heinrich wrote: Agree Rob,don't get me wrong,I fully understand the handicapping rules as best as most out there,but I always get the feeling you know more than us and the handicappers lol.I seldom use ratings in my studies,but I figure using them might improve my selections thats why I asked.Thanks a lot for the reply. In a way ratings is important,coz I spend abt 5-7hrs a day watching replays and making notes,and without knowing it,I actually give my own 'MR' to those I mark...but never actually put it down to a number! Thanks thou.
I would guess that well over 80% of horses I just use the official ratings as I am only interested where my rating is significantly different(if official and mine is very close I accept theirs)so I don't keep a record of every horse ....only my exceptions.
As you say ,if you study as much as you do,you are rating as well, but just using a different basis to measure.
In fact,for many years,I used ADJUSTED times and collaterals to study .......but rating using the standard handicap rating model actually combines both together,as it compares horses with each other, whether in the same,or in different,races, using comparitive factors-Took me far too long to appreciate the value of that,so only took advantage of the Race Figure system for far too few years!
(what would be interesting would be to see somebody like Mathew Lips list of ratings versus his official ratings as handicapper............I get the impression that Darryl Maree uses his own handicap ratings as the basis of his analysis too)
The final selections are after adding filters ,biases and very important PATTERNS!
