Horse racing has been a part of our social fabric since the earliest days of civilization. Thoroughbred horse racing is the most basic organized form of the sport, where distance, speed, class, and minimal equipment determine which horse is best. While the history of horseracing has a colorful, exciting, - and occasionally seamy - history, we will focus on the details and jargon of the sport with respect to managing a database which will assist in picking winners of races, a process known as handicapping.

As you are probably aware, thoroughbred horseracing is a sport which encourages - indeed, thrives on - wagering on race outcomes. One interesting bit of history: US President Andrew Jackson collected the money to finance his presidential election bid by winning a horserace.

Data Model Definitons

• at a specific track
• in a specific sequence
• on a specific date
• over either dirt or turf
• for a specified distance, measured in furlongs, or eighths of a mile
• as a Claiming, Allowance, or Stakes race
• at a specified class level
• with additional age and/or gender restrictions

The surface conditions for a given race may be effected by weather conditions, e.g., after a heavy rain, the dirt track may be muddy or sloppy, and a turf course may be "yielding".

There are different types of races, and each type has its own set of classes:

• Claiming: a horse entered into a claiming race is available for sale at a specified price. The class of a claiming race is determined by the claiming price associated with the race.

• Allowance: after a horse has won a claiming race, it may graduate to allowance races. These races have certain conditions placed on the horse entering the race, normally a limit on the number of races the horse has won. The class of the race is determined by the maximum number of wins a horse may have to enter the race (e.g., a "non-winners of 2" is better than a "non-winners of 1" race)

• Stakes: Stakes are the best of the races, intended for the best of horses, and carry larger purses. Stakes class is determined by its "grade", which is either grade 1, grade 2, grade 3, or ungraded, with grade 1 being best (e.g., the Kentucky Derby).

• Each race also has other qualifications, namely age and gender. To simplify this discussion, those race qualifications will be ignored for this tutorial.

Each race also has a purse, or the amount of money which is awarded to the winner (as well as fractional portions awarded to the 2nd, 3rd, etc. horses). The type, class and purse of a race is considered an overall guide to the quality of horses likely to be running in the race.

From a handicapping perspective, another important aspect of races are the fractions, which indicate the amount of time for the leading horse to reach a certain intervening point in the race, measured from the start of the race. For example, a 1 mile race may have fractions recorded at the 1/4 mile, 1/2 mile, 3/4 mile and final 1 mile distances. When these fractional times are recorded, the distance from each horse to the horse behind it is also recorded, measured in lengths, which is a generalized measurement of the length from the shoulders of a horse to it backside, approx. 7 feet. For horses closer to each other than a length, fractional lengths may be used, or the terms "nose", "head", or "neck" may be used to indicate being ahead by a nose, head, or neck. The combination of fractions is useful in handicapping for several reasons:

• to indicate the overall speed of a race aka pace
• to indicate the style that a certain horse tends to run. Style is usually indicated by one of three classifications:
  1. Pace, which is in the leading pack of horses
  2. Stalk, which follows just behind the Pace in order to save energy, but not get to far from the lead
  3. Trailing, which is the back fo the pack. Trailing horses may be either saving much energy for a powerful burst to the finish line... or may be just poor racing horses.
• to compare the fractions of a given race against the average or par fractions for all races of a similar class, run at the same track over the same surface at the same distance. The pars are indicators of the quality of speed in a race. E.g., a horse the placed 4th in a race which was significantly faster than par may do very well in its next race if the speed is closer to par.

One other additional aspect of a race, known as a key race, is the number of horses which come out of a race and win or place in their very next race. A horse which comes out of such a race may have lost against other high quality horses, and thus may be more capable than the actual finish position may indicate.

A race entry consists of:

1. the horse (of course)
2. the jockey that rode the horse,
3. the trainer who cares for and schools the horse
4. the post position (the position in the starting gate)
5. position in the final order of finish
6. position relative to the lead horse at the various fractions
7. any special equipment (e.g., blinkers)
8. any medications (e.g., Lasix) used by the horse
9. the morning line, i.e., opening odds that the entry will win the race
10. the final odds that the entry will win the race, determined by the amount bet on the entry relative to the total amount bet on the race
11. brief commentary on the horse's trip in the race

Each of these are important aspects for handicapping (some more important than others, but useful to know, nonetheless).

For those interested in wagering, it is important to know the morning line assigned to the horse by handicapping specialists based on the estimated quality of the horse as determined either from its prior race history, or from its breeding, or other factors. Comparing the morning line to the current or final odds on the horse when the race actually starts can be important in gauging the knowledge of both the betting public, and of the handicappers that set the morning lines, and is useful for determining the "value" of betting a horse. For example, a horse that may have won a previous race in which the pace of the race was actually below par may be mistakenly assigned low odds to win its next race, while a horse that came in 4th in a very fast race may be given higher odds, and thus present a better betting value.

Finally, many tracks provide brief commentaries on how a horse ran in a given race. These comments can shed light on why a particular horse performed unexpectedly well ('on the rail, clear, driving', indicating a perfect, easy trip) or poorly ('bumped gate, pushed 4 wide entering, bumped stretch', indicating a very rough trip indeed).

So when we handicap a race, we want to compare each horse based on their past performances (aka PPs) in races, noting horses that ran very well, but may have lost due to a fast pace or a rough trip, and thus may have higher odds than they deserve, or for horses which won races, perhaps due to a slow pace or perfect trip, and may be getting lower odds than they deserve.

NOTE: There are numerous other factors used in handicapping, e.g., breeding, "figures", etc., which we'll disregard for purposes of this tutorial.

Data Model

Our race table contains the following columns:

• track
• racedate
• race number
• surface
• distance
• racetype (claiming, allowance, or stakes)
• race class (as described above)
• purse
• the fractions of the race

The primary key of this table will be the track, racedate, and racenumber.

Our entries table has

• track
• racedate
• racenumber
• program number
• post position
• horse name
• jockey name
• trainer name
• medications
• equipment
• final position
• win, place, and show payouts (if applicable)
• race commentary
• fractional positions of the horse during the race.
• racing "style" (see below)

The track, racedate, and horse are the primary key of the entries table.
The track, racedate, and race number are the foreign key into the race table.

Racing Style

• If a horse is within 0 to 2.5 lengths of the lead horse, we consider the horse to be "pacing" at that fraction, and assign the letter 'P' for that fraction.
• If the horse is between 2.5 and 4 lengths of the lead horse, the horse is "stalking", and we assign the letter 'S' for that fraction.
• Finally, if the horse is more than 4 lengths behind the lead horse, the horse is trailing, and is assigned 'T' for that fraction.

These letters are sequenced into a string that provides a simple shorthand to describe a horse's running style in the race, e.g. 'PPPP' is a horse that ran with the lead the entire trip, while 'TTSP' indicates a stalking horse that saves energy for the final burst to the finish.

When handicapping a race, we will only use the 5 most recent races for each horse entered. We join the race table to the entries table on the track, race date, and race number to generate the full data for our past performance data. We also join to the keyrace table on track, race date, and race number to retrieve any keyrace information. Finally, we will join to the track pars table on track, distance, surface, racetype, and race class to provide comparative pars for the fractions of the race.

Collecting Race Data