Showing posts with label Beyer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Beyer. Show all posts

  • The Truth About the Pick Three

    POSTED Aug 30, 2013 By Derek Simon
    At one time, the goal of most racetrack gamblers — if they had a goal at all — was to pick winners. Read any handicapping book published before Al Gore invented the Internet (when a “cell phone” was still a phone used by prison inmates) and you’ll see what I mean.

    In the original “Betting Thoroughbreds,” for example, Steve Davidowitz discusses Beyer speed figures — then produced by the man himself and not the Daily Racing Form — by relating how they affected his success rate.

    “In the first season, the results said 176 winners in 310 picks. Fifty-three percent,” Davidowitz wrote. “A flat bet profit in all categories.”

    Nowhere in his book does Davidowitz mention what that flat-bet profit, or return on investment (ROI), was. That’s because, back then, it didn’t matter. The assumption was that if one could “out-pick” the crowd, one would win.

    Two decades later, Andrew Beyer realized how wrong this premise had been.

    “At Gulfstream Park in 1990, all of my worst fears about the nature of the pari-mutuel competition materialized,” the dean of speed-figure handicapping wrote. “My speed figures — which had now advanced into the computer age — had never been so refined. I was watching races, assessing individual horses’ efforts, and detecting track biases more astutely than ever before. I was handling my money and my emotions with skill and maturity — a great step forward from the time I punched a hole through the wall of Gulfstream’s press box in a rage over an unjust disqualification. I felt that I was at the very top of my game as a gambler. And still I couldn’t win. My lack of success was due not to bad luck or photo finishes or any of the other traumas that plague all horseplayers. My frustration was best demonstrated by some of the winners I picked — by horses like Memorable Skier.”

    Beyer went on to say that Memorable Skier had finished out of the money (worse than third) in all of his nine career races against maiden competition and was now facing winners, which, under normal circumstances, would make the horse an instant toss for most handicappers.

    “But his speed figures were competitive and, in his last start, [Memorable Skier] had been forced to race wide on a track with a strong rail-favoring bias,” Beyer explained. “Now he was running again on a day when the rail was an advantage, and he had drawn post position 5, with four slow-breaking horses inside him. I concluded that the maiden would be able to drop to the rail and lead all the way. When I went to the track that day, prepared to make a killing, I thought Memorable Skier embodied all of the handicapping skills I had spent a lifetime learning.

    “The race went just as I expected,” Beyer went on. “Memorable Skier popped out of the gate, angled to the rail, led all the way to win by six lengths — and paid $6.20. A pitiful $6.20.

    “Even at a track heavily populated by tourists and retirees, the betting public had become smart and well-informed,” Beyer concluded.

    While I don’t necessarily believe that the crowd had suddenly become “smart and well-informed” (I think that was always the case to a certain degree), it is noteworthy that Beyer was complaining about Memorable Skier’s price after the race had been run (and he had presumably bet). Outside of his reference to making “a killing,” he gave no indication as what his expectations were before the race.

    Fast forward another 20 years and little has changed in the minds of some handicappers. Despite declining field sizes, arguably fewer quality races, drugs (both legal and illegal) and a host of other new variables to muddle the handicapping picture, many folks analyze races today like they did when Sheena Easton won a Grammy for Best New Artist — they focus entirely on picking the winner.

    Of course, many realize, as Beyer did, that prices are not what they once were on standout horses, particularly those with a speed or class edge. Enter the horizontal wager: the pick-3, pick-4, pick-5 and pick-6.

    Because these types of bets focus almost entirely on picking the race winner, bettors flock to them like foam fingers to Miley Cyrus. But are these kinds of bets such a great deal? Personally, I have my doubts, so I decided to conduct a little test.

    I looked at my database stats for Saratoga during the first week of August in an effort to determine whether or not pick-3 wagering, in particular, made more sense (and more dollars, for that matter) than straight win betting.

    First, because so many pick-three bettors are looking to beat the favorite in one or more of the legs, I checked to see how the post-time favorite in pick-3 sequences fared over the studied period (Aug. 1-5):
    Favorites: 49
    Winners: 12
    Win Rate: 24.5%
    ROI: -36.43%
    Next, I determined what the average $2 pick-3 returned:
    Avg. Pick-3 Payoff (46 sequences): $353.78
    Then, I computed what a simple $2 parlay on the same races would have produced:
    Avg. Three-Race Parlay (46 sequences, same races as above): $295.90
    “Ah-ha,” I can hear some of you exclaim. “You see, you see (you’re a very excitable lot), the pick-3 offers better value than a parlay” (which is typically the argument for pick-3 wagering).

