Price And Probability (PAP)
BY RAY GORDON
In The beginning, there was Andrew Beyer...
No, scratch that: in the beginning, there was E.W. Donaldson (1936)
Then there were the "speed boys," Len Ragozin, Sheldon Kovitz, and THEN Beyer
In the 1980s, speed figures were the state of the art

NOT ANYMORE!
THE PAP ERA IS HERE!!

Now, everyone has speed figures or "sheets" that were once the privilege of the few, and the automatic profits these amazing numbers once generated have long vanished. The publication of the Beyer Speed Figures™ by the Daily Racing Form™ in 1992 marked the dawning of a new era, one where several new approaches have emerged, yet none are dominant. Computers have ushered in the era of database handicapping, and with it, pace, class, trainer, tote board, pedigree, and speed handicapping that simply was not possible in the "dinosaur" era. Ambitious handicappers have taken to a technique called value handicapping, whereby a "true odds" or "value line" is assigned to each horse in each race, in search of the cherished overlay, or horse whose odds substantially exceed its value.

Burying Beyer

I was a relatively early disciple of Andrew Beyer's speed figures, and made my own numbers using his method for years. I did very well with his method, and even was able to sell my numbers to others. I also had the benefit of having someone else make the figures, so that I would begin each day with a prepared Racing Form that would allow me to focus on handicapping and betting.

As profitable as the Beyer method was, and as necessary as it remains to this day for the serious handicapper, I began noticing flaws in the method as early as 1988. The first flaw was in how Beyer recommended construction of a two-turn adjustment for each track. Beyer suggested comparing the difference in times for sprints and routes at each class, and then averaging the differences. What Beyer ignored was his own universal claiming pars, which made it possible to group all claiming races by making the universal adjustment for price and turning every race into a universal claiming price, thus reducing a dozen small claiming class samples to two large ones. This was particularly useful at short meets like Keeneland, which run for days.

As my focus shifted back towards speed figures in recent years, I found even more flaws with traditional speed figures that render them incomplete. My next target was the track variant, a convenient tool for making speed figures, but one which is also inherently flawed, because just as a track surface changes from day to day, it also changes from race to race. Of even greater concern is that track surface is only one of several factors which can influence final time. For example, a race with a slow pace on a fast surface will offset and appear the same as a neutral pace on a neutral surface, and vice versa. The variant itself serves no real purpose other than to make a better speed rating, with what we call a speed figure, or the raw time rating plus the variant.

The idea of not using track variants at all to make figures is alien even to many experienced speed handicappers, who assume that they are necessary for making figures, yet they aren't. The beaten-lengths chart is actually the real key, since it accounts for distance. If a horse wins a six-furlong race by four lengths, its speed figure for that race will be ten points higher than the place horse, and so forth. From this chart, and the use of past speed figures, a projected speed figure is assigned to the winner and then compared to the raw final time for the purpose of constructing the variant. There is no need for this final step, however, as the projection itself can function not only as a speed figure, but also as a power rating. It is here where the PAP method begins.

Performance Ratings And Power Ratings

A performance rating is assigned to each horse in each race. Unlike a speed figure, which only considers final time, a performance rating takes multiple factors into account, and it is quite possible that the top performance rating in a race is not earned by the winner. For example, a horse who wins a race with a Beyer of 76 while in top form and racing every three weeks, over a horse who earns a 72 off a six-month layoff, would earn an inferior performance rating, as the horse with the 72 is far more likely to improve next time out, and likely to improve more than four points. Other factors, such as pace, can cause the same result. A performance rating is more accurate than a speed figure because it takes these factors into account!

The Winner Always Earns The Top Speed Figure Today

Beyer himself acknowledges the primary flaw in speed handicapping whenever he points out that speed figures measure past performance, not future performance. "Figures will not tell you what the horse will run today." Or will they?

The winner of any race (barring disqualification) will always earn the top speed figure. This simple truth defines the exact handicapping task with which we are confronted: predicting the speed figure a horse will earn in its NEXT race. While speed handicappers have been attempting to do this all along, they have never had to do so with the level of precision required to show a profit in the information age. Speed handicappers already project figures, but do so as part of the process of making track variants. Very few delve into using them as a predictive model sufficient to form the basis of a value line. Even with projections, the handicapper still must convert those projections to a value line. That pre-race projection is what I refer to as a horse's power rating, or expected speed figure in its next race.

