Quote:
Originally Posted by thaskalos
So…what do you do with such a horse…take his recent win and one of his subpar efforts, and average them out? If his last race was an 80 and the subpar efforts are a 60…you call this horse a 70? I used to do that, but it didn’t work for me. I found that the horse would either run back to the 80 in its next start, or revert back to the 60. It didn’t “compromise” and run the adjusted 70.
I don’t like “averaging” figures when I analyze horses because such a practice comes up with ratings that are wholly artificial, and don’t represent “reality”. Ten people are in a room, and I tell you that they weigh an average of 200 pounds. This creates an image in your mind, and you think that you know what these people will look like, bodywise. But the truth is that there might not be a 200 lb person in the entire place.  |
Some kind of combination doesn’t necessarily tell you how well he’s likely to run but using both races can give you a good estimate as to his winning chances.
I’ll make up some numbers to represent what I think is the correct type of thinking.
1. He’s 40% to run back to his good race and has a 50% chance of winning if he does. (20%)
2. He’s 60% to run back to one of his bad races or something in between and he has 10% chance of winning if he does. (6%)
I estimate he as a 26% chance of winning.