    OK, that’s true; has been for many years. This is due to the fact that the pick-3 pool extracts takeout and breakage, albeit at a higher rate, just once, whereas each race in a three-race parlay is subject to the track and government’s wrath.

    What this viewpoint ignores is something that economists refer to as “opportunity costs,” or the foregone benefits of other options. And I would argue that those benefits, in many cases, are better than those offered by the pick-three.

    Permit me to explain: Let’s say that you like Horse A, at, say, 4-5 odds, in a particular race. But because of the short price, you decide to bet a pick-3 singling Horse A in the opening leg. Assuming that Horse A wins, what kind of a return do you need to beat the resulting $3.60 payoff?

    Many of you will say $3.61… and many of you would be wrong. A $3.61 payoff assumes a single $2 bet and a 100 percent strike rate in each of the two remaining legs of the pick-3… which could only be guaranteed if one were to cover all the possible combinations.

    So, for the sake of argument, let’s pretend there are eight horses in each of the last two legs of our mythical pick-3. Assuming that we hit the “ALL” button, our ticket cost now stands at $128 ($2 x 1 x 8 x 8). Hence, we would need a pick-3 payoff of $230.40 to match (not exceed) what a corresponding $128 win bet on Horse A would have returned.

    This is not good news considering that the three pick-3’s in my study that led off with an odds-on winner returned an average of $166.47. Granted, a three-race sample is hardly proof of concept, but it’s not encouraging either.

    “But Derek,” I hear some of you complaining, “nobody hits the ‘ALL’ button on two legs, especially with a big favorite leading off.”
    A valid point, but keep in mind: The minute one starts limiting the pick-3 combinations, one’s winning percentage goes down. So what started as a high percentage play on a 4-5 shot now becomes a much lower-percentage one.

    And that uncertainty must be taken into account if one is playing for profit and not just the gratification of having a winning ticket.

    Are You Ready For Some Football?

    With the kickoff of the NFL season on Thursday, I thought I would re-post a video I did for Youbet.com a few years ago. 


  • When Speed Figures Matter... And When They Don't

    POSTED Jul 11, 2013 By Derek Simon

    Andrew Beyer
    One thing my 20+ years of racetrack experience has taught me is that good handicappers adapt to changes in the game.

    Initially, upon having read Steve Davidowitz’s book “Betting Thoroughbreds,” I cared only about my winning percentage. Davidowitz often talked about his 50 percent success rate in his book and I wanted to join that exclusive club.

    Of course, I eventually realized that doing so meant sacrificing price, which became untenable when casual bettors (like grandma and her winner-picking hatpin) were displaced by more experienced players — players who, just like me, had read Davidowitz’s book… and Andrew Beyer’s books… and Jim Quinn’s books…

    It was at this point that I began experimenting with angles.

    Armed with literature from American Turf Monthly’s former editor Ward Clever, a.k.a. Ray Taulbot, I started insisting that the horses I bet meet certain criteria that I determined — via a sample size of 20 — to be relevant.

    A few of those angles were good; most were not. Worse, I discovered that angles, especially those that sought “price horses” were maddeningly inconsistent — I wanted steady profits, not the occasional windfall score.

    Mr. Simon meet Mr. Scott.

    It seemed like a match made in heaven. When my step-dad bought me “Investing at the Racetrack” by William L. Scott one Christmas, it renewed my belief in Santa Claus. Here it was, I thought: the Arc of the Covenant, Fountain of Youth and Philosopher’s Stone all rolled into one, neat 287-page package.

    In his book, Scott detailed his unique way of assessing equine talent via “Ability Ratings,” which were comprised from fractional times and various modifiers.

    I was hooked. Not so much by Scott’s overall method — that didn’t work for me (nor, I suspect, did it work for Scott very long, judging by his subsequent books) — but by the concept. In fact, I credit Scott for putting me on the path that led to the development of my own pace figures.

    And it was my pace figures that literally changed my approach to the game. I soon realized that the numbers were so powerful that they could crystallize and, better still, quantify what before had been only nebulous theories and ideas.

    Take, for example, a recent study I did on speed figures.

    Now, I don’t think I’m going to shock anybody when I say that the effectiveness of speed figures as a predictive/profitable betting tool varies based on the type of race one is analyzing. For many years I have heard handicappers grouse about speed figures in grass races or races run over the various synthetic surfaces we lovingly — or not so lovingly — call “all-weather.”

    In fact, realizing there was a problem with his numbers on these man-made surfaces, Andrew Beyer and associates altered their approach to synthetic tracks in 2009.

