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Topspeed errors

Dingo Bingo

Dingo Bingo

Amateur Rider
Joined
Jun 4, 2025
Messages
223
Location
Poolside
Yes, I know, it's full of errors. SF's aren't worth much etc. However, I think this might be an issue with the compilation software/spreadsheet or whatever they use.

I was going through the replays and results for the last few days and noticed this race at Hamilton. The RPR's got it correct, but look at Topspeed 101 for winner, 100 for 2nd, yet 2L between them. This then trickles down the result order. It makes no sense that he tweaked the winner for ease of victory, as he'd have cranked it up not down.

Full Result 3.22 Hamilton | 17 July 2025 | Racing Post

Full Race Result from the 3.22 at Hamilton on 17th July 2025.
www.racingpost.com www.racingpost.com

I know most on here won't be bothered about it, but if that is an error (maybe something to do with a 3yo winning?) it could be popping up all over the place.

I've just looked at the other 3yo+ race on the card, and there's an error there too. Granted it much tighter, but he's allowing 3lb for 0.5L over 5F. Winner he has at 1lb faster that it;s OHR, the 2nd horse 2lb slower than it's OHR. It's shouldn't be more than 2lb between them. I know it's not as significant as the first example, but that's twice on the same card in 3yo+ races. All other races on the card seem correct.

Full Result 2.20 Hamilton | 17 July 2025 | Racing Post

I know they use a trimmed down version of the WFA scale, but that doesn't explain it away, they'd need to drop the 3yo allowance from 8lbs to 2lbs.

Same again with a 3yo winner at Epsom on same day.

Full Result 6.30 Epsom | 17 July 2025 | Racing Post

Full Race Result from the 6.30 at Epsom on 17th July 2025.
www.racingpost.com www.racingpost.com

It's not due to them using an overly generous WFA scale, as all is about right in the following race a Epsom. Though 1lb for a nose seems a bit silly, it does show it isn't due to their own WFA scale.

Full Result 7.00 Epsom | 17 July 2025 | Racing Post

Full Race Result from the 7.00 at Epsom on 17th July 2025.
www.racingpost.com www.racingpost.com
 
They're not ignoring weight, as it's adjusted in the other races. Just seems to be 3yo+ races. They're not ignoring WFA either.

I don't think they back engineer the numbers. They use RPR's to assist in creating their standard times, but the compilation of SF's is just based on those standard times. If they went back and tweaked, it should still calculate the beaten distances, OHRs (or weight carried) and WFA correctly.

Looks like a glitch to me. Might be some error in the 2nd half of July in the WFA table coupled with a lbs per length scale. Something looks out of sync to me anyway.
I might check last months results later and see what was happening then.
 
Slim said:
Put Topspeed in the f$%^ing bin. Hope this helps.
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I pay very little attention to TS, but having compiled SF's since the early 90's myself, it jumped off the page that somethign didn't look right.

Go on Slim, tell me I've wasted the last 30 years and it's all about if they've had a good dump pre race.
 
I think Topspeed has about as much relevance to backing winners as your last sentence.
 
In fairness Topspeeds use as a punting tool has no bearing on what Dingo is saying. Finding a complete rick in the biggest racing paper in the UKs ratings from a quick nosey is pretty good going and worth investigating to see what's going on.
 
Danny said:
In fairness Topspeeds use as a punting tool has no bearing on what Dingo is saying. Finding a complete rick in the biggest racing paper in the UKs ratings from a quick nosey is pretty good going and worth investigating to see what's going on.
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Fair enough.
 
I plugged an old HD in earlier and found this. It's from 2012, but pretty sure the RP were using them in 2020. In what looked an error, they may have scaled their 3yo allowance back by another 2lbs or so since then, so 6lb at 1M is now 4lb and 10lb at 1M2F is now 8lb. Pretty much sure that's what they've done. Anyway....

RP - WFA SCALE.jpg
 
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Some of my insights are very dated but, FWIW, back in the day, while the speed figures compiled by Ken Hussey and later Dave Edwards at the Sporting Chronicle and Sporting Chronicle Handicap Book were interesting and certainly yielded winners at bigger prices (fewer people studied times back then, so it wasn't factored into the market so much) from what my school friend who went on to work with Phil Bull told me, what Hussey and Edwards did was Stone Age compared to time figure (not to be confused with Timeform rating) analysis at Timeform.

