Horse Racing Fantasy Community

this is a major project we are working on and I can say we DO have the solution. I feel this is the biggest issue we have in the game right now and have put in a very special effort to solve the problem. The development took longer then I thought (that is always the case) . Testing is scheduled for this next week. I do feel the new handicap weight program and also the odds issue will be a think of the past soon enough.

...for your next upgrade, and your next blog post. (Well, technically, I suppose I CAN wait, but not patiently)

I still want to know, do you ever eat or sleep?

while i do think HRF is working on it i do feel the weight issue is not the biggest issue, while it does play a role i think the scaling issue should also be looked at...something needs to be done about the amazing SRs being run in almost all finals, it's almost a 95% shot a track record will fall in a final and maybe this is the problem, not saying i am 100% right, turning down the inconsistency a bit and make horses run closer to their ability, no reason for a horse to dominate prelims then just not show up in finals.....look at the amazing SRs in finals compare to prelims should be a starting point.

sundown

Sundown, it appears obvious that you were just as confused as a handicapper as you are as a HRF trainer. Have you ever seen a horse at a track that posts the same Beyer race after race ?? Of course not. Does the favorite win every race at the track ??? No. Flyingdaaka has no idea why you expect that happen in here. It is probably from your usual greedy reasons. You more than likely entered a horse low, won the prelims and got defeated in the final, and sat there trying to figure out why.
Flyingdaaka suspects HRF has built against this strategy. There are lots of cases of this happening, an unexpected long shot taking the final. In an effort to even out the playing field in the finals, Flyingdaaka suspects HRF programs their bias against the favorite, which likely, is a horse entered to low. More often than not, that horse can not overcome the bias against it, resulting in the trainer who entered his horse too low getting frustrated. And in your case, several hate-filled posts follow the tough defeat.

The only difference in the finals should be the weight . These races are handicap races. The new system we are finishing will be the final tell all if there is a issue when running races as handicaps over scale weights from a programing stand point. All the research we have done says no differnce except the weights it self BUT the final and true test will be the new handicapping system when finished. With this system the races will be run under the same technical function as the prelim races except our handicappers will adjust the weights with in reason. This has been a 9 week development project . Fixing bugs and running behind on other upgrades and features have effected our launch date .

no hate Flyingone, just my opinion and suggesting what i think the problems are like anyone else, i don't think this thread was made for what you want to start here but go ahead and continue and i'll join in i have no problem with that...anyway Puddles, when i look through my horses history all their best SRs are in finals they all spike / scale 90% of the time there...just my thoughts i would like to see my horses SRs a bit more leveled out, example i see from same horse sr 90 - 130s, to me thats just too much of a wide range, i think the class issue some people mentioned should be taking into consideration, close that big gap and have a smaller range....a horse with a sr of 115 should be running Srs of 110 - 120 or 105 - 120, i think the inconsistency / consistency issue should have them running 10 points up or down compare to almost all horses in game running the same 90 - 130 sr that 40 points gap is just too much of a gap, this way placing horses in right tournaments would be easier.

Sundown

alright, any chance of us getting back the trait feature as far as horse's love / dislike for surfaces?

sundown

I believe one of the biggest reasons for the spike in the speed rating in the finals are the feather weights that are assigned. Horses race with 119 - 126 lbs throughout the tournament, then show up with 90 - 110 pounds for the final. They fly like the wind. I also recall each horse has a weight break point. A point where there performance noticeably declines. For some horses it could be 126lbs, others 135lb, etc. So in the instance of a horse struggling in the prelims carry 126, for instance, all of a sudden shows up carrying 105lbs and smokes the field.

~~~~~~~~
May they all come home safely!!!

Thanks for your quick response, and the HRF programming team working diligently behind the scenes on this issue. And your positive attitude that a solution has been found and implimented, and soon to be released with the new client. All good news.

Those traits can still be seen by some, right mod?

~~~~~~~~
May they all come home safely!!!

Good points, having to do with improved speed ratings in the Finals. I agree. Years ago, while taking physics, I developed a thoroughbred horse race system that was based on Horse Power. I used the exact formula in my book for figuring Horse Power, but using horses and the jockeys weight, which of course, included lead weights when necessary. Oh, I also had the various distances worked into my formula. Your post brought back memories from my past. It's all about physics. Was then and still is.

