Being bumped, baulked, crowded etc

[Heraclitus]

Hello all,

Which of the following costs the most time in a race and which cost the least time?

crowded.
checked.
bumped.
baulked.
impeded.

Anything I missed?

And what's the difference between 'crowded 1, ran on' and simply 'crowded 1'?

[TopDog]

They are all costly

If a dog runs on despite being "crowded" or "baulked" etc,normally means they are quite tough

[Seen]

My own opinion of these terms were as follows...


crowded - usually when sandwiched between 2 or more rivals....I would allow about 0.2s (2.5l) allowance when calculating times, but obviously it can differ greatly.

checked - not touched by another dog but slows (usually on a bend), can be a sign the dog is ungenuine or lacking confidence.

bumped - this is tricky as sometimes this can actually benefit the dog....if 2 dogs collide then the one with the quickening momentum can actually be bumped forwards.

baulked - this is basically a more severe case of being crowded, the dog usually loses quite a few lengths, and if badly baulked can immediately lose all chance.

impeded - stopped in their run, can cost momentum but again hard to tell how much ground is lost.


Best to try and compare final times with their other recent efforts. So if the dog is averaging say 29.48 with clear runs and then clocks 29.68 after being crowded once, then the 0.2s rule applies well here, but if the final time is 30.08 then the crowding was clearly more severe.

Other than watching re-runs of the races yourself it's a lot of guesswork!

[Heraclitus]

Do you bet on dogs Seen? I never knew that checked wasn't a result of other dogs inteference, so I can stop adjusting times for that.

So far I've come up with these penalties:
Crowded: 0.15s
Bumped: 0.1s
Impeded: 0.4s
Baulked: 0.25s

Does that seem about right?

The problem I have is finding out a greyhounds form over the last few races when the are a bunch of crowded, bumped and bauled in the times. All I've got is a race card and no videos so it's tricky to get accurate times.

[Seen]

I don't bet on dogs nowadays as I'm too busy with the horses, but I did enjoy greyhound betting during the 15 years or so I spent as a piece of betting shop furniture

I don't think it's possible to put a precise figure on these terms but as a general rule of thumb I used to allow 0.2s for crowding and 0.4s for baulked....the rest I would try and evaluate the dogs other recent times and adjust to fall in line with those.

My best success came when I would look for habitual very slow starters and then bet the dog immediately drawn on its outer (so if T3 is slow away every time then bet T4) unless of course the dog on its outer is also a slow starter. What I found was that even if the dog on the outer (T4 in this example) was usually only a moderate starter, the space on its inside gave it room (and confidence maybe) to go to the bend quicker. A dog can show massive improvement in its times simply by getting round in front (or near the front) rather than in the pack.

I also spent a fair amount of time analysing dog weights and seeing if I could profit from this info. My theory was that if 2 or more dogs collide together then logically the smaller lighter dog (usually bitches) should come off the worse. So if, say, traps 4,5 and 6 have identical 'first bend' times, and T6 weighs several kilos less than the dogs in traps 4 and 5, if they go up together the odds are that T6 is going to struggle to get round safely - which nearly always means defeat. I did have a fair bit of success at this but not only is it fairly time consuming working out the first-bend times, but it is also very difficult to do so accurately as slow starters sometimes break fast and vice versa - so if you lay T6 in the example and it breaks faster than normal and gets round, you're in trouble.


For detailed form go to the greyhound section of the racing post website, click on the dogs name and you will get all form for its full racing history

CURRAMORE SADIE
http://www.racingpost.com/greyhounds...?dog_id=342042

also handy is that you can 'sort' runs by clicking on the column headings....so on this dog you click FIN so its wins are grouped at the top, you can see she only ever wins when she gets to the first bend in under 5 secs. Also she has won 3 times (ignore trials) - every time she was sent off fav. Only once was she fav and failed to win.

For dog weights I used to use either WillHill or Coral website, can't remember which.....I'll have a quick look...

hmmm, doesn't seem they do it anymore, if I find it I'll post it up.

[Seen]

http://willhill.thedogs.tv/cgi-bin/homepage.asp

that might work tomorrow

[AnothrSpacecat]

Its reasonably easy to guess if a dog will be pushed around in most fields given the trapping speeds of the runners and if they have a prefference on route round the track (ie railer, wide tracker etc).

Vital info for laying dogs.

[AnothrSpacecat]

trials cant always be ignorred, if im looking at a dog to lay and see it traps slowly and often finds trouble, yet somehow gains half a second on a free track then ill be wary of laying it.

similarly if a dogs an average trapper and still finds trouble (but has decent trials) then its always worth a shout on a downgrade

[Heraclitus]

My best success came when I would look for habitual very slow starters and then bet the dog immediately drawn on its outer (so if T3 is slow away every time then bet T4) unless of course the dog on its outer is also a slow starter. What I found was that even if the dog on the outer (T4 in this example) was usually only a moderate starter, the space on its inside gave it room (and confidence maybe) to go to the bend quicker. A dog can show massive improvement in its times simply by getting round in front (or near the front) rather than in the pack.

