What next for Geegeez Gold?

As so many of you know, Geegeez Gold is beginning to shake up the established players when it comes to race cards, tipping and form study.

We already have some of the coolest features in Britain – like Instant Expert, Pace Analysis, The Shortlist and the knowledge-packed race cards themselves. But there’s zero chance of us sitting on our laurels, and Phase 9 (yes, we’re up to Phase 9) is currently on the drawing board.

In this post, I’d like to offer you a sneak preview of what’s mooted for this next tranche of features. It’s not set in stone yet, and I’m still awaiting confirmation of whether we can do all of it. So keep that in mind as you walk through with me what next for Geegeez Gold.

1. Gold Forum/Chat Room

As the Gold community grows, I’m keen for you to be able to share ideas, best practices, winners, hard luck stories and, well, just generally shoot the breeze. This will be an exclusive ‘Gold only’ area, where users can discuss freely, and my hope is that it will be a self-policing environment.

I’ve yet to decide whether this will be via a chat room or a forum, though I’m leaning towards the latter.

2. New Gold Reports

Phase 9 will herald the arrival of five new reports, the pick of which may be the two ‘snippets’ reports.

2a. Trainer: First Time in a Handicap

The ‘Trainer: First Time in a Handicap’ report will show, for each trainer with handicap first time starters that day, the trainer’s performance with such types in the last year, two years, five years, and specifically at the course in the last five years.

I’m expecting this to shine a light on the practices of some of the wilier members of the training community, and you’ll be able to get the juice without doing any of the legwork.

2b. Trainer: First Time Out

A report that will come into its own in the early parts of the flat and jumps seasons, but which will also throw up interesting items year round, the trainer FTO report will focus on those handlers who can most adroitly ‘get one ready’ for their initial racecourse experience.

2c. First Run for New Trainer

Some trainers are better than others. It absolutely goes without saying. The purpose of this report is to alert users to the trainers who fare best when snapping up horses from other barns. Again, it will have more content in the weeks after the major sales and at the start of the jumps season; but there will be year round interest for its users.

2d. Sire Snippets

Snippets are a prominent feature in the US equivalent of the Racing Post, the Daily Racing Form. Having spoken to their national handicapper, Mike Watchmaker, about my affection for these mini-insights, I’ve borrowed them to incorporate into Geegeez Gold, both in the main cards and in their own report.

Here’s how these things look on the DRF race card:

For each snippet – for instance horse moving from synthetic surface to turf – the figures in brackets show the trainer’s number of runners (e.g. 81), win percentage (e.g. .12, or 12%), and return to a level $2 stake (e.g. $1.28, or a loss of 72c per two bucks invested) over the previous two years.

The Sire Snippets report on Geegeez Gold should be a bit easier to read, and a bit more familiar to Gold users, as it will follow the existing report format, and display views for Race Type (i.e. Flat Turf, AW, NHF, Chase, Hurdle); Distance Range (i.e. flat sprint, middle distance, staying; NH speed; middle distance; marathon); and, age range (i.e. FLAT: 2yo/3yo/4yo+; JUMPS: 3-5yo/6-8yo/9yo+)

Here’s an example:

Clicking on a sire, for instance Galileo in the above, will reveal a dropdown showing that sire’s performance against the selected view. [Note, there needs to be sub-division of results to cater for the different ranges, e.g. Galileo 3-5yo will show a different set of data to Galileo 6-8yo. This is not shown in the image above]

2e. Trainer Snippets

This is a massively exciting report and, if we can pull it off, I think it will be one of the most revealing in British racing. If not, THE most revealing. It’s actually ten reports in one, but the ten elements are drawn together under this single banner.

It is also a very complex design to get right, and so it might be that the totality of the functionality is released over more than one phase. But this is the general direction I’d like for it to head.

The current snippets planned are:

• Trainer race code (always present)
  • Flat Turf, AW, NHF, Hurdle, Chase
• Trainer race type (always present)
  • Novice, beginners’ or maiden/claimer or seller/handicap (not covered elsewhere, e.g. novices handicap = novice)/Conditions/Group, Graded or Listed

• Trainer distance range (always present)
  • FLAT: Sprint (1640 yards or less)/Middle Distance (1641-2530 yards)/Staying (2531+ yards)
  • JUMPS: Speed (4290 yards or less)/Middle Distance (4291-5500 yards)/Marathon (5501+ yards)
• Trainer distance move (contextual only)
  • FLAT: Up 440 yards or more
  • JUMPS: Up 770 yards or more
• Trainer last time out winner (contextual only)
  • Where trainer’s horse won under the same race code last time out
• Trainer first time starter (contextual only)
  • Where horse has never raced in UK or Ireland before
• Trainer second time starter (contextual only)
  • Where horse has only raced in UK or Ireland once before
• Trainer first run (for horse with existing form) (contextual only)
  • Where last race trainer is different from today’s trainer
• Trainer with horse 60+ days off (contextual only)
  • Where horse has not raced under any code for 60+ days
• Trainer with horse 7- days off (contextual only)
  • Where horse raced under any code within 7 days of today’s race

3. Existing Gold Reports

3a. Addition of Statistical Significance Measures to Reports

Phase 9 will see the addition of two measures of statistical significance – Impact Value (IV) and Actual/Expected (A/E) – to the following reports:

• Trainer Statistics
• Jockey Statistics
• Trainer / Jockey Combo
• Trainer Snippets
• Sire Snippets

Impact Value

Impact Value is a measure of the statistical significance – or trustworthiness – of a dataset, where 1 = ‘normal’.