I agree with you Ronwar. The two year olds run with weights from 117-122 lbs in the trials, but then go in the finals with 95-105 lbs, thus producing faster times.

I have only been in a hand full of finials so far in this great game , But most of mine have dropped in weight by 27lb from the prelims to the finial ,

Sundown is right with the 95% chance of a track record getting smashed.
Records are there to be broken. But all so in the finial with low weight you only get 1 shot at it. I think the weight should be lefted for the finial.
After all in a real race if you are running a melb cup for examble weights start at 58kg and goes down to 52kg. The best horse in the race has the top weight and all horse`s have there chance in the race.

If in a final a horse has won 5 from 5 races in prelims and a horse just makes the finial with a couple of place runs. What chance of that horse has against the 5 from 5 horse. Yes the horse who has won all prelims should win the finial...

I say there should only be a small weight allowence for the finial you don`t want weight the good horse out of the finial by giving it 130lb and the rest going down from 120 etc...

Weights for the finial should start at say 122lb females 124lb males for the finial.... and from first to the bottom quilf a dif of 3-5lb max.

Regards

Work hard ,Play hard, Bet hard , Drink hard , or go home

Your absolutely right Ron :P

-ModGraphix-

you are right about the finals, weights and the SRs we are now seeing, i think they had lowered the weights to try and make things balanced but it's not working, but looking back before they lowered the weights in finals we had regular weights in finals and had the same problems...seem as if up or down with weights the escalated SR is still there.

sunnyd

Suncity, you have the idea of what i am saying, the fact that we are still having this conversation about the SRs in finals means its been there from the very start and is the reason why i am saying i am not so sure its 100% the weight issue and thats its about time we look at other things...we had the escalated Srs at high weight levels and now at low so i am basically saying lets look at something else...this is why i suggested closing such a wide gap in horses inconsistency with their range in speed rating...i have a horse Long Gone who is currently running between 92 - 138sr and this gap is just unrealistic his base SR is 128 if they are on their preferred surface, its seem to be universal with all horses in game to be running in the exact same gap....i am only trying guys not saying i am right just suggesting

1. horses with Sr 90 - 105 should have a cap and be able for unrestricted ungraded races
2. horses 105 - 115 grade 3
3. horses 115 - 124 grade 2
4. horses 125 and over grade 1

this way smaller stables will have more of a chance winning races, cap on SRs so horses can run 10 points up or below base SR, this way the inconsistency issue still plays a part of the game and we close that wide gap. This way in a finals we will not see 7th place horse running 90+ sr and winner running 130+ sr, entry fees and winning scales with each...now the track record for others to not feel left out we just have track records for each grades / classes...i think this would work good for the insta races so people who are looking to claim would automatically have an idea of the SR range the horse you are looking at, this might also mean the claiming prices would prob be much higher than they are now as you try to claim higher grade / class horses.

sundown

A recent finial i was in the other day , It was one of these one shot races to make it to the finial...

Anyways The top 3 horse`s in the finial all ran 123+ sr`s dirt fast... The horse what won the race ran it`s prelim with a sr 81.10 That is a massive increase form a pre lim to a finial at the same distance same ground.... You could say the horse may be a bit hit and mess type but over 41 points...

Work hard ,Play hard, Bet hard , Drink hard , or go home

Mike you are correct this is the biggest problem with the game IMO, and needs to be fixed, but I'm afraid this fix of human handicapping may not do the trick. The weights may be part of the issue, but not the only issue. Let me ask some of you guys with experience how many times have you entered 2 or more horses in a tournament where both or all make the final, and the less talented horse came out ahead? My answer is for me it is about 80% of the time. What is the reason for this? Your first guess may be that the less talented horse gets a weight break. True in most cases they will get a weight break, but it seems to me the less talented horse seems to run the race of his life in the final. Take for example the Just Wanna Race tournament My horse Set Me Free SR 129.8 overall record 18-7-6-1-0 finished second to my horse Rusty Wallace SR 115.8 overall recored 12-3-2-0-2, with Set Me Free Running his whole career against G1 Horses, and Rusty Wallace Running in low entry torunaments. Now I tried to duplicate this Result in training using the same weights post positions, etc. 20 times, and out of those 20 times Set Me Free won EVERY TIME. This is just one example, its happened more than once. Rusty Wallace Ran a 125.70 speed rating that race, and which is 14 points better than he has achieved before and since. BTW best he could do in training was 115. I'm not gonna say it is a Scaling issue, as Mike said thats not it, But if not scaling, WHAT IS IT?????? SOMETHING IS DIFFERENT ABOUT THE FINALS, AND IT IS NOT JUST THE WEIGHTS Here is the link to my the race I was speaking of in this post

http://www.horseracegame.com/community/races/7165

yeah Suncity, all horses in game falls into this very same gap, even the horses who has better stats than their SRs, almost every horse in game falls into it and this is why i think very good horses are dumped into much lower races / tournaments and takes away from horses / trainers who really belong down there, this would be massive over haul to the system not sure its even possible but as long as every horse keeps falling into the range much better horses will be dumped into these lowe tournies.

