Tonight’s racing is the 22nd time that Happy Valley has been used this season. With 60% of the HV races behind us, it’s a good time to take a look at the Results by Jockey, Trainer and Draws. This information should be helpful as you examine and price your selections.

JOCKEYS :

TRAINERS :

BARRIERS :

Last weekend we discussed Recency as a major factor for analyzing any race and those statistics indicated that 30 days is a good cut-off to produce a winner in approximately 70% of all races. Using this factor will obviously leave you with a number of horses in each race. The next step would be to choose another factor to further trim-down your selection list to a reasonable level. Which factor to use is subject to controversy but many believe that Speed should be this factor. The challenge with this factor, when applying it to racing, is that races are not run at the same distances nor at the same tracks. This disparity makes it difficult to merely use “Final” times as a base for comparing past performances. Therefore, Final Times must be adjusted to compensate for venues, distances and class.

An advantage of Hong Kong Racing over most other jurisdictions is that it is limited to just 3 venues (Sha Tin Turf, Sha Tin AWT and Happy Valley Turf) and most races are “Handicaps” vs. “Conditional Races”.

Over the years several systems have been developed to create effective Speed Ratings – namely an adjustment to final times to equalize the multiple variables. Some sytems are very technical while others are much more straight-forward. I have my own method which has produced consistent success over the years – certainly enough to recommend its usefulness!

The first step in creating the “Hong Kong Racing Journal’s Speed Ratings” – and the topic of this “Blog” – is to develop the “Base Number” which is a factor that attempts to harmonize races over all distances, surfaces and classes. I have chosen “Class 4″ races as my base since there are more “C4″ races during each season than any other class. The following chart indicates the average winning time in “Good” and “Good to Firm” conditions for each distance for each venue (Sha Tin Turf, Sha Tin AWT and Happy Valley Turf). That time is then subtracted from 100 and the result will be added to the actual final time for each horse in each race.

An example of how to use the chart:

• Horse “A” won over S1800m in a time of 1.47.9 (107.9). This time would be adjusted by adding the negative -8.9278 to that number for a resulting adjusted rating of 98.9722

• Horse “B” finished 11th in the same race with a time of 1.49.4 (109.4). This time would by adjusted by adding the same negative -8.9278 resulting in an adjusted rating of 100.4722

The lower the number – the better the Speed Rating!

In the next installment, I will discuss the second step in developing an effective Speed Rating – namely Track Variance.

As racing for Wednesday March 3, 2010 is at Happy Valley on the C+3 Course (the narrowest course at the Valley), it should be helpful in your selection process to see the results for various Barriers and Distances over the past 5 seasons compared with those results for this season’s C+3 Races.