At the core of almost everything in BetMix are the statistics about handicapping factors. When you are handicapping a 6 furlong dirt claiming race at Saratoga which factors are the most important? When you know that you start to build mixes, angles, etc. We use those stats to rank the horses in the Handicapping Overview section and in numerous other areas.
In the past we ranked the factors based on the stats for the last 40 similar races. The problem with that was that if you wanted to handicap a race from last week, last month or 2 years ago the statistics would be based on the 40 most recent races. We did that assuming everything should be forward looking based on the most recent information available. But, that is not always ideal. When you want to back test your handicapping ideas you should only be looking at the data as it existed at the time the race occurred and it should never change. In addition, you might want to look at more or less than 40 races worth of data to rank the factors.Our new BirdDog update makes all of that possible.
By default, when you open a race the factors will be ranked using data for the last 40 similar races. With the click of a button you can change that to 200, 100, 40, 20 or 10 races.
Sometimes its better to use a very large sample of data, other times you might want to just consider the 10 most recent races. You can learn a lot by comparing data for the last 100 races to data from the last 10.
This short video will give you some more information on how to use the new and improved factor stats options.
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