Ratings Data Added To Race Analysis Reports

The sharp-eyed amongst you will have noticed some new boxes on the Race Analysis Reports (RAR’s) today. There are some blue-edged boxes to the right and some (more) yellow boxes to the left. Let me explain what they are…

New ratings info on geegeez racecards

Ratings Comparison

First, the blue-edged boxes at the end of the RAR show a horse’s last winning rating (L), its rating today (T), and the difference between them (D).

T = Today’s rating
L = Last winning rating
D = Difference between them

They’re in blue because I couldn’t find any correlation between the ratings difference and a horse’s winning chance, so couldn’t make some green, and some red!

Note that where a horse’s rating is greyed out it means that the horse has either not won a race, or was unrated when it last won (for instance, first time out in a maiden).

NB Even when looking at the place data, the ratings information relates to last WINNING rating.

So, how to use the ratings information? Well, that’s actually a good question. The below is offered as food for thought only, and not as the de facto approach.

I had expected during my research to find a correlation between the last winning rating differential and a horse’s winning chance, either in terms of win percentage or in ‘bottom line’ (i.e. return on investment) terms. I didn’t.

But what I did note was that horses tend to win more often when racing off a higher mark than their last winning rating, especially if they’ve won in their last ten starts. However, their return on investment was lower than those racing off a lower mark.

Put another way, horses higher in the ratings than their last win DO win more often, BUT they are MORE EXPENSIVE to follow.

See, I told you it wasn’t straightforward!

It does seem that a figure of plus- or minus- seven pounds from a horse’s last win is marginally better than a broader disparity, but it’s not sufficient to present in ‘traffic light’ format.

So there you have it, the ratings data. It might be useful and it might not. I’ll let you decide…

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A quick way to bet or tip your fancy…

Also new to the Race Analysis Reports – and the Full Horse Form tab too – are ‘quick pick’ buttons.

Alongside the horse name you’ll see their odds, and two yellow boxes with ‘Bet’ and ‘Tip’ inside them.

When you’ve decided which horse you fancy, clicking on either the odds or the ‘Bet’ button will take you straight to the bookie to place your bet.

And the odds shown are the ‘Best Odds’, which will automatically route you to the bookmaker paying the best available odds on that horse. After all, that makes a good bit more sense than only showing one bookmaker, like some sites we could mention (no names… RacingPost.com 😉  )

And, if you’re playing in the tipping league (why on earth wouldn’t you be? It’s free and there are prizes!), then just click the ‘Tip’ button to go straight through and tip up your horse.

The Bet and Tip buttons also now appear on the Full Horse Form, in my opinion a still much under-used tool with real power. The filters contained there are better than any I’ve seen on any site, free or paid.

Bet and Tip from the Form Filters

We’re still working on bringing you more great features on these cards, including the promised pace reports, and odds comparison grids too. Further down the line, we plan to bring you the next day’s cards (including form filters and race analysis reports), plus a ‘best suited…’ report, highlighting those horses with the best course, distance, class or going profiles, and a horse/trainer/jockey tracker function.

All of these will, as you’ve come to expect, be free for registered users. So get used to the geegeez race cards, because they’re here to stay and they’re likely to be challenging the ‘big boys’ sooner rather than later. 😀

Matt