new standard times a.w

[richard-westwood]

ive been asked by a few people for the new standard times for the a.w tracks as the racing post ones are complete tripe .i was originally going to compile for each class of race but i found that in order to facilitate better benchmarks for all races then the standard time needed to be one which applied to all horses else you have to mess around when there is more than one grade of runner in a race (i.e good hcaps ) so these are the new standards i compiled from the 30 fastest times achieved at each track over each distance and tested and compared to all races run since and i think you'll find then very accurate ling 5f 57.73 ling 6f 70.25 ling 7f 83.25 ling 8f 96.00 wolv 5f 20y 60.70 wolv 6f 5f 216yrd 73.50 wolv 7f 87.80 wolv 8f 1mile141yrds 108.80 south 5f 57.95 south 6f 74.30 south 7f 87.80 south 8f 100.40 kemp 5f 59.10 kemp 6f 71.52 kemp 7f 84.43 kemp 8f 97.70 all time in seconds ..............enjoy :clap

[richard-westwood]

Re: new standard times a.w first thing you notice are some are miles apart from the racing post i.e wolv 8f and others are absolutely bang on i.e i compiled the kempton 5f time of 59.10 on paper then went to check the r.p standard and it was exactly 59.10 !!!! so im pretty confident that ones spot on !!

[chris34]

Re: new standard times a.w Thankyou Richard I do like looking at times often a good judge of how solid the form is likely to be, RP Standards have probably become slightly outdated due to the AW surface getting tired especially at Lingfield, and Southwell is always a hard one to judge because it depends how cold it gets there and how much work they do to the track also Southwell is the the one that is most effected by any dampness or rain

[richard-westwood]

Re: new standard times a.w yes .....the southwell ones were especially bad .........i was having a lot of trouble rating races there and so started avoiding it altogether because i could see the standards were miles out ,hopefully it should make it easier to compare between different courses now

[richard-westwood]

Re: new standard times a.w p/s i did a comparison of the times at meydan .....and found them to be very close to the r.p standards indeed so ive got these as my benchmarks for there : 6f 71.50 7f 83.90 ( i had written down 83.94 ....but stick with r.p one ) 8f 95.90 (i had written 95.96 ....so r.p one fine ) these times have proved time again to be accurate so im very happy with them havent got a 5f time (not sure they even run that distance?)

[Trotter]

Re: new standard times a.w

Thankyou Richard I do like looking at times often a good judge of how solid the form is likely to be, RP Standards have probably become slightly outdated due to the AW surface getting tired especially at Lingfield, and Southwell is always a hard one to judge because it depends how cold it gets there and how much work they do to the track also Southwell is the the one that is most effected by any dampness or rain

I think the RP update their standard times every November at the end of the turf season

[Mr.Wilson]

Re: new standard times a.w Think you could still tighten a few of those up Richard!

[Haystacks]

Re: new standard times a.w

...so these are the new standards i compiled from the 30 fastest times achieved at each track over each distance and tested and compared to all races run since and i think you'll find then very accurate

Many thanks for sharing the Richard. I do have reservations about this methodology of using the fastest times though, as some distances feature better quality runners than others. The way that racing works, there are simply far more quality races at 6f and 8f than there are at 7f. Thus I would have thought that pretty much across the whole country 6f and 8f will have relatively much faster standard times than 7f. For example, at Lingfield there is a 13 second increase in your times between 6f and 7f and only a 12.75 second increase between 7f and 8f. That seems counter-intuitive to me, and I would have expected the 7f time to be closer to 83 seconds. Even if there are very few runners who actually crack 83 seconds at the 7f Lingfield, it may that this is simply due to the fact that there are far fewer decent races at that distance.

[richard-westwood]

Re: new standard times a.w yes i agree i knew some of you would notice that they might seem a little on the lenient side but some of the standards that are used in the papers are based on track records or other times that are generally impossible to achieve by a standard horse .the average a.w horse is graded 4-7 so trying to compare a standard time at lingfield (which was set in say a class 1 /listed race last oct ) with a class 4 race at kempton today ....then what chance have you got ? so to remedy this i took the 30 fastest times over a range of classes ,then weeded out any times that were overly fast and tried to find the time that best reflected the average class of runner at that track ......you will notice therefore that if you have a class 2 hcap at lingfield (very rare ) the time will undoubtably be faster than the average standard i set above (probably by 0.6-1.2) but that is to be expected ......in general though for the vast 90% of runners it should be very close to the standard they can achieve realistically which is what i wanted as for discrepancys in the figures .....i can only write down what the horses were achieving over the last 12 monthes .....it may be as some people said that certain distances dont have the quality of races at lower/higher distances therefore you get a slight differing in the standards (as you would expect ) but they should be a good benchmark and if you can always personally change them if you think ive been too lenient ......but after watching a few races on the a.w i think you'll realise that they arent too far out now p/s by 30 fastest times i meant i took the 30 fastest times at 8f then 7f then 6f not overall ....so yes it took ages ....lol so in essence you can now compare your class 4 kempton horse with the fastest 30 horses that have run around that grade in the last 12 monthes .....which cant be bad ?