sundown

i just hope the good horses continue to win cause it seems to me thats the case now ......

In my example Set Me Free didn't run a clunker (122 SR). Rusty Wallace just ran way above himself.

Hi, Chris -

Preliminary races are run through the scale weight aspect of our program. The finals are run through the handicap weight aspect. From a technical function standpoint, outside of assigning the weights, we've looked at it more than a dozen times and we cannot decipher any difference from a programming perspective. I've talked about this issue before in numerous blogs. This part of the programming was done by the original development team prior to me purchasing the game. The more we look at the code, the more certain we are that we don't want to touch it because there are over 40,000 lines of code associated with this part of the program.

With this said, we've come up with the concept of the handicap weight program. This program will have human intervention, but if there is a problem - and I use the word IF and use it honestly - the way that the final races will be run will utilize the same exact part of the program used to run the preliminary races. The only difference will be just prior to running the race, the human-assigned weights will be implemented. Let me explain it another way. There are two paths to running a race. The first path is for the preliminaries and the second is for the finals. We were always led to believe, and from what we can see it's true, that both paths are exactly the same except one uses scale weights and the other uses handicap weights. Outside of this difference, there should be NO difference. With the new handicap weight program, several things will be accomplished:

1. The weights will be assigned by humans within a limited range. In other words, 2-year-old finals will have a range of 'x' to 'y'; 3-year-olds will have a range of 'y' to 'z'; and 4-year-old & up races will have their own range. The handicappers wil have to stay within those ranges, so you will not see races with 30-pound differences.

2. The odds will be input manually. The handicapper will look over the horses and have a dropdown of odds to choose from. This is for show purposes only and has absolutely no input or effect on the running of the race, but I do believe it will create more realistic odds. I'm not comfortable with the odds for the Breeders' Cup final races at all. In some cases, they appear to be very accurate and in other cases, I'm scratching my head.

3. This is the most important factor. IF there is a problem and if the two paths to the races are different outside the weight assignment (one being handicap and one being scale), this alleviates that problem because all the races will be run as if they are scale weight with that manual adjustment of weights being done just before the race is run. Therefore, the weight will only play its designated role and any other aspect of the program prior will not have any effect.

In conclusion, this is not a new subject and I openly have admitted that a lot of times the finals make perfect sense, but at other times they don't make any sense. I'm not trying to back away from a potential problem, but I've seen horses perform exactly the way they're supposed to in the finals plenty of times. In fact, the top three horses going into the final win more than 65% of the time. You can simply go through the preliminaries and go through final after final and you'll see these statistics. But, with all this said, the end-all / tell-all will truly determined when this new program is implemented. We've spent nine weeks building this out. Yes, we've had to jump off the project due to urgent issues or deadlines that had to be met, but overall, a ton of time and effort has gone into building this new program. The way I look at it is, at the very least, the odds and the handicap weights will be more accurate in the finals than ever before. From a cosmetic standpoint and common sense standpoint, that's the least of the benefits that will occur. If there IS a difference in the processing besides weight assignment between the handicap and scale weights for the Breeders' Cup system, this is the definitive, absolute proof or assurance that they are being processed the same.

There are some days when I watch the finals and I have no issues. Other days when I watch the finals, I scratch my head. I'm doing this to assure myself and for the integrity of the game. In my mind and in my partner's mind, this is the only solution that makes sense and ensures no risk of screwing around with the general code that is, just simply put, very complicated.

