Betting Strategy: Simon Rowlands on time analysis, part three (subtitled: When the going gets complex)

Betting Strategy / Simon Rowlands / 08 April 2009 / 8 Comments

In the third of his series of articles on time and going analysis, Simon Rowlands explains a complex process to get you on the road to value.

The following article is a continuation of those about time and going analysis from the previous two weeks and should be viewed in conjunction with them.

The importance of standard times must be obvious from what has come previously. Unfortunately, deriving accurate standard times is a complex process, not easily explained, though there are possible shortcuts.

What you need is a sizeable body of past results for winners' times at various courses and distances, which should then be adjusted in reverse for the various factors - such as age, weight, ability and going - that will have affected those times. Provided you have a big enough sample of these normalised times, you should be able to derive meaningful standard times from them.

At this juncture one crucial characteristic of times should be pointed out, namely that they cannot be expected to be normally distributed. It is far easier to run slowly than to run fast, and races are a test of which horse gets from A to B first rather than which horse records the fastest possible time.

The upshot is nearly always a skewed distribution, and your methodology should allow for this. For instance, average times and record times are inappropriate for calculating standard times, and there is plenty of evidence of the folly of using them.

Sounds difficult? Well, one of the shortcuts possible is to take a set of existing standard times - Timeform's are the best I know of and can be back-engineered from their timefigures with a little effort, though others are more openly available - and to apply them to past results. Anomalies, if they exist, soon become apparent, though it is again a lengthy process.

The importance of the going allowance must also be obvious from what has come previously. To a degree, this is necessarily a subjective matter on account of the small samples (usually only six or seven races) available. Having at least one winner running a time in line with its form is a convention that is likely to be right more often than it is wrong (due to the proportion of truly run races). But sectionals can help to identify when exceptions have occurred.

It is important when choosing a going allowance to consider the possibility of there having been different types of going on different parts of the course. Unfortunately, different going on the straight course than the round course will mean even smaller samples and more subjectivity in deciding going allowances and timefigures than would otherwise have been the case.

It may also be unclear where precisely the different goings apply, though guidance can be sought from going maps as provided by TurfTrax and from going stick readings.

If the divide seems to be clear, such as between the straight course and the round course, then that should be reflected in the going allowances chosen. In particular, the going allowance for races started on the round course should factor in what proportion of the race took place on the straight course.

For instance, if the correct going allowance for the straight course appears to be 80, and that for the round course 120, then the going allowance for a 10f race started on the round course in which the final 4f takes place in the straight is: ((120*6)+(80*4))/10, which is 104.

For a 16f race under the same circumstances the calculation is ((120*12) + (80*4))/16, which is 110.

This may all seem complicated and, in places, suspiciously subjective. But with the help of spreadsheets and with practice it becomes both easy to grasp and quite intuitive. Practice may not make perfect in this case, but it does move things in the right direction.

As I mentioned, when writing this series of articles on time analysis was first put to me, interacting with results in a structured and methodical way has benefits over and above the immediate figures that are produced. I know of no better way to get on top of horseracing results than to rate times, or form, or ideally both.

It is time to go forth and multiply (and divide, subtract, add, sum, average, and the rest of it...).

* * *

Readers with long memories may recall I took an interest in Betfair's First Season Sire market (found under "Horseracing", "Breeding & Bloodstock") this time last year. I proved right to oppose One Cool Cat, but wrong to side with Exceed And Excel, though the latter came up not all that far short.

I am going to stick with my reasoning from 12 months ago and throw my lot in with a couple of freshmen who have got plenty of named two-year-olds already and a certain amount of speed, precocity, or arguably both. This year's fancies are Avonbridge (two placed runners already) and Footstepsinthesand.

If nothing else, it should be a fairly cheap way of taking an interest in the action on a daily basis over the next seven months or so!

Comments (8)

1. Jack Houghton | 08 April 2009

   A superb series of articles Simon.

   And whilst those who produce their own form/speed ratings might not agree completely with everything you say, I'm sure all would agree that, had we had these articles as a starting point when we first started trying to produce our own, it would have saved us a lot of time, effort and wrong turns.

   Brilliant.

2. Ian | 08 April 2009

   Agreed, the best in depth explanation of time analysis that I've ever read (and I've read most of what's out there), well done!

3. Charlie | 08 April 2009

   Well done teach ;)

4. Simon Rowlands | 10 April 2009

   Wow! Many thanks.

   Those are possibly the nicest things that anyone has ever said about me, though the music teacher who described me as "the next Mozart..." at the age of seven runs it close.

   I just hope you lot prove to have been more on the money than she was: I gave up the piano in favour of football a few months later... :-)

   Simon

5. Ian | 19 April 2009

   Simon, have you come up with a standard for the Kempton 1m1f distance yet? It hasn't been used much so there obviously isn't a lot of data but something doesn't seem right about it. I read James Willoughby say he thinks in reality it is probably short of 9f and at this stage I agree with him, in fact it seems to be considerably shorter.

6. Simon Rowlands | 21 April 2009

   Hi Ian.

   Sorry for the delay. I have not come up with a 9f standard at Kempton for the reasons you note. Any estimated standard would need to be viewed in the context that 9f races take place on the inner loop, whereas 1m races are run on the outer loop.

   The time of Mafaaz's race on March 18th is not instantly indicative of a short distance, but that was a falsely run race. If you can point me in the direction of any clear anomalies that support your contention then I will look into it.

   Falsely run races at beyond 1m were a big problem for analysts of overall race times at Kempton in the early days, and they resulted in some miscalculations regarding standard times (for reasons spelt out in the above articles).

   For instance, Racing Post at one stage had over 70% of the fastest times on a card coming at 10f+, whereas less than 30% of the races had been run at such distances.

   I believe that RP standard times have been recalculated since and are considered to be a better guide now than once they were.

   Regards

   Simon

7. Ian | 21 April 2009

   Apologies Simon, I'm beginning to confuse myself now! I was writing about that Kempton distance from memory, which obviously isn't what it was. I should have said JW thinks it is actually a LONGER distance and I think he may be right.

   I take your point about Mafaaz's race being slowly run and I also think that the few other races that have been run over the trip haven't been particularly fast, but even allowing for that, the times seem a bit too close to the 10f ones on the same inner loop.

   Campanologist's race on 15/03/08 seemed to be run at a reasonable tempo but again the time seems very slow for the distance. I suppose it's possible that the inner loop was riding much slower that day, there is sometimes a difference between the two circuits, but I still remain sceptical for now.

8. ian | 24 January 2010

   Hi simon,

   You mention back engineering Timeform standards. Do you have some pointers on this? Also how do you adjust for different class of animal (ie class pars)? Would this differ from Mordin/Beyer etc? I'm looking to examine different ways of calculating figures for comparison and am looking for different standards than RP....I ve tried calculating my own but always obtain illogical results, probably due to sample size or the way ive accounted for cleass/weight etc

   Thanks for your help it is a subject i spend far too long thinking about!
   Cheers Ian