Statistics in horses/dogs

[whycantistayawayfromdogs]

At the moment im studying for a degree and I am doing a module on regression. I have just been given a piece of coursework which relates to collection of data from sport and then creating a model using minitab (or other software) to predict future results. I imediately thought of horse racing but i have come to a stumbling block, what am i actually calculating? Then i thought, it must be times... My model would be Finishing time = Constant + A + B + C ... + N etc. However it seems hard to come by finishing times (other than winners). If i average out the time over the race distance, could i calculate the other horses times (by the number of lengths they lost by), or would this be inacurate. I then thought about maybe doing greyhound racing as that is all based around times. Does anyone have any experience in this sort of thing. Ill be very grateful for any help and if my model showed a profit i would be more than happy to post here :lol although it obviously wont :sad . So if you have studied statistics or can think of a better way of me doing my project (or a better sport to use) then i NEED your help :ok Thanks

[evergreenfc]

Re: Statistics in horses/dogs Buy either the Racing Post Weekender or the Raceform Update if you want results with fully calculated speed ratings. The Racing Post Weekender ratings are weight adjusted, the Raceform Update are pure unajusted speed ratings. I have the soccer league tables for English and Scottish leagues, its in an Excel spreadsheet with a predition sheet. Wether its what you want or maybe you can play around with it I don't know. PM your email addy to me and I will send it to you with instructions. dAVEY H