Advice

Using Official Rating To Estimate Class – The Written Version

Photo of Michael Wilding Michael WildingJune 4, 2010
41 12,036 2 minutes read

I was asked last week if I would provide a written version of exactly what I did in the video so that the steps could be followed while the video was being watched. Today that is exactly what I have done.

I used the Sporting Life website for no other reason than it is 100% free and the information is easily available on it.

1)      Choose a race where all the runners have had at least 3 or 4 previous races.

2)      Click on the ‘Official Ratings’ box to the top right of the race card. This will open a box with the horses last 6 Official Ratings.

3)      Clicking the left mouse button and holding it down, select all of the horses and their last 6 Official Ratings (including the headings).

4)      Copy the highlighted selection which can be done by right-clicking and selecting or copy or pressing Crtl+C.

5)      Open up Excel or whichever spreadsheet program that you use and paste into the spreadsheet.

6)      Calculate the average of each horse’s last 6 ratings (if you have a lot of decimal places then you may want to remove them)

7)      Calculate the average of all the horses average Official Ratings.

This gives a very quick way to give a quick estimate of the class of the race based on the Official Ratings.

One way of using this information is to look at how the runners average rating compares to today’s rating and then in turn compare this against an adjusted class level rating.

1)      Take the average Official Rating for each horse and subtract the Official rating for today’s race from the figure.

2)      Calculate the average of all the runners Official Ratings for today’s race.

3)      Subtract the result from step 2 from the our class estimate we calculated in the last 7 steps.

Another way that we can use this information is to use the highest winning Official Rating.

1)      Subtract today’s rating from the highest winning figure.

2)      Any horse that has a positive number has won at a higher Official rating than they have received in today’s race.

3)      Subtract the result of step 1 from the average Official Rating that we worked out in the beginning.

4)      Repeat this for every horse to give each horse and adjusted Official Rating.

5)      We then subtract the estimated class level that we worked out in the first section from each horse’s results in Step 4 to give our final adjusted rating.

This is the final rating and gives an estimate of the horse’s ability in today’s race based on its Official Ratings compared against its highest winning rating and the class level of the race.

Although I didn’t stay to watch the race in the video, our top-rated selection came third at 20/1, our second top-rated selection came second at 28/1 and our third top-rated selection came first at 8/1 which would have made a very tidy profit in almost any way that you would have chosen to bet on them.

Photo of Michael Wilding Michael WildingJune 4, 2010
41 12,036 2 minutes read
Photo of Michael Wilding

Michael Wilding

Michael started the Race Advisor in 2009 to help bettors become long-term profitable. After writing hundreds of articles I started to build software that contained my personal ratings. The Race Advisor has more factors for UK horse racing than any other site, and we pride ourselves on creating tools and strategies that are unique, and allow you to make a long-term profit without the need for tipsters. You can also check out my personal blog or my personal Instagram account.

41 Comments

  1. Cheers mate and it would be useful if you could do a written version like this for some of the other systems you use or come across.
    Once again many thanks.

  2. No problem, happy to do written versions for other things as well. If you see anything posted on Race Advisor that you would like a written version for or more explanation leave a comment and let me know. If there is something you see somewhere else then let me know through the contact page.

  3. I can’t seem to find the greyhound series you were going to run? Can it be used on USA greyhounds as well? Thanks, Bill

  5. Pingback: Using Official Rating To Estimate Class | Race Advisor

  7. Thanks Michael,

    This is the first time I ever heard of using the sporting life to pick your selection.

    I was wondering what are or what percentage of winners or placed horse have you archived from using this method from sporting life.

    Also Thanks for the illustration to put here, now onto the video.

    Ed.

    P.S.

    Question I have, as a member of your system, when I go to the improver graph section and place my cursor over the coloured graph selection at times a small window would open and show more stats on the each horse. Unfortunately, I can’t seem to be able to see the horse’s latest stats any more? Any ideas why I can’t get this information. This is where the green and blue line are closely together and the coloured round ball are either near or over the green or blue line.

    1. I used this as more of a method to give me a shortlist and then look further into the form from there, it cuts out a lot of the time looking at form for all the runners in depth.

      The information in the pop-up is the same that you can see on the graph without it, it is the Upper Confidence, Lower Confidence, Actual Speed Figure etc…

      There is a bug where the pop-ups seem to work sometimes and then suddenly stop, I am not sure why but have a lot of information about it thanks to a member. As soon as the next set of features has been finished we shall focus on fixing this.

      Michael

  8. Hi just to let you know I think this system could be ok but a little time needed
    untill you get usedto.it.
    many thanks.
    Ron

  9. hi im new to all this, about the ratings side, isnt it the favourite that will always have the best rating? and as we know favourites only win about 1/3 of races.

    1. The favourite does not necessarily have the best rating, this is what makes us able to make a profit. When we find horses that have odds higher than they should do.

  11. i know its only 1 race but the horse that come out worse in the ratings was the fav and it just went on to win?

