OGIT PART 1

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Copyright 2007 by Tony Fountain
All rights reserved. It is illegal to copy distribute or create derivative works from this book in whole or in part.

Acknowledgements

First and foremost I must thank Nick Mordin for writing, ‘Mordin on time,’ and changing my life. Also Larry from the Ballast Sidings who donated the two carrier bags of books that set me on the right road. Learn Direct at Beeston where the patient and friendly staff taught me to switch the computer on and off. Placepot Phil, Jeff the weight and Fred the spread (what’s the red un in the next) who over the years and probably without realizing have helped me develop the ratings. A special thanks to Jon and Lynne for correcting the many mistakes and reminding me that it is a long time since I left school. And last but not least my partner Gill for putting up with my gambling through thick and thin and until recently it was very often wafer thin.

PREFACE
The original Only Game in Town was published in the summer of 2003 and explained how the author turned a lifetime of bad habits and loss into profit cumulating in a successful and profitable Winter AW season in 2002/03
A lot of changes have taken place since then. There are no longer just three tracks. Kempton opened its doors to all weather in 2005 and in 2007 Great Leighs will become the first new racecourse in Britain for eighty years. The all weather courses have been refurbished and at Wolverhampton the track widened and the surface replaced with polytrack.
All these changes have affected Standard Times so they have had to been recalculated using the results from the 2006/07 winter season. These include Kempton and are shown in appendix 2.
The standard times for the 2002/03 season in appendix one have been left in the book as a reference to the chapters on compiling figures. Another change is the grading system which used to be A-G but has now changed to 1 - 7.
Despite the changes the basic principals remain the same and the humble speed rating will continue to produce winners for those prepared to put in the time and effort required to understand them.

INTRODUCTION
After gambling on and off for the best part of twenty five years you would have expected me to know something about racing. Far from it! In fact, the only thing I had learned was that bookmakers always seemed to win and despite the odd lucky streak the punter in the long run was sure to lose. To be honest, after all those years I was no wiser than the day I started. Like everyone else I studied the form, read the spotlights at the foot of each race and looked what the tipsters fancied. At the end of the day it all boiled down to guesswork and being influenced by other peoples opinions. Fortunately, something happened that changed my whole perspective on gambling.
One day someone at work asked me if I would like some books on horse racing. A friend of his, a keen racing fan, had passed away and his collection of form books were looking for a new home. A few days later he walked into the cabin with two carrier bags. When he had gone I emptied the bags onto the table. There amongst the smartsig magazines and raceform annuals I found Beyer on Speed, Picking Winners and The Winning Horseplayer by Andrew Beyer, Against the Crowd by Alan Potts, One Hundred Hints for Better Betting by Mark Coton, and two books by Nick Mordin, Betting For a Living and Mordin on time. There were also several books on the value factor in betting and how to compile your own handicap. It took a few months to plough through them but I read them all. The book that changed my gambling life was sitting there amongst them. After reading it twice I started to compile my own speed ratings. At first I was sceptical and on more than one occasion was on the verge of giving up on them. It was so time consuming and I wasn’t sure what good they were going be to me. After all, the racing papers already printed ratings. Then one day something amazing happened, the horse that was top rated on my figures won by 9 lengths at 10/1. None of the so called experts fancied it but on the ratings it was a nailer.. The book that had brought all this about was called Mordin on Time by Nick Mordin. Suddenly someone had switched on the light.

CHAPTER ONE

SPEED RATINGS
Speed rating figures, represent a horses ability and fitness based on the times it has run. By using standard times for each track and calculating how long each horse takes to run one mile, all performances are comparable.
Speed figures have been used in America since the 50’s. Len Ragozin realized that as well as comparing one horse with another, he should be comparing each horse with itself. In other words looking at a horses past performances to ascertain how it is likely to run today. To this end he began to plot graphs of each horses career runs. These became known as the “Sheets.” He would produce a Sheet for each horse in a race and look for patterns in their past performances. Ragozin began publishing the sheets and they were seen as essential to any serious gambler.
In the early 70s, Andrew Beyer, a horseracing columnist for the Washington Post, began producing his own speed figures. He used them himself with great success, and when he introduced these figures in his book “Picking Winners”(1975) he revolutionized racetrack betting.
Unfortunately there was a down side. The betting public were becoming smart and after writing “The Winning Horse Player,” in 1983 it became harder and harder to keep ahead. By the 90s everyone used speed figures and they were available from many commercial sources. Finally in 1992 the Daily Racing Form included Beyers speed figures in past performances. The speed figure “good thing” had disappeared forever.
Fortunately that is not yet the case in this country. British punters are sceptical of speed figures. They would sooner base their selections on top trainers or jockeys, or follow horses that have won for them in the past. Some draw lines of form through a third horse that has recently run against two horses running today. Then there are long distance travellers and do not forget, Fallon would not travel all the way to Musselburgh for one ride unless it had a chance. It seems that punters in this country will use any system at all to select their horses, except for the only one that matters. The system that tells you how fit a horse is compared to its rivals, tells you the horses ideal distance and which courses it likes and more importantly the courses it doesn’t like. The system that tells you if a horse is running into form, out of form or standing still and ready for a break. Most importantly, the system that tells you how fast the horse is likely to run today. This system is based on a horses speed figures and the way they are laid out and read.
Since Nick Mordins book was published in 1996 people up and down the country have been compiling their own ratings. In recent years the effects have become obvious as more and more top rated horses open at short prices. It is no coincidence that many of the positives on the early morning exchanges are horses with high speed figures.
Fortunately at the moment punters at large have no access to accurate easy to read speed figures. Most published ratings give a horses top figure along with all the relevant details. Often however, that run was a week last pancake Tuesday and there is no indication to the horses current level of fitness. Most rank and file betting shop punters have neither the time nor the inclination to produce their own speed ratings, until they are given them on a plate, as the Daily Racing Form did in America, there will still be plenty of good things for speed figure punters to get their teeth into.