starting my own horse racing system

jobeenfitz

I'm thinking of trying to get a horse racing system started. I had previously tried. I created databases for different types of chases, British racing. I included loads of info, distance, time race took, uphill/downhill, the going and other track facts, weight carried etc.. I always felt that no matter what i had included, the database just wasn't complete even after numerous tweaking. I had
built up this database over 4 years. I didn't make money but I lost less than I used to previous to having the database. Then I went back to college while still working and just dropped the whole thing altogether and didn't gamble for five or six years. This is my first year back gambling. I think my first attempt was very amateurish and now I would like to give it another go. I like the Idea of maybe narrowing it down to a limited type of flat racing as the fences/hurdles is just extra complication.
can anyone advice what they think is the best type of race to attempt to build a database on. Thanks

swimming in a sea

nothing like a winning system.........

look in a make believe world where all horses are trained correctly for every race, where jockeys are always trying to get the best possible finishing position. Then a system could work. But the above is pie in the sky.

So I've always thought and I know a few people in racing and it always comes down to inside info to make money be it being a trainer\owner\jockey or knowing any of those three.

Oh just to humour you, I had a mate in college who did horse racing predictor computer program and the best results he always got were on the all weather.

jobeenfitz

Ya I get what your saying. Maybe its just the thrill of the gambling and I'm trying to convince myself that I can make a profit to justify my need to gamble. If I do have a go I will look into the all weather. Having some thing to look up yourself with your own notes would make you more familiar with the races before throwing hard earned money on. Its either some type of system or give it up again. Thanks for humouring me.

RoyalAcademy2

You know the old yarn about the son disappearing from life to concentrate on his winning betting system. After weeks of silence his parents receive a message from him telling them that he's fine and "system going well, please send more money!"

hucklebuck

I decided what output I wanted at it certainly helped my increase my strike rate.

I would recommend that when you have decided what output you want and the format you want it in then you should post a web scrape project on
https://www.freelancer.com/buyers/create.php
outlining what exactly you need and then freelance computer programmers will bid on it and you decide who to go with. If you want any advice/ help on what to post then send me a pm.

I got mine built for USD 150 and it still works fine today, I used racecards from Racingpost as my input link, ATR kept changing. Now all I do is input the url and the click run and I get my desired output for that race. I also have it so I can look at one horse if I want

jobeenfitz

Thanks Hucklebuck. Did you build up your database over time, if so how long? Did you decide on flat or jumps? When I last tried myself I found there were certain items I wanted to include like the quality of the jockey or the fitness of the horse. I added or deducted points even though some items are subjective. In Europe we don't know what the horses weight is so its guess-work as to its fitness or we have to wait until its winning to know its fit. The one thing I do believe is that I should have a system or stop gambling. I work four days a week so would need a system that can be updated and information deciphered as efficiently as possible. Again thanks, nice to get a positive response.

hucklebuck

jobeenfitz wrote: »

Thanks Hucklebuck. Did you build up your database over time, if so how long? Did you decide on flat or jumps? When I last tried myself I found there were certain items I wanted to include like the quality of the jockey or the fitness of the horse. I added or deducted points even though some items are subjective. In Europe we don't know what the horses weight is so its guess-work as to its fitness or we have to wait until its winning to know its fit. The one thing I do believe is that I should have a system or stop gambling. I work four days a week so would need a system that can be updated and information deciphered as efficiently as possible. Again thanks, nice to get a positive response.

I started building up one manually but that was taking about 4 hours a day and that was when I asked a friend if it could be automated and he said easily so I looked for a programmer on the site I posted.

With my programme I simply input the link to the race card, this outputs all the historic data about the horse and I then select what I want to be outputted. For example I can narrow down the horses race record for the distance or ground type and my output gives me weights (heaviest carried to victory and weight for race) marks (highest he has won off and current mark), I get the jockeys strike rate on the horse and then the strike rates for ground and distance.

I use it on both codes as the information is relevant, the national hunt output includes falls, unseats and refuses so this brings the strike rate down

After that all I don't look at the odds and narrow the possible selections to three/ four and I then look at the trainers current form and back accordingly.

I will run it this evening and send you the excel file so you can see the clear picture.

jobeenfitz

I know all about spending hours inputting results manually. I spent thousands of hours over four years doing the same. 150 US dollars would be cheap when you consider the time saved on a programme that can import this information instantly, if I'm understanding you correctly. I am not good on the technical side of things myself. I am unsure how you actually link this programme with the racecard. I'm guessing it is not importing the racing results to a database and then getting whatever output you choose? This is the format that I am familiar with.

hucklebuck

You don't have to link anything, the programmer gives you a screen to put the link in to and then you just run the programme and select the output you want. The one I have will only give you options that are relevant, for example if none of the horses have run in Newmarket there isn't an option to select Newmarket.

