There has been a lot of chatter recently on the forum about the weighty matter of…. weights!
Several players have made big points and long winded statements on why they feel their horses have been unfairly burdened in races and that something needs to be done.
They seem to be under the impression that when running the races Laurie can change the weights to make them fair/realistic so that their horse can run with a weight allowance that they feel is correct based on their intimate knowledge of racing.
Whilst this topic does seem to be a fair challenge, there is absolutely nothing that can be done by Laurie when running the races to ensure that horses are allocated a correct weight. And not a chance that a new scratch will be added either! The weights are assigned by the HRFan program and anyone who has any working knowledge of this system will know that the creator was probably high on something when setting the weights algorithm!
There is something in the programming that knows the best horse for the race and 9 times out of 10 the highweight of the field will be the best horse in the race (you as an owner may not agree but its reading stats drilled down much further than we can understand)
It does allow fillies/mares to carry less than their male counterparts so in that instance it is reflective of what happens in the real racing world. And generally it assigns less weight to younger horses although as the season progresses and horses “mature” the difference is mitigated.
This weeks racing throws up a nice example of what is “wrong” in the system - the winner, Black Vertigo, carried 126lbs (9 stone or 57kgs) which is a hefty weight for a 2yr old when considering that the only older horse in the race carried 101lbs (7st 21oz or 45.8kgs). Zulu must have thought he was in the paddock running with 98lbs (7stone or 44.5kgs). (Not even going to go down the route if why a 2yr old is running over 10f that early in the season.....)
However, if you look at the odds assigned by HRFan (also random and not touched by Laurie) you can see that they are also reflective to the weight assignment. Black Vertigo went off the 3/5 ON favourite and annihilated the field by nearly 4 lengths - Zulu finished nearly 92 lengths behind (or in old money a distance). So the winner was obviously considered by the program to be the vastly superior horse in the field and his result clearly proved it.
The program can see far more detailed specs on each horse than we can (even with PPs etc) so when running races there are many many more factors in play rather than kick, stamina, speed etc.
So what can be done to change the program to allow horses to run on their “correct” weights?
The simple answer is nothing.
The complicated answer is threefold:
1 - we scrap the existing program and get a custom built program
2 - we make races more restrictive on entries so we try to ensure that all horses run of the same weights
3 - players change their way of entering horses so that they “play” the system and make sure that they have a horse in a race that ensure that they run off a correct weight
Option 1 will never happen unless a very generous player stumps up $30,000 + to build a new race engine. We would also have to stop racing for a season or longer to allow the data to be migrated or worse case wiped and we start PF from scratch.
Option 2 would not be a popular decision as its hard enough some weeks filling the races as they are let alone restricting them further.
Option 3 would be the most simple solution but it wouldnt solve the issues - just brush them under the carpet.
At the end of the day there is NOTHING that can be done to solve this easily so its something we all will have to live with until Option 1 becomes available! You will only wind yourself (and others) up by continually banging on about this but it wont change - somethings are within the remit of Laurie to change (colours, names, tweaking uber horses) but this is not one of them.
9 comments:
So im going to take this personally seen as only 3 people myself included have been in your words "banging on" about this.... As a player of 10 years I am fully aware HRFAN assigns the weights and laurie cannot do anything about this but as a contributing member of this game am I not allowed the freedom to have a say within reason?
I Simply stated my bemusement at the HCP given to a 3yr old who has barely made a ripple yet, And am really offended that you have decided to create a topic on this and it seems a very detailed one at that
The problem I have is the NAMING of Races some are for example called The Blah Blah HCP when in fact the weight spread is not a HCP its a set weights and allowance race and The GET OUT STAKES which is run as a HCP and we have no idea until the race is run that this is the case so how can I place my horses if its not really a HCP? also the wild variation in weights for the same race an example I will give is The BOWLING GREEN HCP in 2016 it was by the looks a set weights race?
With the the field carrying 126 (4,5,7yr olds) and the lone filly/mare 121 yet other seasons the weights do indicate a HCP that's a cause of concern for me because as your fully aware weight is a factor I the game as horses have aside from there Speed/stamina and kick ratings a Top weight rating as well
Not sure why even bother with this topic there is nothing that can be done about it so I'm not exactly sure why people are even arguing about it in the first place
I don't think anyone is arguing. It's just a discussion and possibly an eye-opener for some people. Once everyone is aware that some races have inherently odd weight allowances people can plan better.
Its not a personal dig at anyone but the forum is getting clogged up with pointless moaning about things that are out of Laurie's control, ie weights/odds. I tried to make a reasoned post about why it is what it is and use evidence supporting both sides.
There was no point putting it on the Forum as it would be seen as a personal dig but its not. Whether players want to take it that way is out of my control but there are always at least two sides to every story/argument.
Amanda
LOL Amanda clogging the forum the forum is dead and 3 people said a total of 5 lines on the matter...
Oh yeah mean taking it personal like you did when Lois was talking about the California Chrome issue and what Rae Guest/English Tracks had done to him??
Whatever guys
steve you need to take some chill pills about this whole game - i wasnt just referring to the weights but entries (or lack thereof) and pretty much everything else
I was making valid points against someone who wasnt listening to a bigger picture and took words out of context -
The forum is dying beause a small group of players are taking pages and pages over blowing their own trumpets and slapping themselves on the back. If anyone but me had won the Dubai World Cup I can guarantee you would have been all over them like a bad rash - but I rarely get any congrats for my runners and big victories and my horses never win Eclipse because no one likes me enough to vote
Who doesn't like you? C'mon now!
I never even pay attention to who owns what horse on my votes. Oh, of course I do know most of the time anyway, but it doesn't matter to me. I would hope that no one ever votes for Eclipse Awards based on some kind of goofy popularity contest.
Unfortunately, it does seem that's how some vote for Eclipse champions based on what I see tallying them up every season.
What I CAN do, is publish on the race schedule the weights type of the race. That's in the race database, but I'm not sure how useful that info will be to people.
This is interesting. I actually sent a Jim an email a while back (knowing he has a good understanding of horse numbers/stats) asking him why Spaceman seems to struggle. Spaceman is an older horse that has decent ratings but doesn't win often regardless of the grade he is racing in. Jim suggested that the horse doesn't handle big weights very well. Now I'm not certain how many horses on the game find it difficult to carry hefty imposts, but I wonder if there's ever been a 'champion' on the game that has had as much ability (if not more) as the other leading contenders on the track, but failed to produce its potential as consistently due to this factor. Going a bit off course here, but what the hell. I'm sure Jim could dig up something interesting :)
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