The Fixed Relationship Between Figures/Ratings And Odds

Once you have projected speed figures for a race, you have also set a value line for the race, due to the fixed relationship between odds and margin of victory. Sports bookies use this equation all the time when setting moneylines for the NFL and other major sports. They know, for example, that a seven-point spread in the NFL translates to a moneyline of about -320. The same is true for horse racing, though made more complicated by the presence of multiple entrants.

In the simplest example of a match race with two horses who have equal power ratings, each would be even-money on a true-odds line or 3-5 (7-10) after the takeout. Some value handicappers use a true-odds line to account for the takeout, but I prefer to use a "program" style morning line for easier comparison, keeping in mind that a horse with 20 percent "value" is merely on par with the takeout. Since races almost always have several unevenly matched horses, an equation needs to be constructed to convert each rating into a value line.

After years of extensive research, practice, and a great deal of trial and error in real-life situations, I have arrived at a conversion equation which has withstood the test of time, and whose generated morning lines are usually, but not always, similar to the official program morning line. This equation is easy to memorize and put into practice, and best of all...

The PAP Method Requires Only Basic Handicapping And Math!

The best thing of all about PAP is that to implement it, you don't have to be a computer or math genius, nor do you need to purchase expensive software, data reports, or any other premium products to make your own PAP ratings and convert them into a value line that will be as accurate as your ratings. No matter which past-performance source you use (Beyer or BRIS), the PAP method is compatible with either, and I have used it with each type of figures. Since you no longer have to make your own figures (a one-year experiment showed it was not generally worth it to duplicate Beyer's work), you can use the Beyer Speed Figures from the DRF or the BRIS speed figures to calculate performance ratings for each of a horse's past races, and to use those performance ratings to arrive at a power rating for literally every horse in every race. Speed figures are not the only source data, however; you can even use PAP on jump races, first-timers, and even Arabians!

OUR BEST DAY EVER: FOUR LONGSHOT WINNERS

Everyone on the internet likes to bash anyone who offers selections, demanding free selections as "proof" that a method works. While we understand this, you can spend forever proving yourself online because new people will always say they weren't there for the last proof. In 1998 and 1999, Ray achieved an ROI of $1.20 on his top selections, to an audience of almost a thousand people a day, yet a year later, people only want to know what you did for them lately. It's a never-ending cycle.

On Monday, September 3, 2007, in his last free card at Saratoga, Ray finished with a flurry, selecting four winners on the card, including the first three winners and the winner of the Hopeful Stakes at 6-1 in a four-horse field (that Mott-trained blueblood who laughed at Maimones and Ready's Image). His other selections almost all hit the board, and the "progressive parlay" system outlined in Price And Probability yielded a jackpot for any readers who also downlaoded the free sheets. Not every day is like this, but this is an example of how strong PAP can be when it gets hot. Between Saratoga and Del Mar, three such peformances in the final week of racing between the two tracks should be all the proof anyone needs that we are now the premier figure and selection service in the country.

If you are looking to make a killing in a single day at the track, you could do a lot worse than PAP. Unlike other sheets, ours require no knowledge of horse racing to implement. We do literally all of the grunt work for you so you can focus on the important task of constructing your tickets.

Buy the PAP book for $29.95!!
(and get the 2009 Triple Crown and Breeders' Cup days FREE with purchase)

This JAM-PACKED handicapping book, out of print for several years,  has many proven methods which are still strong today!!
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Purchase any ONE Regular Price and Probability sheet (at full price) OR The PAP Book and get the AND get the 2009 Triple Crown Days and 2009 Breeders' Cup days (November 6-7, 2009 at Santa Anita) FREE!!

(Purchase total must be at least $25 to get the FREE days!)

To Order PAP Sheets, please e-mail Ray Gordon at: LeModernCaveman@aol.com

Our FREE DAILY PAP SHEETS for the late Daily Double at Aqueduct are suspended until further notice!!
(We would be inspired to bring back the free sheets with the help of donations to offset the time and cost of doing so)
(Donations can be made by clicking the button below)

This JAM-PACKED handicapping book, out of print for several years,  has many proven methods which are still strong today!!
(Note: Ordered books will be delivered via AIM, Yahoo Messenger or MSN Messenger!!)