Wizard Daily Report and Research - Wednesday, 15 November 2023.

• Location ABCDE - Filtered.
• Research - Trainers - Trainers Notebook.

Location ABCDE - Filtered

Yesterday, I reported on relative ratings performance, in the context of the various categories of racetracks in Australia. Today, I continue this discussion and look at relative performance/predictability from a different perspective.

Briefly, in our Wizard database we classify the racetracks in Australia on 5 levels:

A - Level 1 Sydney and Melbourne metropolitan tracks

B - Level 2 Metropolitan tracks in Brisbane, Adelaide, and Perth

C - Level 3 NSW and Victorian provincial tracks Gosford, Hawkesbury, Ballarat, Mornington

D - Level 4 NSW and Victorian country track and other states provincials, and Tasmania main tracks

E - Level 5 Country tracks in states other than NSW and Victoria

The results yesterday showed that, at least in terms of the Wizard relative weight ratings (Wrat), horses from the CDE tracks can be rated just as successfully as they can at metropolitan tracks.

Nevertheless, with respect to provincial and country racing, there is a widespread view that horses on the CDE tracks lack the quality of their metro counterparts and are therefore somehow less likely to be as assessable as their metro counterparts.

We can test this by analysing the runners at these different venues using the Wizard  Plus FILTER. This is because, with the Wizard Plus filter there is more than a single quantitative rating used in the assessment.

The Wizard Plus FILTER examines and reports on key positives and negatives facing each runner in a race, and the Wizard rating (Wrat) is but one of more than a dozen factors considered.

The ten major factors covered in this FILTER analysis are Wrat, age, form cycle (runs from a spell), consistency, form last 12 months, jockey, trainer, running style, distance, and wet track form. We apply minimum requirements to each of these factors, and when a runner meets or exceeds that standard it earns a positive score, when it fails to meet the standard it earns a negative score.

For example, if a horse met the benchmark standard for 12 factors, but failed to meet the standard for 3 other factors, then it would get a Filter score of +9. If, on the other hand it scored negatively on 12 but did score positively on 3, then it would have a score of -9.

In total there are 15 factors that are examined, the 10 listed above, and five other factors judged as being of somewhat lesser importance for this analysis. Not all horses can be evaluated under all 15 factors, as some factors are not present in the horses form history. It is unusual for a score of more than 11 positives (+11) to be assigned to any individual horse.

So, what are the results across these different track categories when we look at how the top rated Wizard Plus FILTER horse has performed.

(Again, I have limited the analysis to those top rated Filter horses that started at odds of 10/1 or less. This keeps the analysis consistent with the many reports we include in Wizard Plus that use this odds restriction to eliminate statistical noise.)

The results for the 2022-2023 season:

A tracks           1683 runners        368 winners  22%

B tracks           1908 runners        462 winners  24%

C tracks           4210 runners        968 winners  23%

D tracks           6179 runners      1556 winners  25%

E tracks           2480 runners        641 winners  26%

Note: With the Filter analysis it is possible to have more than one top rated runner in a race, unlike with the Wrat where there can be only a single 100 pointer in any race. So, we can expect the Filter win strike rate to be lower. 

It is clear that even on this more broadly based assessment, provincial and country racing can be just as reliably analysed.

(The Wizard Filter ratings and rankings can be found in the Wizard Plus Essentials report, and is also featured in the Wizard Plus Panel, and the Wizard Watch Morning Movers report.)

Wiz-Ed

Research - Trainers - Trainers Notebook.

Today the Wizard Trainers Notebook examines the top 10 trainers on Queensland metropolitan tracks in the 2022-2023 racing season.

For this notebook presentation I have broken down the overall stats into age groups (2yo, 3yo, 4yo and older) as there can be a difference in how these various age groups are prepared and perform. Also, I have limited the analysis to only those runs that were at odds of 10/1 or less, thereby removing the noise created by the longer odds runs which are really of no relevance in this exercise.

The results shown are only those where the trainer had an impact value of 1.3 or better, so a significant performance, and one can say under these conditions the stable has outperformed its expected result.

Note: It is possible to have more than one entry for a single factor. For example, the stable may have outperformed when backing up both within 8-14 days and 30-60 days.

Because the data is drawn from the Wizards national database, the form factors will be the same for trainers when they appear in the top trainer list in more than one state.

Wiz-Ed

                  Wizard - Trainer's Notebook - Trainers 1 to 10 in the Queensland 2022-2023 metropolitan premiership table