The development of this is done, but there are so many pieces that have to be tested now. For example, the handicappers working on these races cannot have horses in these races. The handicappers who handicap these races will not even know what race they are being assigned to handicap. We also have to build a notification system that lets the handicappers know that races are available. We had to integrate the handicapping system into the normal race processing and upload system. On top of this, we had to build a voting system that allows the members to vote on who the best and worst handicappers are, protecting the integrity of these Breeders' Cup final races. So many bad votes and a handicapper is relieved of his position and no longer eligible. In addition to all this, we had to build a compensation program so the handicappers are rewarded when successfully acknowledged by the community for the work they're doing. We had to build a backend system to protect against fraud and generate reports to further protect the system's integrity.

So, going back to what I originally said in my first post, this definitely is not something that has been swept under the rug. I will know and everyone will know in time what the end result will be. I want everybody to keep one thing in mind. Though we have a specific direction we are going in, the direction needs to encompass the integrity of everything we do here. This isn't about changing direction. This is about ensuring or securing integrity. You guys can continue the thread. I'm outta here. As far as the release date, it's very close, but it's going to depend on the testing and any glitches or major issues that interfere with its release - but it's definitely very close.

Puddles

with alot of the points being made in this thread. Let's mention some of the issues. The weights in the Finals seem to have an effect on a horse's performance, the natural SR of a horse seems to have an effect on a horse's performance in a Final, the odds don't seem to relate to a horse's natural SR/weight/$$$ earned/career wins/prelim wins (what then?), the SRs and track records seem to occur far too frequently (seriously, how often are track records set in real horse racing?). What is in the coding for the Finals that is different than in prelims? I hope the programming doesn't look at the horse's natural SR for Finals to determine likelihood of winning or running huge SR! Puddles actually alluded to this in a post he made months ago about the natural SR of three horses and why the upset winner was not an improbable winner. I can't remember the horses mentioned but I know he blogged about it. It got me thinking, "Are the Finals determined by a horse's natural SR or the perceived improved performance of a horse in the prelims?" You'd think it had to do with a 'biorhythm' of a horse. A horse in peak condition that is running consistently is a tough horse to beat no matter the pedigree, class, or jockey ride.
Finally, I understand there are many issues and improvements being addressed but just because the programming took 9 weeks doesn't mean there was an added importance placed on the issue. The weights problem has been an issue for over a year! It's been mentioned quite extensively in the forums so to equate an increased value of importance on the issue because 9 weeks of coding have been dedicated to this long standing issue doesn't mean this was always a top priority. I don't state this to place the HRF crew in a negative light. I just mean to point out the Finals weights & performances have been an issue for quite some time. If the issue was resolved in nine weeks, why was it a problem for over 52+ weeks?! I can only guess it wasn't much of a priority in the first place. Let me know how long it takes to convert a race result to a downloadable .CSV file. It may show the importance placed on THAT issue.

Love this game, take it higher, make it better! All I want.

;)

I'm glad this issue is known and that HRF is addressing it and doing their best to correct it.
This is my ONLY beef with the game.
There is no way a horse that wins all of it's prelims will not even be in the money in the final.
It happens far too frequently to be deemed a clunker.

PP Horse Name Age RSD Owner Wt Odds
4 Old Yeller 2/F M kindur 95 3
6 Another Dud 2/M M jbcri09 95 6
7 Winds Of Change 2/F M dahghee 95 10
8 Cash Machine 2/M M southcoast 95 6
9 Black Spots 2/F M suncity 95 12
2 Foxywulf 2/F M sundown 95 14
5 Koa 2/M M vasdef 102 5:2
1 Dancing On Air 2/M M multiman 95 8
3 Zero Hero 2/M M bigdog236 95 12

My horse won 1 of the prelims,didn't even finish in the money in the other prelims.
http://www.horseracegame.com/community/races/9604
The tournament had a 150K purse, I guess my 118 horse was a ringer? Why 7 more lbs. than every other horse?

I have more examples of this,but if Puddles says it's going to be corrected, I'll shut up for now.
Just don't back any of my horses in Challenge Buddy, until this is fixed. LMAO!

Great respone and thanks for all the details, you are right, changing the path will fix the problem if there is one, and end all of mine, and many others concerns. I never knew the path was going to be changed along with the human handicapping. Thanks again for the detailed response. I love this game, and hope my post didn't seem like I was complaining, just giving my opinion on the issue, and my experiences. -Chris-

If I owned a string of horses - I would be asking my trainer to get them into the biggest races he thinks they have potential to win. At the same time, I would be hoping my trainer gets my horses to peak in those big races and run their best times.

Perhaps this way of thinking is embedded within the 40,000 lines of code.