    “… When we finally had a great deal of data about figures on synthetic tracks, we found a subtle flaw in our calculations that we never could have anticipated,” Beyer told Ray Paulick of the Paulick Report in November of 2010. “The top-class races at a track were producing figures lower than they had on dirt; at the same time, the bottom classes (such as maiden-claiming fillies) were producing higher figures.  This was not logical, and the same phenomenon was happening at every track.”
    What changes Beyer and his team made one can only guess, but Beyer hit at the heart of the problem later in his discussion with Paulick.

    “… Synthetic tracks pose other problems that we rarely encounter on the dirt. The early pace on synthetics is sometimes so slow that the horses can’t accelerate fast enough at the end to run the fastest final time of which they are capable.  If a horse is capable of running a mile in 1:36, but the first six furlongs of a race have been run in 1:14, he won’t get to the wire in 1:36.”
    And therein lies the problem: Often, races on turf or all-weather surfaces come down to a single burst of acceleration — usually in the stretch — rather than sustained speed throughout the course of the race. Beyer and crew likely “fixed” this problem by assigning greater values to each fifth of a second and adjusting for abnormally slow paces — but it didn’t work.

    The fact is pace, at least as I define it via my early speed rations (ESRs), which measure early energy disbursement, still has a huge effect on the viability of speed figures.

    To prove this, let’s look at some data.

    We’ll start by examining the stats of horses that earned the best last-race Brisnet speed figure (ties included):
    Number: 13,815
    Winners: 3,890
    Win Rate: 28.2%
    Return: $22,835.40
    ROI: -17.35%
    About what one would expect. But, now, let’s add in the pace component, beginning with slow-paced races (events that have an average ESR of +5 or greater on my Pace Profile Report):
    Number: 218
    Winners: 49
    Win Rate: 22.5%
    Return: $332.50
    ROI: -23.74%
    As you can see, the numbers are substantially worse than those obtained above, validating (if one can trust such a small sample, which is open to debate) the notion that speed figures are less predictive/profitable in slow-paced races.

    However, to fully endorse the theory that pace makes the case (sorry, I couldn’t resist) for or against speed-figure handicapping, we’ll have to see the opposite phenomenon in faster-paced races.

    We do.

    In races with an average ESR of -10 or less, we get the following:
    Number: 468
    Winners: 158
    Win Rate: 33.8%
    Return: $917.30
    ROI: -2.00%
    Surprised? If you’re like me, the answer is both “yes” and “no.” I am startled that the statistics on fast-paced races are so kind to a speed-oriented approach, but I am not surprised that such an approach is ineffective in slow-paced affairs.

    The lesson here for speed handicappers is to be less dogmatic in races that figure to feature a slow pace. Change your approach, adapt to the conditions… your wallet will thank you.

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  • Understanding Form Cycles

    POSTED May 31, 2013 By Derek Simon
    It’s no secret that I’m not enamored with the "bounce theory" — the notion that a tough race will knock a horse off its game for weeks or months at a time. In my opinion, this theory, which was first espoused by followers of “The Sheets” (a term applied to both Len Ragozin’s speed figure service of the same name and Jerry Brown’s Thoro-graph numbers), has been very detrimental to racing.

    It is at least partly due to the bounce theory that we see trainers keep their charges on the sidelines for extended periods of time under the pretext that they are “doing what’s right” by the animals in their care. After all, horses are not machines; they need to recuperate after a strenuous effort, we are told.

    What constitutes a “strenuous” effort is anybody’s guess, however. Sometimes it means a close finish or a prolonged drive (witness Rachel Alexandra in the 2009 Woodward below); other times it is simply a race that produces a swift clocking or extraordinary speed figure.


     2009 Woodward Stakes

    In the latter case, a horse is said to have bounced if its follow-up race features a speed figure lower than the extraordinarily high figure. Of course, on the face of it, this argument is absurd. As I pointed out in “Bounce Baloney,” a piece I did for one of my Kentucky Derby betting guides, in finite data series there is a limit as to how high — or how low — the numbers can go.

    "Hence, as a horse approaches its performance threshold, the possibility of a regression, or bounce, becomes more and more likely, purely from a mathematical standpoint," I argued.

