Race Shape - Post Position

In the previous post I covered the basics of Horsegrader's Race Shape. This week I'll do a deeper dive on how Post Position enters into Race Shape. Let's Look at a screen snippet that shows how each Running Style statistically performs by Post Position:

Since the pie chart for outside position is 100% blue, we can easily see that only Closers win from an outside Post Position.  This raises the question 'How do I determine the post position for a horse?'.  I use a two-step process by first looking at the Post Position Impact pie chart:

I can see from the Post Position Impact pie chart shows that this course favors the Middle Post Positions with a 54% Win Percentage. Now, I perform step two by looking at the color of the rectangle to the left of each horse. I'll illustrate by showing you the three stalkers in this race since they cover the Inside (positions 1-4), Middle (positions 5-8) and Outside (positions 9+) Post Positions:

Headingtothecity has a Blue rectangle indicating an inside Post Position, Powerful Instinct has a Yellow rectangle indicating a Middle Post Position and Disco On has a Purple rectangle indicating an Outside Post Position.  We now have another piece of information that we can use to make our pick. 

One final note: Program Number is not the same as Post Position.  For example, a horse with a Program Number of 1A could have the 8th Post Position.

Race Shape Basics

In my previous post I recounted my experience at the Belmont Stakes and how I used the Horsegrader Race Shape screen to narrow my picks to Paynter and Union Rags. Not to brag but Union Rags finished first and Paynter was second by 1/2 length. In this post, I'll introduce you to the basics of the Race Shape screen. The best place to start is with a screen shot:

 Click on the image for a larger view

From the screen shot you'll note that the horses are divided into three categories - 1) Front Runners, 2) Stalkers and 3) Closers. In our example we have three Front Runners, three Stalkers and eight Closers. The question I ask is 'Does this course and distance favor a certain running style?'.  Race Shape answers that question. But first, what is the course and distance for our example? Well, just hover over the small triangle to the right of the track name and the following screen snippet will appear:

So, this turf race run on the inner track with a distance of 1 & 1/8 mile.  By looking at the following screen snippet we can easily answer our question:

From the snippet we determine that this course and distance (often referred to as Track Bias) favors Stalkers with a 45% Win Percentage.  Closers are second with a 34% Win Percentage and Front Runners have a hard time cracking the winners' circle with only a 21% Win Percentage. I found that as I increased my handicapping knowledge I almost always check out Race Shape. 

We just scratched the surface today. We'll continue to explore  Race Shape in future posts. In the meantime, let me know if you have any questions.

Belmont Stakes

Thanks to everyone that stopped by the Horsegrader booth this past Saturday at the Belmont.  What a great day and what an exciting day of racing, especially the Belmont Stakes.  So what question do you think that I was asked the most?  Well, it went something like 'Dude, who do you think is going to win the next race?'.  Two guys were adamant that we handicap Race 9 together, so I called up the race in Horsegrader.  We looked at the following Key Factors screen and saw a Lone Speed horse, #7 - Trinniberg, in a Sprint race (7 furlongs for this race):

Click on the screen for a larger image.

I said that could be a good bet, the guys went away and bet and came back with huge smiles and their winning tickets and said 'Who is going to win the 10th race?'. Once again we called up Horsegrader and went to the Key Factors screen:

Well, they saw another Lone Speed horse and off they went to place another bet before I could tell them that it is tougher for a Lone Speed horse, #4 - Desert Blanc, in a Route race (1 1/4 miles for this race).  Well, Desert Blanc came through with the win.

So after their second win they wanted the three of us to handicap the Belmont Stakes.  I took a little different approach since all the Key Factors would be almost all green for every horse since it was a Grade 1 Stakes race.  I brought up the Race Shape screen in Horsegrader:

Looking at the winning percentages and distance (1 1/2 miles) the track bias favored Stalkers (43%).  Looking at the screen we saw two Stalkers - #3 - Union Rags and #9 - Paynter.  If you watched the race you saw that Union Rags won by a neck over Paynter in an exciting stretch run.  The guys didn't return after the race, but I sure hoped that they did a boxed bet with Union Rags and Paynter!

We had a nice little run of wins, and I did tell them that if I could pick the winner of every race then I wouldn't need to be doing this.

We'll dig deeper into the Horsegrader Race Shape screen in a future Blog entry.

Grade 1 Stake Races

I'll be at the Belmont Stakes this Saturday (June 9th) and possibly will be witnessing a Triple Crown winner.  So, of course, I used Horsegrader to handicap the race and want to share my experience with you.  Let's look at the Key Factors screen:

I bet you see the same thing that I see - lots of green.  This makes perfect sense since a Grade 1 Stakes Race such as the Belmont Stakes attracts the best of the best.  Best horses, best jockeys, best trainers, etc.  So we need to dig a bit deeper and look at the percentages. Click on the image for larger view.  In the larger view we can see that I'll Have Another has a dirt win percentage of 83%, Union Rags has a dirt win percentage of 57% and Paynter has a dirt win percentage of 50%.  Unstoppable U has a dirt win percentage of 100% but we can see in Class column that Unstoppable U has never run at this Class of Race before. 

So, you need to dig deeper (Speed Figures, Race Shape, Past Performances, etc.) when handicapping a Grade 1 Stakes Race because of all the green.  Who is your pick to win the Belmont Stakes?  Will I'll Have Another win the Triple Crown?  If you are going to be at the Belmont Stakes make sure to stop by the Horsegrader booth and say Hi!