Hi Andrew, I was going to say that even if the favorites are down, it wouldn't laffect the number Dave gave us above by much. maybe going from 37.9 down to 37.2. — Gillycapper

Actually, looking at the last quarter of 2025, Favs hit 44% - glad to see that has subsided a little.

But the reason for 2026 changes appears to be a single, dominant Whale team having moving their bets from Favs to 2nd choices.

Your data is wrong.
Current hit rate on Favs is 37.9%.

It is DOWN from 4th quarter last year, by ~4%.

This is 2026 data.
(5 days behind)

Then why would pars be obsolete?

Or do you mean, "If I use BRIS data, why would I need to buy par times?"

The invention of the BRIS Pace Ratings numbers would seem to make the need for PARs obsolete, since the BRIS is "are fully adjusted for track variations, comparable across North American tracks". Is my thinking correct? — Tim Romero

Respectfully, I would say that your thinking is very NOT CORRECT.

I assume that you know I've been in the Par business for over 3 decades.

I will further assume that you know BRIS has pars somewhere that are used to build those pace numbers.

My question to you would be, "Why would you assume that BRIS' ratings would be better than anyone else's?"

along with what you said I am wondering about "concentration". and if/how that interacts with it. I have a mild issue with that. It is not always what it should be. I am 83 — donald altemose

I remember you.
This is a favorite personal topic of mine and I study it very seriously.

Maybe I should also add--mark cramer once asked his readers if any of us know anyone who handicaps horses on a regular basis (not necessarily every day but regularly) who has ever been diagnosed with some kind of dementia. I have also asked the same question of OTB people and others- I don't know of any and Mark never printed of any that did. If he did I am not aware of them. — donald altemose

It definitely keeps your mind active, which fights off dementia.

Anti-dementia is something I take very seriously.
Several years ago, I discovered that I'd lost 15 points off my IQ score.

When I spoke to my primary care doctor, she gave me the standard answer: "As you age, it is reasonable that your intellect will wain a bit."

I didn't like that answer, so I did some research and found an understanding of WHY - and many were easily fixed. Sleep meds were the big one.

Eventually I not only recovered the 15 points I'd lost but gained even beyond my starting point!

Not sure why you'd say that you wasted my time.
You're a guy I have a lot of respect for so perhaps I misunderstood the question.

Your response seems to indicate a negative response.
Perhaps I misunderstood what you were asking - or you didn't want anything beyond a simple answer. (I do that sometimes.)
_____________
I thought you were asking if you should use the pars to create ratings AFTER you selected the pacelines.

My answer was that you should do it BEFORE and do all of the pacelines.
_____________
If you'd like to tell me exactly what you want, please try again.

I have a question as it is all a learning process particularly in the design of your own software for personal use and since Dave's video's have always been of great teaching importance, I wanted to ask when it comes to Pace handicapping and discerning your par figures. My question is to clarify as I get confused during my coding particularly with large batches of past performance and results files. When a handicapper is handicapping and choosing a paceline and goes to form his figures, the question is if the last race the horse ran was a mile on the grass, is the handicapper using the mile par time to make his figures or is every horse have to use the race coming up as the par?????? — Chuck

Actually, your software should build the appropriate RATING COLUMNS for ALL the races as they should be considered in the paceline selection process.

While DET (and HSH) both have fully functioning pace models (i.e. you can still select pacelines) that is really very old technology. Like early 1990s.

Personally, I've not selected a paceline since about 1994.

The paceline selection approach is pretty much dead.
Same with make-a-line-and-bet-into-the-tote.

In both scenarios the handicapper finds his perceived overlays pounded from projected profit to losses as the end result.

Yes, same experience for me.

Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics is still out there, but not very relevant any more.

200-400 are simply the actual raw rating.
Thus, a horse might have (say) a 97 rating, and be ranked #2 in the field.
With the top horse being a 98,


7000s are based upon STRENGTH OF FIELD.
Now, imagine that the STRENGTH of the FIELD (loosely, average of top 4) = 96.
98 (above) shows a 102 because 98 is 2 lengths above the strength.
97 (above) gets a 101.

This would be a guess but (logically) that horse had SOMETHING(s) of value in that object.

