Calling La Mer
 

Hi La Mer!
I noticed your interest in timerating, If not a state secret what track-times do you use as a base for your ratings, fastests, average, or median?
I use median, but sometimes I feel I am picking up too many wrong horses with it.
Thank's

I use standard (average) times. It's important though to work out a daily track variant if you can because if the track is running fast then this will be reflected in the times being run. Conversely, if the track is running slow: meaning that a time run on a slow running track surface can be better than one run on a fast running track even though the latter time is the quicker.

If too many horses @ a meeting are running times faster than the normal be careful, likewise if there are bunched finishes in such circumstances - time normally will & should separate the wheat from the chaff & when it doesn't it should sound an alarm bell - good horses win in slow & fast times - poor horses normally only win in slow or average times - well worth remembering - and when this isn't the case there is normally some other reason such as abnormally fast track conditions or wind factor.

If you are using times then it is also necessary to fit those times to a profile of how the race will be run - racemapping - it's of little use selecting the fastest horse in the race if the race is likely to be run in a slow pace & therefore the best attribute the horse has is somewhat diminished.

My own ratings are based more on this latter factor - pace - then just times alone as IMHO times should be used not so much as pure ratings but more of a tool in detecting future winners or over-rated performances.

Daniel O'Sullivan who used to contribute to this forum has written some very good stuff on this issue.

Thank's for that La Mer!
Your comments are much appreciated.
I am working along those lines but not quite there yet. Specially with the daily variant.
You make an excellent point of a fast horse in a slowly run race, I think that's probably, where my problems with pure timerating are coming from.

I am just about to finish updating the times on all tracks according to distance, track condition and raceprize (raceprize in close intervals, like "0 to 4k" 4 to 7.5k" etc.) into a table from 2000 to date.
I am amazed at the number of various distances on some tracks!! A nominal 1000 M can be 1012,15,18 and so forth, I wonder if the times we see for these nominal distances in the formguides, are adjusted accordingly?
This is raw data, that I'm going to use to find the fastest, average, and median time.
If it's of any use to you, I would be happy to email it to you, when done. (takes a while even on a super-duper), might be a bit too big for a forum upload, but will try that first.
Cheers.

Hi La Mer!
Re. track times from 2000 to last week.
Tried to upload them but no luck, just a bit over the limit
Had to split then into two files as it is, due to the limitations of both, Excel and text file formats (both only take 65k of records). If you, or anyone else can use or benefit from them, you are all welcome to use it as you please.
Email me on "lomaca@optusnet.com.au" to get it.
Don't think it will be of much use, if any, for people using traditional handicapping.

Good luck.

Thanks for the offer Iomaca but I already have track times going back into the 1990's so have no real need for any additional info.