I had already ceased to regard speed/time figures as a meaningful edge by the time I joined the Racing Post to the extent I didn't take a lot of notice of Topspeed which at the time was done by a then young guy called Tony Harbidge, who I assumed was trying to emulate the Timeform model.

When Dave Edwards became Topspeed I regarded it as a potential backward step - to me, he represented an outdated way of studying the subject.

Maybe that was unfair on him, but that was my take.

Fast forward to 2025 and advances like sectional time study, to lift the lid on how overall times are arrived at, and I'd say there is so much coverage of the subject any edge is but a slither of value.

I once knew a data modeller who analysed 15,000 co efficients, 5,000 for the horse, 5,000 for the trainer and 5,000 for the jockey.

He then used non-linear multiple regression to arrive at about 90 factors the market was overlooking at any given time.

These numbers put time study in context - time study is but one piece in an at least 15,000 piece jigsaw - and that's just viewing it through the geek prism.

Being top on time figures isn't much use if someone reliable told you said top rated beast won't be off a yard today.
 
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It's not really about gaining an edge in the market solely from them, never has been imo. When I compiled them it gave me insights to how a race had been run and they still do, maybe back then that did give me a slight advantage. The suggestion of they're pointless as times/sectionals have been factored into the market, is akin to a plumber leaving his wrench out of is toolbag and thinking "sod it, I'll be OK". So by using them may not be an advantage in the market these days, to not use them would be a disadvantge imo. I find them an insightful piece of the jigsaw.
 
Is this why EC doesn't bother positing here anymore? Mention SF's or times of races and it's an opposition frenzy?

"one piece in a 15,000 piece jigsaw".
Name the other pieces. You'd struggle to put forward 20, and half of them wouldn't be as relevant.
They way a race is run might not be as important as distance, trainer form, going, fitness, class, course topography, or even jockey, but it's close and can be used to highlight the aforementioned. EDITED to include 'inside info', of which I (and most) have non and never will have.

Seriously, I ask is this why EC doesn't post? I've noticed 3 or 4 times since re-joining that any mnetions of times and it's like a default hatred of the subject. Atheists storming a church. Can't speak of overall time or sections at all.
 
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Dingo Bingo said:
It's not really about gaining an edge in the market solely from them, never has been imo. When I compiled them it gave me insights to how a race had been run and they still do, maybe back then that did give me a slight advantage. The suggestion of they're pointless as times/sectionals have been factored into the market, is akin to a plumber leaving his wrench out of is toolbag and thinking "sod it, I'll be OK". So by using them may not be an advantage in the market these days, to not use them would be a disadvantge imo. I find them an insightful piece of the jigsaw.
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I just view them and anything else including verbal info from connections as just slices of the pie to be considered, the relevance of each might vary a bit
 
It's not an "opposition frenzy" on my part.

As stated, I just think it's a subject with saturation coverage nowadays and while, yes, I still look at times literally every day, I don't regard them as a goldmine in the way I did 40 years ago.

I was simply offering a personal historical perspective on the subject.
 
Ian_Davies said:
I don't regard them as a goldmine in the way I did 40 years ago.
Click to expand...
Nor do I and as such I don't compile them anymore, as it's almost all laid on. I never found them a goldmine in themselves, they used to give me an understanding similar to what is in the public domain now. All times do is help offer confirmation of some of the other factors. If a horses runs on to place in a truley run race, then that's a tick for fitness, or going, or course preference confirmation. If it's run at a crawl, then it's not much clarification at all. Likewise, optimatley run, galloping on well, nice clue it'll stay further. Risky to assume such if they went steady early.
Pointless me typing this, as you know how to use them and what they're for, else you wouldn't look at them.
 
Dingo Bingo said:
Pointless me typing this, as you know how to use them and what they're for, else you wouldn't look at them.
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IMO little or nothing is ever "pointless" here - what you write might not always be useful or represent new learning to me personally, or vice versa, but everyone else can see the discussion and it might benefit, or at least interest, someone.

It's just that when I read discussions like this on subjects I've spent a lifetime studying, part of it inside the industry, I sometimes feel I have historical insights to offer those who perhaps haven't seen or heard what I've seen and heard over the years.