[richard-westwood]

Re: new standard times a.w now if i could only do this for all the turf tracks ...we' d be on to a winner !!!!! trouble is id have to have access to at least 5years worth of results from each individual track on specific ground ( i.e 5f good epsom ) and to get the 30-40 results i needed would be a nightmare to find by hand unless someone had a database that could specifically call up distance and ground results ....then it would be possible?

[Mr.Wilson]

Re: new standard times a.w I've got a database with over 325,000 times and official ratings for those times over the last 16 years on the turf which has afforded me the luxury of producing the most stringent and efficient model to work off. I'm currently in the process of sharing my good fortune and making a spreadsheet on Speed Ratings for the All Weather so that people can choose to use if they want on The PL.

[Fu Fu ah]

Re: new standard times a.w Mr Wilson Hi I am a new member and have been looking at speed ratings as a way of selecting the shortlist for further study. having read many books on the subject I would like to compile my own standards but realise it is time consuming and I was wondering whether I may be able to have access to your database? I have tried to compile my own using the 2012 edition of Formbook Flat annual but I am struggling with the methodology as there is such a disparity of times at different classes and at every racecourse. If it is not possible to gain access to your database then perhaps a few pieces of advice as I am more than happy to put in the work and compile my standards for the turf season Many Thanks FuFuah

[richard-westwood]

Re: new standard times a.w

Mr Wilson Hi I am a new member and have been looking at speed ratings as a way of selecting the shortlist for further study. having read many books on the subject I would like to compile my own standards but realise it is time consuming and I was wondering whether I may be able to have access to your database? I have tried to compile my own using the 2012 edition of Formbook Flat annual but I am struggling with the methodology as there is such a disparity of times at different classes and at every racecourse. If it is not possible to gain access to your database then perhaps a few pieces of advice as I am more than happy to put in the work and compile my standards for the turf season Many Thanks FuFuah

on the flat i use the racing post standards at the moment ......i am looking into compiling my own standard times for the flat this season but im trying to locate the tools i need to do that .the principle is the same as the a.w ..... i took the 30 fastest times at each distance(at average grade run on that course) noted next to each horse the grade it was achieved in ,i then scrubbed any times that were overly fast or slow ....so your probably left with 20 odd ......throughout the season you will see a few horses at each course break the standard time by lets say 0.2-0.6 secs so you always see a slight group form just around the standard time then just behind there is another group that achieved dead on or slightly slower ......this you see at all courses so it helps you home in on what the standard time should be .you then look at the times and try to give your best estimation as to what the average (good) runner can achieve realistically at this course .the aim is to find what time one horse would run if he ran the same race and form at each of the courses on the same ground .the difficulty is finding the number of results you need to even attempt it .i.e finding the fastest 30 good ground 6f results requires 5 years worth of results and thats assuming the course or distance hasnt been altered in any way in the past 5 years as even a 20yrd alteration will render the result unusable to a degree .the standards at the top flat courses .....i.e epsom ,newmarket ,doncaster,york ,goodwood etc are all pretty accurate as ive used them time and time again and got excellent results ......the problem comes when you try and compare the lower grade courses .....windsor and hamilton etc against the standards from newmarket ,epsom as because the standards there are slightly lower class then the horse that ran at both courses is not the same level so one horse that runs the present standard time at windsor is not as good as one that ran it at newmarket which is what a good standard time should be ........i get around this to a certain degree by deducting a class variant for the grade of course the time was achieved on i.e i might make a 0.8 deduction for a time achieved at hamilton when comparing against a class A course to bring it in to line .......ideally .....what you want is to find the best grade of race that runs at say hamilton .....for instance lets say it runs 7 class 2 hcaps over the year .....take the results that were run on good ground over the past few years and find your standard time ........then compile the standard time at newmarket in the equivalent grade and the standard times you compile will be much more even the biased ones currently used .......but finding the number of results you need is mind blowing .........what your looking for is the time the same good horse ran at each course.....then youve got a good benchmark to compare other courses against ........although course standards are only a small part of speed ratings ........i actually have to do 26 separate calculations to compile 1 horses speed rating .......so its not just a case of just comparing against the standard time ......its much more complicated but i can honestly say when i started reading books and they said theyd won thousands .....i thought it was all just bravado and hype ...yet in the past 2 years ive won over 4,000 pounds in profit and its finally dawned on me that they werent actually lieing at all !!!! i dont agree with the stuff in mordins books because some of the concepts he uses just didnt work when i tried them but the beyer books taught me a lot and common sense .......take a step back sometimes and look at a race from a purely scientific point of view ..........speed ratings are one of the hardest things ive ever undertook but definately the most rewarding as i would never bet on a race now without consulting them first ,so many people told me i was wasting my time and it had all been done before and failed .......i felt a right prat trying to gauge horses sizes on course and timing horses between furlong poles when i should have been watching the race ......but its all quite funny when i think back now