IV = % of winners that were [criterion] / % of runners that were [criterion]

Example: Trainer James Fanshawe has had 67 AW winners from 302 runners at Kempton since 2009. This is a subset of the 3827 winners from 37327 runners at Kempton during that time.

So IV = (67 / 3827) / (302 / 37327) = 2.16

All you need to know is that more than 1 is good, and the more the better (on bigger data samples, at least).

Actual vs Expected

Actual vs Expected is a measure of the relative value of the available odds, where 1 = neither good nor poor value.

A/E = Number of winners (Actual) / Sum of all qualifiers’ odds (in decimal) (Expected)

Example: Trainer James Fanshawe has had 67 AW winners from 302 runners at Kempton since 2009. The sum of the odds in decimal [1/Odds+1, e.g. 3/1 = 1/(3+1) = ¼ = 0.25] of those 302 runners was 51.9.

Therefore, Actual / Expected = 67 / 51.9 = 1.29

3b. Filter Tweaks

Reports like the The Shortlist and TJ Combo are absolutely brilliant at spotting diamonds in the rough. Time and time again they unearth horses with far better chances than their bookmaker odds imply. And Phase 9 will enhance some of our existing reports, and introduce some brand spanking new ones.

The first things we’ll be doing is making the report filters at the top of the page – where you define the runner, win, place, etc ranges – more configurable by including all values from 0 to 100, plus Any.

That will allow you to be far more specific about the results you want to see on these reports. A simple enough change, but one designed to give you more control over your Gold experience.

We’ll also be adding a new filter to enable you to look at all qualifiers (as now), or handicap qualifiers only. With Britain’s race programme now around 65% handicaps, it’s well worth separating them out from the entirety.

3c. New 7 Day Form Option

The Trainer, Jockey, and Trainer Jockey Combo Reports will all have a new seven day view, alongside the existing four views, so you can see who’s hot right now.

3d. Changes to Hot Form Report

The Hot Form report is best used around recency and, for that reason, we’re removing the 365 day view, and replacing it with a 45 day view.

3e. Minor Amends

We’ll also be fixing the fact that the ‘Win PL’ filter setting doesn’t ‘remember’ itself, so that in future when you set this to, say, at least 10 units profit, you’ll only see report results where that condition is true.

And references to ‘Course Form 2009+’ will change to be ‘Course 5 Year’. This means that view will display a rolling five year performance history, as opposed to a growing duration which may be less relevant as time passes.

4. Horse Form

A couple of overdue updates to the Horse Form window (both the pop out new window, and the Full Form Filter tab) are the addition of official ratings, and the publication of five day entries. The revised Horse Form screen will look something like this. [Note, all images in this post can be clicked on to view full size in a new window]

5. Snippets on the Race Card

The snippets mentioned in the above reports are to be included on the racecard as well. The sire snippets will hopefully feature under the existing breeding/sales icon; and the trainer snippets will appear under a new icon.

**

So that’s Phase 9. It’s a biggie. And, like I say, it may be that some things are impossible to implement or at least extremely difficult. The likelihood is that Phase 9 will consist of ‘sub-phases’, to allow for the drip-feeding of new features, rather than asking you to wait until everything is complete.

Here at Geegeez Gold, we are totally committed to creating an environment where information is packaged as knowledge. In other words, where it is readily accessible and usable. As TS Eliot once wrote,

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

It might sound grandiose – maybe even a bit wanky – but I’m fine with that. Because I think over the last seven years, geegeez.co.uk has shown itself to deliver on ‘ideas above its station’.

Everything we do here is geared towards arming punters with knowledge, rather than information. Information is a tree, knowledge is a wooden chair. And wisdom is knowing when to sit down.

Actually, that is almost certainly the wankiest thing I’ve ever written on here. But I believe it, and that sentiment – if you can understand it – is at the heart of our vision here.

So yes, it promises to be another hugely progressive year for Geegeez Gold, and I’m thrilled to be sharing the journey with so many of you.

If you’re not already a Gold subscriber, the 35 day (FIVE WEEK) trial will be taken down before the weekend is out, so now is your chance to lock in a very long window to test drive Gold. Instructions are below. Before those, though, here’s something for existing subscribers…

1. LIFETIME OPTION CLOSING THIS WEEKEND

And, for those already subscribing, if you know you’re going to be using this long term, and are excited by the new features being mooted, this is also your last chance to upgrade to Lifetime Membership for just £297+VAT (little more than fourteen months at the current prices). Click here for your last chance to get discounted Lifetime access.

2. TO TAKE AN EXTENDED TRIAL, PLEASE READ THE INSTRUCTIONS BELOW CAREFULLY TO SAVE YOU FROM FRUSTRATION AND ME FROM ADMIN!!

1. If you already have a free geegeez account, you need to log in first (use the box top right on this page).

Then, WHEN YOU’RE LOGGED IN, click here and follow the one line instruction.

2. If you don’t have a free geegeez account, click here.

For those.