    While not meaning to, Andrew Beyer proved my contention while dissecting his own speed figures in “Beyer on Speed:” 

    "When the Racing Form undertook its study of the Beyer Speed Figures, I had a chance to examine some patterns and determine if they had any bearing on a horse’s future performance," Beyer wrote in that 1993 tome. "I asked the computer what happens after a horse has run a sequence of three improving figures or three declining figures on the dirt during a four-month period. If, for example, he earns figures of 70, 65, and 60, is he likely to continue this decline? I expected that such trends would have little or no value as predictors of the future, but I was dead wrong. Of 3,592 horses who had run three declining figures:
    1,173 (32 percent) continued their decline,
    134 (4 percent) ran the same figure as in the previous start.
    2,285 (64 percent) ran an improved figure."
    Beyer then went on to document the results of 4,518 horses that showed the opposite pattern — a series of three improving figures, which he later termed the “three-and-out” pattern due to the abysmal results:
    1,125 (25 percent) improved again in their next race.
    192 (4 percent) ran the same figure as in the previous start.
    3,201 (71 percent) declined in the next race.
    2,368 (52 percent) declined by 6 points or more.
    Unfortunately, Beyer ignored the obvious mathematical explanation for this data and, instead, offered a mea culpa to Ragozin and “The Sheets” players.

    "For me, the most important lessons to be drawn from the existence of the three-and-out pattern are conceptual ones," the speed figure guru wrote. "It verifies Ragozin’s premise — which I had always doubted and often derided — that patterns of past figures may indeed be meaningful. It suggests that many other such patterns may exist. And it confirms Ragozin’s central tenet that a peak performance is apt to be followed by a decline."

    Well, yes and no. Yes, a peak performance is likely to be followed by a decline (again, this is a near-certainty if the word “peak” means anything). But, no, it does not confirm Ragozin’s central tenet — because “The Sheets” guys argue that a bounce is primarily a physical, not a mathematical, manifestation (I contend it is nearly always the latter).

    Still, we can use this concept of bouncing — mathematical bouncing, that is — to help answer that age-old question: How will our horse run today?

    I applied Beyer’s three-and-out rules to my Win Factor Report Form Ratings, which assign a percentage (0 to 100) based on a horse’s finishing position and beaten lengths in a particular race. A 100 percent rating indicates a winning effort; lower ratings indicate lesser performances.

    Here’s what I found:

    (Click on image to enlarge)
    Shockingly (not really), just as improving Beyer speed figures increase the likelihood of a regression, so too do ascending Form Ratings — especially if the most recent Rating exceeds 75 percent. 

    Likewise, deteriorating Form Ratings increase the probability of a form reversal.

    Viewed in this light, maybe the Preakness Stakes wasn’t such a head-scratcher after all. Just two horses — Oxbow and Itsmyluckyday — entered that 1 3/16-mile contest with fading form… they finished first and second respectively.

    (Click on image to enlarge)
    So, with this in mind, let’s take a look at some weekend races:

    May 31

    We’ll start at my home track, Arapahoe Park. In Friday’s opener, one horse shows deteriorating Form Ratings — and he happens to have the best overall speed figures in the field. That, to me, makes Valid Thief very dangerous, especially since the morning line favorite (Clay W. Woodstock) looks pretty weak.

    (Click on image to enlarge)
    Another race that intrigues me is the fourth at Mountaineer Park. Although there are no obvious “mathematical bounce” candidates, the figures suggest that Goose No Fruit and Tempestuous One are the ones to beat. 

    (Click on image to enlarge)
    June 2

    PRM7: In a race that looks wide open, I like the figures on 7-TETON BEAUTY and 6-PRINCESS OF POWER. Both have solid records over the local oval and both come off of deceptively good races.

    (Click on image to enlarge)

    LS6: There’s not a lot of early zip in this race, which makes 1-ENERGY'S PRIDE very interesting—especially since he recorded an insane -15 ESR chasing better over a route of ground last time. This race appears to fit him like a glove… and not the one in the OJ trial.

    (Click on image to enlarge)

    HOL5: Backing strong favorites in maiden races isn’t my cup of tea, but 1-APOSTLE PAUL appears to hold all the aces in this spot… although it is a contentious race.

    (Click on image to enlarge)

    EMD2: If 4-STRONG MOVE gets hammered in the wagering — and I think he might — I’d take a shot with 2-GRAYTFUL HARBOR, whose figures are nearly identical to those of the morning line favorite. Dutching those two (at the right, i.e. profitable, odds) is another way to go.

    (Click on image to enlarge)

    EMD8: 1-BOUND TO WIN pressed a reasonably fast pace while four-wide in his local debut. Since then, he’s had a series of stamina-building workouts and gets a meaningful rider switch. 4-ANKENY HILL set a slow pace in breaking his maiden at first asking, but: a) I’m not sure he needs the lead and b) his late speed ration (LSR) in that maiden-breaker was sensational. Play one or both as the odds dictate.