Help Needed: Horse Racing Stats - Comparing Different Races

[RoyalLuck]

Hello. I am new to the forum so hopefully this is allowed. I am trying to build a way to see what would have happened if a certain horse (based on past performance) had ran in a particular race (like a ghost race)

I have two sets of data from 2 races and want to try and understand if Horse 1 would have beaten, or got beat by horse 2 if it had raced with horse 2 in their race. 

Race Comparison
	Distance Rounded	Distance Actual	Yards	Weight	Ground	Seconds
Horse 1	7f	6f 195yds	1515	9-10	Soft	91.35
Horse 2	8f	7f 173yds	1713	9-12	Good to Firm	97.62

I know I am going to have to make adjustments for weight, ground and distance but not sure how to calculate this without double counting?

Or am I asking for the impossible here? 🙂

Edited June 27 by RoyalLuck

[Zilzalian]

20 minutes ago, RoyalLuck said:

Hello. I am new to the forum so hopefully this is allowed. I am trying to build a way to see what would have happened if a certain horse (based on past performance) had ran in a particular race (like a ghost race)

I have two sets of data from 2 races and want to try and understand if Horse 1 would have beaten, or got beat by horse 2 if it had raced with horse 2 in their race. 

Race Comparison
	Distance Rounded	Distance Actual	Yards	Weight	Ground	Seconds	Time Var	Adjusted Time
Horse 1	7f	6f 195yds	1515	9-10	Soft	91.35	6.55	84.80
Horse 2	8f	7f 173yds	1713	9-12	Good to Firm	97.62	0.52	97.10

 

I know I am going to have to make adjustments for weight, ground and distance but not sure how to calculate this without double counting?

Or am I asking for the impossible here? 🙂

To simplify...From my point of view (speed figures) i would back the fastest horse 99% of the time.

[RoyalLuck]

4 minutes ago, Zilzalian said:

To simplify...From my point of view (speed figures) i would back the fastest horse 99% of the time.

So in the example who would be the fastest?

[Zilzalian]

9 minutes ago, RoyalLuck said:

So in the example who would be the fastest?

Not sure why you edited the last bit out but IMO horse 1 would win.

[richard-westwood]

2 hours ago, RoyalLuck said:

Hello. I am new to the forum so hopefully this is allowed. I am trying to build a way to see what would have happened if a certain horse (based on past performance) had ran in a particular race (like a ghost race)

I have two sets of data from 2 races and want to try and understand if Horse 1 would have beaten, or got beat by horse 2 if it had raced with horse 2 in their race. 

Race Comparison
	Distance Rounded	Distance Actual	Yards	Weight	Ground	Seconds
Horse 1	7f	6f 195yds	1515	9-10	Soft	91.35
Horse 2	8f	7f 173yds	1713	9-12	Good to Firm	97.62

I know I am going to have to make adjustments for weight, ground and distance but not sure how to calculate this without double counting?

Or am I asking for the impossible here? 🙂

Hard to know exactly ....in general the going adjustment for soft could be anything from 0.5 sec/fur up to 1.0 sec or more ...so horseb1 .let's say it's 1 sec to adjust to good ground that would make the adjusted time 84.35 

Horse 2 you would have a negative adjustment of anything from say 0.2 to 0.4 sec/furlong which you'd add to the time not subtract so adjusted time in theory could be 8 x 0.2 ...1.6 negative so adjusted time around 99 .22 

Then if you adjust for distance .....horse 1 would cover 1515 / 84.35 = 18.176 yards/sec 

Horse 2 would cover 1713/99.22 = 17.26 yards /sec 

So In theory horse 1 would win ....but horse 2 if dropped back to 7f could run faster in theory so there wouldn't be much in it ...all depends on going adjustments ...if horse one only adjusted 0.5.secs /fur....say arguable 87.85 ....the sum would be 1515 /87.85=17.24 yards/sec so in theory ....a dead heat 

At equal weights horse 2 should in theory win ...literally comes down to the 2lb weight advantage for horse 2 at level weights 

Edited June 27 by richard-westwood

[RoyalLuck]

22 hours ago, richard-westwood said:

Hard to know exactly ....in general the going adjustment for soft could be anything from 0.5 sec/fur up to 1.0 sec or more ...so horseb1 .let's say it's 1 sec to adjust to good ground that would make the adjusted time 84.35 

Horse 2 you would have a negative adjustment of anything from say 0.2 to 0.4 sec/furlong which you'd add to the time not subtract so adjusted time in theory could be 8 x 0.2 ...1.6 negative so adjusted time around 99 .22 

Then if you adjust for distance .....horse 1 would cover 1515 / 84.35 = 18.176 yards/sec 

Horse 2 would cover 1713/99.22 = 17.26 yards /sec 

So In theory horse 1 would win ....but horse 2 if dropped back to 7f could run faster in theory so there wouldn't be much in it ...all depends on going adjustments ...if horse one only adjusted 0.5.secs /fur....say arguable 87.85 ....the sum would be 1515 /87.85=17.24 yards/sec so in theory ....a dead heat 

At equal weights horse 2 should in theory win ...literally comes down to the 2lb weight advantage for horse 2 at level weights 

Thank you so much for your explination. I was hoping to create a formula for this but I think there is too many variables, likely why such a thing doesnt currently exist and we all rely on speed rating data.