Thoro-Graph Race Shapes

[George Sands]

Thoro-Graph has a new pace product that can now be sampled free on its website: www.thorograph.com (http://www.thorograph.com).

From the email they sent out:

"The Race Shapes will be available free for a while starting Saturday, 10 May. They'll be in with the data, as well as to download separately, in with the full hardcopy sheets, and for selected tracks in the hardcopy simulcast books. You will also be able to download them separately for free from our website. Eventually we will be charging for the Race Shapes as a stand-alone product."

Details:

"We have taken the first quarter mile run by every horse in their recent races, and adjusted each horse's time for track speed, wind, weight carried, and ground loss, if any. We then gather the data for all the horses running on a race card, and further adjust those times based on the recent speed of the track they are running over today . The resulting adjusted quarter times give the handicapper the ability to form an idea of the early speed of each horse, and the early pace of each race."

More:

"We then take things a step further. Using each horse's last three adjusted times, we have come up with an average quarter mile time for each horse, and put those times on a graph for each race. The result is what we call a Race Shape -- a rough evaluation of where each horse figures to be after a quarter mile. This enables the handicapper to evaluate how a race will set up -- for example, whether a horse drawn outside has several horses with a similar running style inside him, in which case he could be caught wide."

And:

"Keep in mind that how much early speed a horse has shown in previous races is often a function of tactics -- that's why we are using an average for the Race Shapes . It's also why we separately show all the recent adjusted quarter times for each horse -- so you, the handicapper, can decide what information is relevant to today's race."

And a caveat:

"This is a rough draft, work in progress, and there are kinks that have to be worked out. If something looks screwy (like, all Finger lakes shippers are coming up too fast, or those coming out of 6f races at Pim, etc.) let me know by email. jerrybrown@thorograph.com (jerrybrown@thorograph.com?subject=Race Shapes Feedback)."

[Indulto]

GS,
Are you the new spokesperson for TG?

[PaceAdvantage]

Yes, please let me know too, so I can place the "AA" tag under your user name...

[chrisl]

Hello: I have not been able to get the race shapes cards off the site? Sounds interesting though..Chrisl

[George Sands]

GS,
Are you the new spokesperson for TG?

:lol: Inside jokes, the laughs are fewer but louder.

No, Indulto, I'm not Jerry Brown's spokesperson. If I were, his spokesperson situation would be the only thing that's in worse shape than his golf game.

However, I am far from neutral about this product. I believe it was seven years ago that I first started lobbying Thoro-Graph, in a general way, to do something with pace. My points went something like this:

1: I love your final-time variants, and your pace variants would play off of these.

2: Because you pay special attention to wind and run-ups, you are in a unique position to do this properly.

3: Right now, I am making my own pace figures by extracting the final-time variant from your figures, and the effort is akin to the labors of Hercules.

4: You take all this heat from pace players for, to their mind, minimizing the importance of pace. The irony here is delicious. The people most accused of minimizing pace are the same people who, in fact, ought to be measuring it.

[cj]

George,

I believe he asked because TG is an advertiser here. Your post reads like and advertisement. I don't think anyone was trying to give you a hard time. There is a big distinction between being affiliated with the product and just being a satisfied user.