    1. That will happen, it won’t find the winner every time and should be used as a base for your analysis to find potential contenders outside of the favourites whose odds could be offering value.

    1. I would need to see what is happening to help. If you would like me to then please record a video using Jing, upload it and send me the link via our support desk. Please do not paste the link here.

  13. hi thanks for all the quick responses what happens when i go to paste it in is, it pastes but the last 6 ratings paste all into 1 tab and it all pastes really big?

    1. there are lots of possible reasons for that, I would need to see the video but if you don’t use Google Chrome as your browser then I would suggest you download it and try using that.

  15. do sportinglife only put there last 6 ratings up the day of the race cos looking at 2moro’s card theres hardly any if any with last 6 ratings?

    1. no they should all be up. There won’t be a lot of races that have 6 ratings for all horses, it is alright to use less, just don’t enter them, but the less ratings a horse has the more unreliable the output and the more horses that have less ratings the more unreliable the race rating.

      1. This graph includes weights as a decimal percentage and a weighted average, Can you explain how to work these out.
        A massive plus for the included spreadsheet.

        1. The weights can be adjusted but are based on a fibonnaci sequence. The weighted average is the sum of each rating multipled by its weight. We then divide this by the number ratings.

  17. I have enrolled on the Puntology course and looking forward to the second lesson arriving. The above document is a major component of learning the intricacies of being able to use the “form of a horse” to decide on what horse ,if any to place a bet. There are a number of anomalies with what I have read and it leaves me puzzled at how you arrive at locating a “big” price winner, using the information provided . For example most big priced winners are obviously not favourites with information available to attract an investment. Speed and Rating figures do not provide the info for the 20/1 plus winners that you have recommended in previous information. The Puntology Spread Sheet and the current course do not usually pin point good priced horse’s and in fact some of those chosen by both methods have so far proved disappointing. Your obvious talents are such that I may be doing something wrong and I welcome your reply. I have stuck rigidly to your instructions. Perhaps I am missing something?

    1. Hi Mel, thank you for your comment. I also received your email and will reply to the email as there is not enough space in the comments section to answer.

  18. Using Speed Rating to Estimate Class- The Written version and Why Speed Ratings Are Powerful.
    In short has the principles outlined in these documents that I received from you included in the Auto Service via an Excel Spreadsheet and the current course I am taking with you at the moment included in both of these.

  19. Could you not give a very simple example of the numbers to make it absolutely clear as to how to use this information

      1. I have used the original and the new versions of the OR rating calculation on the 4.15 at Wolverhampton on Boxing Day and they give very different results! Horse 2 comes out very high on the original one but 5th choice on the new version. Is this correct?

        1. That doesn’t sound right. It may be the new spreadsheet is doing something wrong. Could you send both to our support desk please and we will take a look.

  20. Hi, the above article do you use a spreadsheet to paste the info from the ratings would save a lot of time, if so how do I get a copy
    Kind regards,
    Roy.

  21. I had 3 winners out of four today at Kelso, remarkable absolutely remarkable , I thought I’d share this with you as only last night I read an article on your blogs about just using official ratings to find winners, not only this but the final race in which the horse came second really should have won but just run out of turf. For the record I looked at today’s rating, noted down any wins or half length losses at or around this mark, I also noted down class and distance, it really did not take long to make my mind up which was the stand out horse, out of the winners were two favourites at even and 2/1 the third selection which also won had an sp of 8/1 the final horse which only just missed out was 9/1. So for me the penny has finally dropped, don’t listen to the so called experts, trust in your own judgment, leave the highly competitive races to the foolhardy and do your homework, there are many strategies that could have been used today not just straight betting, trading in play springs to mind.
    I have tried to find the post again but unable to locate would appreciate you posting again and thanks for a very profitable days racing.

    2. Well Michael, your not going to believe me but I thought I just had to champion your cause yet again, I literally only got back from work at 625 tonight, I knew racing at Kempton was on and only one race remaining this evening, had a quick check on the runners at the racing post website,

      Using the same criteria I used on Sunday at Kelso there was really only one stand out horse…choral clan, looking at past performances it had come a close second in many races at or around the same OR and on a number of occasions at a class above todays race, what put me off was the SP, 16/1 on the exchange, must admit this put a real doubt in my mind so like an idiot I only backed it for £2, the race went off and choral clan was held up and looked totally disinterested, I noticed the price went out to 30/1 in running and you do think, ah well thats a bad selection, final two furlongs came from nowhere to romp home a winner.

      Now really you have something here, this is not coincidence, four out of five winners at combined odds of 28/1 minus the horse that came second making it 27/1, as Ive said before thats remarkable, I would say to anyone, follow Michael and dont be swayed by the market, none of the experts on william hill radio even mentioned this horse but putting into practice what this fella preaches puts you way ahead of the rest.

      Thanks again, I look forwards to the weekend for a full days racing.

      Mark

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