[AusRace] Lords Prayer - a calculation in racing.

Tue Jul 23 07:02:03 AEST 2019

good on ya Tony. always a great read. keep 'em coming!

On Sun, Jul 21, 2019 at 8:50 PM Tony Moffat <tonymoffat at bigpond.com> wrote:

> Mr Lord was a horse breeder, a farmer in the Western District, a football
> club stalwart it seemed and would rather go to VFL than the races any day,
> son, he told me.
>
> He was big on horses racing 'over the sticks' and horses he bred, and sold
> on, may have had success at it.
>  Hurdle/Steeple racing in Metro Melbourne was big in time gone by, as you
> know.
>
> On a wet Saturday, a particularly wintry day only worsened, or bettered, by
> wintry days in Tasmania, he sat and spoke about racing.
>
> Our place was beside the stand, and that stand had a café, with tea pot
> tea,
> and then you could smoke everywhere but
> we sat under cover and out of the wind, him with his Romeo and Juliet
> cigars
> and me with my Rothmans, each with a mug
> and me with apples and cream.
>
> Mr Lord said that steeple chasers can be compared indirectly by factoring
> their finish in a similar distance because the
> running, and jumping, was so severe any 'secrets' any runner had used to
> prove superior to its opposition were known.
>
> He maintained that distance, weight, then the steeples, evened things out,
> not that it brought runners together it at least showed their capabilities
>  with what they had on the day, referring to weight, finish. He used a
> multiple 16.5, which was a number composed of many smaller corrections
> multiplied together, although he did not reveal everything in the
> composition of that number it is a factor in time representation in racing,
> even today*.
>
> He multiplied the beaten distance in the qualifying race by 16.5, then
> divided that by the furlong distance of the race, 3200 metres = 16 furlongs
> Then, in these modern times, multiplied that figure by .45 (point 45) to
> get
> a kilogram rating for this runner.
>
>  This value represents the weight relief the horse needs to improve next
> start, distance being the same or similar.
>
> Mr Lord had a calculator with him on course for the avowed purpose of
> multiplying and dividing, then writing the results of
> each sum in his race book.
>
> I dubbed it Lords Prayer and he laughed, spluttered, then coughed, took a
> sip and a draw, another sip,  and asked me my opinion, which I gave. It
> won.
>
> Today 21/07/2019 it is Moss Trooper Steeple day in country Victoria, so the
> legend lives on, great.
>
> On the same day, but in the early 70's there was nobody on course, nobody
> else I mean, and our ring beside the stand was a wet desert, devoid of
> life,
> for the 28 minutes between settling and setting the board for the next.
>
>  My Boss was generally first, and this bought a few in, some in long coats,
> everybody in a coat of varying dimension lengthwise, some in hats, some in
> beanies,
> all ages and sizes, strolling along the betting boulevard, most writing,
> glancing back and forth from their notes to the boards.
>
> There was the testing banter first, as in 'you're a bit skinny with that
> one
> of Bourkes' which is a punter unique way of asking after a horse.
>  Stewart spoke from the back left, the pencilling desk, 'which one' which
> surprised the questioner, but humour took over with Stewart stating 'no he
> is not riding two, the other one is in the race also'
>
> K and S Bourke were on joint favourites at 6's this day. There were 20
> nominees and 16 running.
>
>  The Boss said, what is a fair price, and how much are you buying. The deal
> was done, that is how he did his business then. There is often value out in
> the 'suburbs', the secondary rings we will call them, although we were the
> next rung down from the Rails, and often the Rails runner would come up to
> us, our group, looking to lay off some field money, to cover contingences,
> to buy some peace of mind like, he said. Then he would swear and say 'it is
> so quiet  they are only backing 4 or 5 at most' whereas we may have started
> slowly as I said, but the money was spread over 10 minimum, with smaller
> bets on most of the rest, and it was still possible to make a book from
> that.
>
> Stewart had his opinion, as did The Boss, and they differed, with the Boss
> on side with the early favourite (not a Bourke horse, K or S) and Stu liked
> another one, a tiny jumper which had won 5 for him, including the last two.
>
> The Boss maintains that if you multiply the number of men on course by 150
> you get a figure approaching available money. This day there may have been
> 120K available over 8 races, and that would turnover several times,
> dependent on favourites, and there were perhaps 50 outfits vying for
> business.
>
> SUMMARY:
>
> (i) Multiply the losing margin by 16.5, then divide the product by the
> number of furlongs covered (essentially race distance divided by 2 - 200
> metres in a furlong) - the result is a value you use to compare all runners
> required in the race. It may be a weight correction, so that a figure of
> 2.7
> represents 2.7 kgs required off the horse in the next run for it to
> improve.
> A horse running 5 or more lengths out will get a weight change like that,
> next, race, all other things being equal. No, it is not precise but it is
> another way.
>
> (ii) (*)16.5 is the figure in form assessement representing 6 * 2.75,
> perhaps the distance covered in a second over the distance of the race.
> 1200
> metres / 16.5 gives a value of 72.72, a middle placed time for a good track
> run over 1200 m. There are values that increase and decrease as the
> distance
> increases, or decreases eg a Gold Coast scamper over 850 will be over
> valued
> at 16.5 - it may be closer to 19, also a 2400 metre Cup might be 15, or
> something less than 16.5. The decimal side of it  is quite powerful, those
> decimal points mean something - again, imprecise and another way.
>
> (iii) Multiply the losing distance, in lengths by 2.75 and take away the
> race distance, and the resulting figure is the distance this horse ran
> while
> the winner crossed the line - 2.75*3.5 minus 1200 =1190.375, the metres
> your
> runner completed in the race time of the winner. Now divide that distance
> by
> the race time to get the metres per second of your runner. Do with this
> what
> you will, it is directly comparable to other runs, and other runners so
> that's a start.
>
> Mr Lords equation has been repeated several times in other texts, I mean
> the
> machinations of it, losing value times some other value divided by the
> furlongs. He maintains that jumping races are good races for second string
> horses, he had success he said, as I wrote, but he also reckoned that good
> off spring of Better Boy, or Alcimedes, or any number of top flight sires
> were likely winners in jumps races. He said he was thankful his were sired
> by unpopular unknowns and performed as they did, often enough.
>
> Cheers
>
> Tony
>
>
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