Advice

Visualising Horse Racing Revisited

A while ago I posted an article about using more visual methods to help you find the winners. If you haven’t seen this article then visit Using Graphs to Visualise Horse Racing to read it.

In that article we looked at using different ratings for each horse and seeing which clearly excelled in different areas. Today I would like to offer a different approach.

This approach will involve using just one rating, the rating can be anything but a power rating would be preferable, and looking at a horses past races to see its improvement or decline over time.

I shall be using one of my own ratings in this example called the PFP rating. This rating is a form rating which analyses the class of a horses form and brings all runners onto the same scale. I am going to look at the top 3 rated in this rating for the 15:40 at Beverly on the 27th July 2010.

The top 3 ranked in this rating are Shadow Time, Ailsa Craig and Cherry Bee (in that order). There previous ratings are as below.

19/01/2008 12:15

1500.00

Shadowtime

01/02/2008 15:45

1501.68

Shadowtime

20/02/2008 17:10

1499.99

Shadowtime

24/04/2008 16:55

1499.52

Shadowtime

12/05/2008 15:20

1502.53

Shadowtime

23/05/2008 16:30

1500.66

Shadowtime

28/05/2008 19:05

1499.67

Shadowtime

25/06/2008 15:00

1503.16

Shadowtime

28/06/2008 17:35

1502.00

Shadowtime

05/07/2008 16:05

1497.69

Shadowtime

20/07/2008 16:50

1500.81

Shadowtime

30/08/2008 16:25

1502.66

Shadowtime

13/09/2008 20:20

1499.37

Shadowtime

23/09/2008 15:30

1500.31

Shadowtime

01/10/2008 16:15

1498.60

Shadowtime

13/04/2009 15:45

1500.66

Shadowtime

17/04/2009 15:05

1497.34

Shadowtime

29/04/2009 15:30

1502.66

Shadowtime

12/05/2009 17:00

1499.53

Shadowtime

23/05/2009 16:25

1503.50

Shadowtime

15/06/2009 16:45

1502.83

Shadowtime

24/06/2009 15:05

1502.51

Shadowtime

11/07/2009 20:45

1499.06

Shadowtime

25/07/2009 17:25

1502.12

Shadowtime

28/07/2009 16:20

1501.71

Shadowtime

19/08/2009 15:40

1502.66

Shadowtime

28/08/2009 19:20

1500.78

Shadowtime

17/09/2009 15:30

1502.01

Shadowtime

21/09/2009 15:40

1501.96

Shadowtime

30/09/2009 16:25

1500.76

Shadowtime

17/04/2010 14:25

1501.55

Shadowtime

28/04/2010 15:30

1501.38

Shadowtime

08/05/2010 19:35

1503.16

Shadowtime

29/05/2010 16:50

1503.64

Shadowtime

11/06/2010 14:50

1503.46

Shadowtime

13/06/2010 14:55

1500.70

Shadowtime

23/06/2010 14:30

1501.29

Shadowtime


02/09/2008 14:35

1500.00

Ailsa Craig

17/09/2008 16:20

1501.16

Ailsa Craig

24/09/2008 14:35

1500.80

Ailsa Craig

04/05/2009 15:10

1499.72

Ailsa Craig

24/05/2009 17:50

1500.85

Ailsa Craig

08/06/2009 21:00

1501.95

Ailsa Craig

12/06/2009 20:45

1502.83

Ailsa Craig

27/06/2009 20:45

1503.49

Ailsa Craig

24/07/2009 19:50

1502.89

Ailsa Craig

16/08/2009 16:00

1500.65

Ailsa Craig

03/09/2009 13:40

1503.87

Ailsa Craig

28/09/2009 15:50

1501.89

Ailsa Craig

17/11/2009 14:50

1497.68

Ailsa Craig

05/12/2009 14:50

1500.84

Ailsa Craig

08/05/2010 19:35

1501.00

Ailsa Craig

14/06/2010 15:15

1499.26

Ailsa Craig

23/06/2010 14:30

1502.58

Ailsa Craig


02/06/2009 14:30

1500.00

Cherry Bee

12/06/2009 14:20

1502.52

Cherry Bee

26/06/2009 14:20

1500.37

Cherry Bee

12/08/2009 18:20

1502.12

Cherry Bee

24/08/2009 16:00

1501.14

Cherry Bee


It is straight away obvious that Shadowtime has run a lot more races than Ailsa Craig. who has run more races than Cherry Bee. Immediately we know that Shadowtime has experience on his side.

The problem we face is what to do with such a large amount of figures, and this is just for the top 3 contenders! This is where our visualisation technique comes in. We are very simply going to graph each runner’s previous results against the date they ran the race.

Shadowtime



Ailsa Craig

Cherry Bee

This begins to give us a good idea of the shape that each horse has. Shadowtime has had some volatility but the overall trend is up and so he is improving. Ailsa Craig seems to be racing at around a similar level in each race and Cherry Bee hasn’t really had enough races to start developing a trend.

Swapping between the graphs is not ideal though and so it would be better if we overlaid these graphs into just one.

There is a lot that we can deduce from the above graph. Instantly you can see that in Cherry Bee’s few performances he has never broken the 1502 line by very much whereas both of the other two have.

Ailsa Craig has had a couple of breakout performances but is generally performing at a level of around 1501.

Shadowtime has had a slightly volatile but steady increase from his low point in 2008, overall we can see that he has been performing, on average, at a higher level than Ailsa Craig and Cherry Bee which would make him our selection in this race.

As you can see Shadowtime won and Ailsa Craig came in second place. Ideally you would perform this process using all the runners in a race, however you can remove your non-contenders first. Whether you choose to use the top 3 as contenders, the top half of the field or something else is up to you.

Visualising numbers can very often help make the process of finding winners a lot easier.

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.

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