See output attached.

mailburner

swimming in a sea wrote: »

look in a make believe world where all horses are trained correctly for every race, where jockeys are always trying to get the best possible finishing position. Then a system could work. But the above is pie in the sky.

it always comes down to inside info to make money be it being a trainer\owner\jockey or knowing any of those three.

that's it in a nutshell so it doesnt matter how much info you
have at hand
every day of the week you'll see non triers and some pretty
blatant but it's so easy for a jock to do it just as easy
as it is for a good jockey to win by a well timed head.
It might work well with decent class races though where most may
be trying

ArmaniJeanss

mailburner wrote: »

that's it in a nutshell so it doesnt matter how much info you
have at hand
every day of the week you'll see non triers and some pretty
blatant but it's so easy for a jock to do it just as easy
as it is for a good jockey to win by a well timed head.
It might work well with decent class races though where most may
be trying

Its unneccessarily pessimistic to say that just because there are non-triers that therefore a system can't work.
Because given a full database of results and the ability to filter it properly then you override this problem.

e.g., you filter your massive database to show all horses who started 10/1 or less in 25 runner handicaps, and finished outside the top 12 (potential non-triers). Then examine their next race and see if you'd followed every such horse would you have won money? The answer is No, so you filter to only see such horses who ran in a lesser class race and would you have won money? Say the answer is still No, maybe you limit just to those who dropped in class but went up in trip. Bingo suddenly you see if you'd backed all 140 such horses over the last 5 years you'd have won 16% ROI. So you set your database to look for future horses who fulfil such conditions and back accordingly.

But it still needs incredible dedication, and understanding of data-sets, to make such an enterprise work.

wb

Have you tried some data mining software like Horse Race Base?

jobeenfitz

wb wrote: »

Have you tried some data mining software like Horse Race Base?

No WB havn't heard of it and dont know what data mining software is. Could give a guess as the name data mining is a big hint.

wb

Data mining is basically using a programme to search through a horse racing results database using certain criteria.

Horse Race Base is €7.50 per month but there were some free ones out there including Adrian Massey (although I think he's finished now).

So lets say you wanted to find out how well or otherwise the following perform:

* Horse is rated above 120
* Race is a group one

You would simply click the boxes and the programme would do the search of the database.

I've just done that in Horse Race Base and you can see that it has performed OK down through the years (see attachment).

You can come up with all sorts of variables and scenarios and test the database.

Raceform Interactive is another powerful database which I've used - although I found it very expensive.

By the way, I'm not involved with Horse Race Base but I have used it quite a bit and often chat to the owner.

To cut a long story short, data mining software allows you to test systems on past horseracing data - and saves you recording the daily results yourself.

Hope that explains it,

Wayne

jobeenfitz

wb wrote: »

Data mining is basically using a programme to search through a horse racing results database using certain criteria.

Horse Race Base is €7.50 per month but there were some free ones out there including Adrian Massey (although I think he's finished now).

So lets say you wanted to find out how well or otherwise the following perform:

* Horse is rated above 120
* Race is a group one

You would simply click the boxes and the programme would do the search of the database.

I've just done that in Horse Race Base and you can see that it has performed OK down through the years (see attachment).

You can come up with all sorts of variables and scenarios and test the database.

Raceform Interactive is another powerful database which I've used - although I found it very expensive.

By the way, I'm not involved with Horse Race Base but I have used it quite a bit and often chat to the owner.

To cut a long story short, data mining software allows you to test systems on past horseracing data - and saves you recording the daily results yourself.

Hope that explains it,

Wayne

Thanks for that. I am illiterate at this software stuff.

wb

It's all fairly straightforward - it would save you time recording everything yourself as the database is already in place.

hucklebuck

Never heard of that WB, cheers

lakes1985

wb wrote: »

Data mining is basically using a programme to search through a horse racing results database using certain criteria.

Horse Race Base is €7.50 per month but there were some free ones out there including Adrian Massey (although I think he's finished now).

So lets say you wanted to find out how well or otherwise the following perform:

* Horse is rated above 120
* Race is a group one

You would simply click the boxes and the programme would do the search of the database.

I've just done that in Horse Race Base and you can see that it has performed OK down through the years (see attachment).

You can come up with all sorts of variables and scenarios and test the database.

Raceform Interactive is another powerful database which I've used - although I found it very expensive.

By the way, I'm not involved with Horse Race Base but I have used it quite a bit and often chat to the owner.

To cut a long story short, data mining software allows you to test systems on past horseracing data - and saves you recording the daily results yourself.

Hope that explains it,

Wayne

Any other free ones out there? help would greatly be appreciated