Full Form Filter v2.0 Has Landed

It took a little longer than anticipated and, in truth, there may still be a couple more wrinkles to iron out; but Full Form Filter v2.0 is now live.

What is FFFv2?

The original Full Form Filter was a great means of slicing and dicing a horse’s form to understand how it had previously fared under a range of conditions. Its major attribute was an ability to sift through the noise and focus only on that which the user considered relevant. There were also some rudimentary filters for trainers and jockeys.

Version 2, FFFv2 for short, has taken that concept and built upon it. Significantly.

Now users may filter by horse, trainer, jockey and sire; and for each, there is a broader range of filter elements. As well as that, we’ve added a raft of date range options, including a ‘Custom’ selection, where you can choose any time period you wish.

Filters aside, the biggest other change is the inclusion of profit and loss detail for the filtered data. Here are some images to give you a flavour of FFFv2. [Click the images to view them full size, and with greater clarity].

High Talk’s form filtered

In the above example, I have filtered by the horse High Talk’s form in handicap hurdles since 2009. You can see a chart showing the profit/loss over time top right, and a table showing the summary ‘Race Record’ data at the bottom.

This is a very basic example of how to home in on a more relevant subset of a horse’s overall form.

Now let’s review a trainer profile.

Barry (FJ) Brennan has a great recent record in handicap hurdles

Here I’ve focused on the record of High Talk’s trainer, Barry (FJ) Brennan, with handicap hurdlers. I noticed from the race form section at the bottom a number of first places, so changed the date range to the last year.

We can now see that Brennan has had some excellent results, winning 26.92% of the time, for a profit of +28 points. We can also see from the Form section that he doesn’t have many horses – just eight making up the 26 run sample – but that three different horses have won a total of seven times.

It’s relevant to know that Brennan has his hurdlers ostensibly well handicapped and in good form. Now, High Talk is a 25/1 shot with zero recent form, including for Brennan last time. So let’s be realistic about his chance. But at the same time, I can see that this race is over three miles, and his only other run for Brennan was over two miles, which is mildly eye-catching.

The horse also has top weight, testimony both to his former level of ability – which if rekindled would make him a big player – and the moderate level of his rivals. He is also dropped in grade today.

The point is that these are insights that you’d never pick up from looking at this:

High Talk’s uninspiring form figures

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting he’ll win: I haven’t looked deeply enough at the race to have an opinion. But what I am saying is that he might not be the total no-hoper he first appears and – importantly – that he is priced up as.

How best to use FFFv2?

FFFv2 is versatile, agile and very quick. Clicked filters react immediately by recalculating all of the chart top right, the race record, and the relevant historical form lines. Here are a few suggestions of valuable uses for FFFv2.

– For horses returning from an absence, filter Trainer by 60+ days to see how adept the handler is at getting horses fit after a break

– For horses moving markedly in trip that have not previously run at around this distance, filter Sire by distance

– Filter all horses in a race by direction to see if any have a marked positive (or negative) preference for today’s ‘handedness’

– Review all trainers in a race by their performance in, for instance, handicap chases

– Understand a jockey’s record for today’s trainer at the track, and/or in handicaps

– Select Wins (or Wins and Places) to easily detect commonalities in a horse’s more successful races

These cases are a very small handful of the uses for FFFv2. I’m sure you can already see the possibilities in relation to the way you personally look at form. The fact that filtered results are returned instantaneously enables a lot of experimentation/interrogation in a short space of time.

A Keyboard Shortcut

Suppose you wanted to review all trainers in a race by their handicap chase form at the track in the past two years (even more valuable if the race in question is actually a handicap chase!).

You would select the following filters:

– Trainer tab
– CHS race code
– HCAP race type
– Course from Course Characteristics

The default date range is two years, so that’s fine. By the time you’ve clicked on the last of the listed filters, the results displayed will reflect your parameters for the first trainer in the list.

If we want to review another – or all – of the trainers’ records in this context, we do the following:

1. Select the next runner/trainer from the dropdown above the Runner Details section, using your mouse
2. Now use the arrow down/up keys to navigate through the field of runners/trainers/jockeys.

In this way, we can review the two-year handicap chase course form – or any other combination of filters – for all trainers (or jockeys or horses or sires) in a race in very short order. Here’s a video of me doing just that and, in so doing, understanding the contextual form for the entire field in just a few seconds.

As I say, we’re working our way through a few minor glitches but these should all be resolved before the weekend – hopefully today. Actually, on that subject, one very important point:

If you are having problems getting FFFv2 to work as I’ve demonstrated here, please refresh your browser cache. Details of how to do that are here: http://www.wikihow.com/Clear-Your-Browser’s-Cache

That has resolved 95% of support issues we’ve fielded, not just on this upgrade but on all upgrades. So do please try that first and foremost.

I’ve had access to FFFv2 in test for a couple of weeks now, and it’s already an integral part of my form study. I’m sure that in the coming weeks and months it will find its way into your core armoury, too.

FFFv2 is available to Gold subscribers, and on Races of the Day for free subscribers. It lurks behind the Full Form tab on the racecards.

Enjoy!

Matt

p.s. Register for a free account here

p.p.s. Heck, why not go the whole hog and grab a fortnight’s trial of Gold for a fiver here