Remember that you can still open the object back in the MY HANDICAP window and actually look at the rankings.

HNY! — Dave R

What that mean?
[edit] LOL So obvious.

Yes, but you can call me.
775.853.1234

Did you download today’s data already?

If so, last year’s January 1st is corrupted.

The good news is that you don’t need last year’s January

UPDATE on the UPGRADE

First, the upgrade is in the hands of about 4 or 5 of you.

It has really produced some very positive results over the past few days of testing.

However, in the last 24 hours I had a great new idea - and decided to add said idea.

It is doubtful it will be under your tree when you wake up.

With these new additions, I want to do a teaching session BEFORE I release it. This will give me the time to not only complete this next set of enhancements but also make it so you'll know how to use it.

Stay tuned.
_____________________

MERRY CHRISTMAS to you all.

Heard you won a good-sized tournament.

Congrats.

"Messing with my head." Great phrase. LOL

Your reaction is completely normal, especially for expert players who have been close to winning for a long time. I often use the phrase "just one small tweak away from winning consistently."

What’s really different here is that the depth isn’t coming from YOUR WORK anymore — it’s being driven by the shape of the race itself.

Think of it like this...
You probably do a lot of work on each race but now you have a REALLY SMART assistant to do all the PREP WORK.

*** Picking contenders, separating them, narrowing them down, finding value... all of this is deep work - and the further you go into the race, the deeper it gets.
*** The more decisions you have to make in a race, the greater the likelihood of a mistake that costs you the race.
*** But now, ABBY hands you a clearly defined framework.
*** Because of ABBY's proven consistency you can have confidence and clarity on precisely what you need to do next.

The framework ABBY hands you is so strong that it could almost be used as a black box. You could bet every contender it gives you in every race and lose roughly five cents on the dollar. I'm not suggesting you do that — it’s simply a way to show how solid the starting point is when the typical player is losing about 23 cents per wagered dollar.
________________________________
Just to be clear...
If you took the specific horses that are in the 88s, made them your contenders, and picked 2 or 3 to bet, you'd have a great shot at being more than even - especially if you stop trying to bet into the tote board.

Alright, I follow what you’re saying, but I’m still not clear on how someone actually builds these new factors.

I’ve been at this a long time, and I’ve never really seen anyone lay out what that process looks like.

So if there’s a practical way a regular handicapper is supposed to approach it, I’d appreciate a little direction.

Or must I have the DeTerminator to do this? — BobbyB

Hello, Bobby.

Are you the Bobby B who was an HSH user about 2 decades ago?

Thanks for asking.

It was nothing life threatening.
I've been struggling for a few days with a very painful back issue.

Until this morning it was a minor annoyance, but this morning it escalated to such a level that I was unable to walk without some real support. It was pure level 10 pain.

Sat in a wheelchair in the ER for FIVE HOURS waiting to see a doctor. Amazingly, when I got out of the wheelchair for the first, the pain was reduced to about 10% of what it was. No clue what caused that.

They ran lots of tests - including a cat scan and a lot of blood tests. The doc says I've got some arthritis, but all my bloodwork returned (his words) "really good numbers."

Then they gave me an intravenous steroid and I walked out.
Still have pain, with a few shots that hit level 7 or 8, but nothing like the prolonged pain at level 10.

I will let the rest of the community address your other questions.

Dave
PS: Really great thread for your first post.

So my contention that an 88:4 race being approximately in the middle of the possible range of contenders might indeed be a good candidate for a 4 horse exacta box? Or am I reading too much into this?

@Dave Salvini

On top of that you need to determine VALUE.

If you watched the videos enough you have probably heard about “The NEAL.”

At the bottom of the scale you get hit rate and higher up you get price/value.

My play demands a PROFIT horse or else why bet the race?

So, the two horses- HEDGE and PROFIT work together.

The Hedge is the lowest Neal and the Profit is the lowest of all the horses ABOVE the “profit threshold.”

It is logical you could find some interesting “criss-cross” bets.
(My name for them)

Example:
Key (hedge,all profit)


[edit] Sorry for the sloppy post. I was in the ER all day - from 10am to 6pm. Hard to write from my phone.