I don't have the opportunity to watch races at home, so I miss out on a lot of the intricacies observed from watching races. From the few I've seen, I've noticed that if T1 starts slower than T2 and T3, T2 and T3 will move towards the inside on the first corner and slow down T1. I did a little analysis on time lost by trap and it appears that T3 and 4 lose more time than T1 and 2 who lose more time than T5 and 6. T5 and 6, if wide runners, often avoid trouble on the first corner but have to run a slightly longer route. Working out which dogs run into trouble is the hardest part of greyhound betting imo as it's so complicated with each dog impacting dogs adjacent according to trap number, sectional time and anything else I've forgotten.

I haven't looked into weight much but I read that it was a reflection of how race fit the dog is. Apparently, dogs have an optimum weight to race with and it's possible to judge how race fit they are by comparing their optimum weight to their present weight. A huge pain in the ass to do and something I may get around to but I doubt it's worth the effort.

I did have a fair bit of success at this but not only is it fairly time consuming working out the first-bend times, but it is also very difficult to do so accurately as slow starters sometimes break fast and vice versa - so if you lay T6 in the example and it breaks faster than normal and gets round, you're in trouble.

Unfortunately shit happens, and happens more often when animals and gambling are concerned. All you can do is work with an average and let the dog do the rest. Sometimes seemingly average dogs have a shocking run and sometimes they race as if on performance enhances but I'm sure that the averages will win in the end. It frustrates me how a dog can run 29.3 29.35 and 29.4 in it's last 3 races then run a 29.8 in it's next race. I've been trialing a dog system for the last few days and it feels like a lottery sometimes.

Its reasonably easy to guess if a dog will be pushed around in most fields given the trapping speeds of the runners and if they have a prefference on route round the track (ie railer, wide tracker etc).

Vital info for laying dogs.

For some reason, some dogs have next to no information about which line they take while others have either a Rls, Mid or W for nearly every race. I find the line useful to determine which dogs are likely to collide on the first corner. Say T3 and T4 both break at a similar speed, if T3 often runs 'rls-mid' and T4 runs 'mid' then maybe they'll avoid each other.

One thing that is really starting to bother me is the going. I'm ok with the going being +30 to -30 but during the winter months I'm seeing the going as -100 at times. How the hell can I be using accurate times if someone is adjusting times by a second? I think it might be making the finish times inaccurate when the times are adjusted by so much.

[AnothrSpacecat]

youll often find adjustments in times that vary by quite a margin over the course of a days racing.

some dogs running at a trakc in an early race can be given +30 while a late rone would see a swing to -20. i tend to ignore these to an extent.

[Heraclitus]

Are the adjustments for going accurate in your opinion? I think I may ignore the big adjustments like -60 or more but don't know if it's necessary.

[AnothrSpacecat]

I work in a bookies and see hundreds of races a week, in my time I mustve sat and watched about tens of thousands of the feckers, for me the going adjustments can for the most part be ignorred.

If a dogs put up as a favorite on the basis it last ran a quick time, yet has a big adjustment, its a fair shout to assume it wont be running the same time again.

It varies between tracks how correct they are, its a living, shitting, smelling, cheating human making them up like you and me, if you sit and watch a race with a stopwatch (used to do it all the time at the tracks) then youll see big differences between what the dogs are really doing compared to whats being recorded.

[Heraclitus]

I work in a bookies and see hundreds of races a week, in my time I mustve sat and watched about tens of thousands of the feckers, for me the going adjustments can for the most part be ignorred.

If a dogs put up as a favorite on the basis it last ran a quick time, yet has a big adjustment, its a fair shout to assume it wont be running the same time again.

It varies between tracks how correct they are, its a living, shitting, smelling, cheating human making them up like you and me, if you sit and watch a race with a stopwatch (used to do it all the time at the tracks) then youll see big differences between what the dogs are really doing compared to whats being recorded.

You're really raining on my parade here. I'm using the times to judge races and you're telling me they are largely incorrect.

If a dog ran 29.0, and the adjustment is -50, the time becomes 28.5. Should I be using 28.5 here or 29.0?

I noticed today that the results of races at Belle Vue have goings ranging form +20 to -100, while races at Hove generally range from +10 to -40. Would the result times for Hove after adjustment be more accurate in general?

[Heraclitus]

I did some work in excel and it looks like anything <-30 and >+30 should probably be ignored. That rules out Belle Vue, Newcastle and Sunderland as those tracks often have going of -50 or worse. Hove, Romford, Sheffield and Hall Green as ok though.