I honestly meant no offence.
 
Dingo Bingo said:
I never found them a goldmine in themselves
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Actually, that's a lie. I recall a few instances. Ramruma spings to mind, literally going off my scale in it's Newmarket maiden. Those strung out behind went on to frank the figure and obviously Ramruma proved it beyond doubt. Those days are probably over, though perhaps not for those compiling live with a view to ante-post wagers (I wouldn't know).
 
Dingo Bingo said:
Actually, that's a lie. I recall a few instances.
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Here's a little story that to me illustrates how much easier the game was back in the day.

7f 3yo handicap on Soft ground on Lincoln Day.

This particular horse was top on old Sporting Chronicle speed figures (on Soft over 5f as a 2yo) but more than that it's had a run at Cagnes-Sur-Mer and finished close-up over 7f to a horse that made it into the Free Handicap.

If taken literally it's got literally two stone in hand back in a Blighty handicap.

It's fit (no AW back then and none of its rivals has run in months), stays, got its ground, it's thrown in on latest form and top on the clock.

Barely rates a mention in The Sporting Life (who put it in at 12/1) Man On The Spot and only tipped by Split Second in the Chronicle, who put it in at 6/1.

I'm at the track and it drifts from 8/1 to 12s, which I get, before being backed back to 10s.

Tbf it only wins by a diminishing neck but the point is no way does the horse start anything like that price in 2025.

No exchanges and bigger margins back then, but so much less data plastered all over the media and social media (which didn't even exist).

Nowadays the world and his wife - plus the penguin they've adopted at the South Pole! 😂 - are all asking that the closing sectionals are.

There's too many feckers looking at time nowadays, hence its IMO diminished importance as a betting factor.

But "diminished" doesn't mean "entirely wiped out" and I still look.
 
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Last year I backed High Spirited when it won a Listed event at Salisbury 66/1 - 50/1. Friends at the local pub where on at 80/1 and people still mention it to me, as i was quite decisive at the time that it had a sound chance.
While it wasn't a Listed horse, it wasn't far off. It had gone in my notebook at Salisbury in it's previous race. I looked at it's Ascot run in 2023 where it was left many lengths behind at the start, but absolutley flew up the climb at Ascot in that class 2. It had done the same at Salisbury.
The Listed race last year, there was almost certain to be a very steady pace in the race, so a slow start wasn't an issue. It actually got away not too bad and made the very steady running, then took off when hitting the rising ground and never looked like being caught when Whelan pressed the button.
Sections and early pace figures helped me pull this one off. Granted I may not have noted it, had it not showed something the race before, but after a bit of digging looking at sections, coupled with noticing it's liking for an uphill gradient, I was able to both back it and tip it with quite a bit of confidence.
On the whole though, I agree, what were thrice weekly 12/1 place certs are now 6's or 7's at best. Though I still think the clock can be used to good advantage if digging a bit deeper.

Lots of ways to skin a cat. I have something noted that very few will have seen, totally undocumented/published. maybe connections don't even know and think it was something else. I will post when it next runs. It's quite bizzare (I've never seen it before) and certainly stopped it from running it's true race (could have run much better than it did, maybe won), which 'should' really crank it's price up NTO. Will see.
 
Dingo Bingo said:
Actually, that's a lie. I recall a few instances. Ramruma spings to mind, literally going off my scale in it's Newmarket maiden. Those strung out behind went on to frank the figure and obviously Ramruma proved it beyond doubt. Those days are probably over, though perhaps not for those compiling live with a view to ante-post wagers (I wouldn't know).
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Yes, I recall having a big figure for that. I don't recall if it was after that race or after it won the [Lingfield?] Oaks trial that I got 12s for the Oaks.
 
Was 25's for Oaks after maiden. It stayed at that price for a while, as everyone was saying "yeah, it did it well, but what did it beat?", then those in behind started winninng and running well. So unsure if it was those winners, or the trial that dropped it to 12's.

I was using Supercal4 on an Amstrad 286 when I compiled those. I could go to the newsagents at 5:30am during the winter months, come back with the sporting life, make a coffee and the thing still hadn't warmed up enough to start. I can still hear the sound as it tried to kick in "err err err err err".
It's actually in my garage. I had it shipped to Australia for prosperity. :)
 

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