expected suicides by fifteen. This produced a figure of 409 suicides a year which anti-gambling activists then put on T-shirts.

...

You don’t need to be intimately acquainted with basic statistics to see the problem here. People who are being given medical or psychiatric treatment in hospitals are inherently different to people who are not. If you are admitted to hospital, there is already something wrong with you. If you are admitted to hospital and asked to take a survey to diagnose gambling disorder (or any other psychological problem) then you are very likely to be at the higher end of the risk spectrum.

Sure enough, there was a lot wrong with the 2,099 people in the Swedish study. Between 2005 and 2016, 65 per cent of them suffered from “injury, poisoning, and other consequences of external causes”. 60 per cent had an anxiety disorder. 51 per cent suffered from depression. 41 per cent had a substance-use disorder. 29 per cent had an alcohol-use disorder. 19 per cent had a personality disorder. 19 per cent intentionally self-harmed. 12 per cent were bipolar. 9 per cent had schizophrenia. In the context of all this human misery, a suicide rate of one per cent does not seem too surprising and it is absurd to assume that all the suicides were the result of problem gambling. For many of these unfortunate people, gambling may have been the least of their worries.

https://thecritic.co.uk/the-gambling-suicides-myth/

These are the only stats you need to know:

1) South Korea has the highest suicide rate among the member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

2) Under South Korean law, specifically Article 246 of the Criminal Act, gambling is generally prohibited, except for minor bets made for entertainment and at certain government-authorized facilities.

Gambling gives a man hope. Take that away and you're condemning him to fifty years of 9 to 5, with no visible way out of it.

Yes Screaming. So, expect this Labour Government to follow South Korea's lead on this very shortly!

As for Swifty, it looks like he's swallowed everything the problem gamblers grifters are pushing. NOTHING is as black & white as what they push for their grift.

As for Swifty, it looks like he's swallowed everything the problem gamblers grifters are pushing

quite the opposite, I was highlighting how all stats can be framed to suit a particular cause. Racing statisticians survive by the mugs lapping them up, I'm yet to see the evidence of anyone who can prove they make money using them. But they make a living telling us they are the route to riches.

Apologies, Swifty. You're previously been on the side of Common sense so I was surprised by your post. I got the wrong end of the stick...something I do statistically very often  lol