Welcome to RACE RATER V1.6 

INTRODUCTION

RACE RATER is a method of assigning numerical values to horses running in a
race.  The idea being that the horse with the highest value has the best
chance of winning the race in question and the horse with the second highest
value has the next best chance etc.  The program allows you to rate up to 40
horses in any one race and you can rate either or both of a horse's last two
races.  To operate the program you will need to take information from the
Sporting Life.

The program takes all those factors that can be assessed numerically, such as
weight being carried, finishing position in previous races, the distance 
behind the winner that a horse finished and any Speed Rating achieved.  
Because the program uses a computer to analyse races there has been no attempt
to try and predict the imponderables of racing, such as the distance of race 
that a horse prefers or the type of going that it needs to produce its best.
These are factors that cannot be judged by recourse to a horse's last two 
outings and therefore have been ignored.  More on this later.

THE PERSONAL BIT

RACE RATER has been written using the utterly fabulous AMOS (no I haven't 
been paid to say that).  I am not a programmer (as anybody reading the listing
will soon discover), but AMOS has allowed me to adapt this method of rating,
which I have used for many years, to the computer, thus vastly increasing the
speed with which I can rate races.  Any faults in the way that the program
behaves (though I have discovered none so far) are my responsibility and not
the fault of AMOS.

I have slaved long and hard over this program and would appreciate any 
response from the users, see the section on registering.  The program is 
released as shareware.   

THE PROGRAM

On booting the machine with the program disk you will be presented with the
option to read this document or run the program.  Assuming you have decided 
to read this rather than go straight into the program (if you haven't you 
won't be reading this), here is how the program works.

1) You will be asked to select the type of race meeting you wish to rate 
horses in.  The options being Flat or National Hunt.  If there is a mixed 
meeting you must treat them as two separate meetings, 1 Flat and 1 National 
Hunt so select which type of races you want to rate first and select as though
it was that type of meeting.  Selection is easy, just point and click with the
left mouse button.
  
2) Next you will be asked to enter the name of the race meeting, again just
point and click, if you make a mistake select cancel or continue if you are
happy.

3) Next select the time of the race which you are rating, hours first then 
minutes if you make a mistake and click on the wrong hour just click on any
of the minute buttons and then select cancel to redo the input.  Again
continue if you have made the correct choice.

4) The next screen allows you to enter the names of the horses that you want
to rate in the race.  Any horse can be rated as long as it finished in the
first six in either or both of its last two races; previous season included.
In order that the ratings can be used to best effect I suggest that the
horses are entered in race card order, with the top weight first.

5) Having entered all the rateable runners you will presented with the option 
of rating the first horse on the list.  Firstly you must enter the weight
that the horse is set to carry in today's race; this is done from a menu
(right mouse button and select), always enter the weight without deducting
any apprentice allowance.  You can rate either its last race which is known
as Race A or its previous race which is known as Race B, these races are
called assessing races.

If the horse finished in the first 6 in its last race then you should enter
A, otherwise B.  Note that all user input that requires a single key press,
such as A or B or Y or N does not require the RETURN key to be pressed.  If a
horse finished in the first 6 in Race A, after you have rated Race A you will
have the opportunity to rate Race B, which you can do if the horse finished
in the first 6 in Race B.

6) You will now be asked to enter details of the race being assessed.
Firstly the value of the assessing race, which is selected from the ranges
offered by pointing and clicking; note that there are two screens for race
values and you can switch between the two by selecting the MORE button. 

Having selected the value of the assessing race you must now enter the
finishing position in that race of the horse you are currently rating; this
is done from a menu; (if a horse was disqualified from a finishing position
in an assessing race always use the positions that the horses physically
finished that race rather than the amended positions).  

Next you will be asked to enter the distance of the assessing race, this
again is done from a menu and is in exact furlongs, any race with a number
of yards in it should be rounded up or down to the nearest exact furlong. 

Next you will be asked to enter the weight carried in the assessing race,
again enter the weight carried ignoring any apprentice allowances.  The weight
as published in the form section of the Sporting Life is the weight actually
carried so you will have to add back on any apprentice allowance. 

Next you must enter the total distance that your horse was beaten by, unless
of course it won the race.  This distance  should be input as a decimal, a
neck being equal to .25 and one and a half lengths being 1.5 etc.  Ignore
distances of a head or short head.  So if your horse finished fifth beaten by
2L,Nk,Hd and 5L, you would enter 7.25 as the total distance beaten.  If your
horse was beaten by a head or short head enter 0 for the distance.

Next is the request regarding Speed Ratings.  If the horse being rated won the
assessing race then you will be asked if it obtained a Speed Rating, answer
either Y or N.  If the horse being rated did not win the assessing race then
you will be asked if the winner achieved a Speed Rating, again answer either
Y or N.  Enter the rating achieved either by the horse being rated if it won
or by the actual winner of the assessing race.  Important, if the horse being
rated did not win the assessing race make sure that you enter the rating of
the winner not the rating of the horse being rated.  If the horse being rated
did not win the assessing race you will be asked to enter the weight carried
by the winner, again any apprentice allowances should be added back to the
weight shown as being carried in the assessing race.

After you have rated a horse, either for Race A or B or both you will be
shown the Rating(s) for that horse, I suggest that you note the ratings as
you do them in case of problems, such as the dreaded GURU.

The program will now continue until all the horses have been rated.

THE FINAL RATING SCREEN

A list of all the horses will be shown along with the ratings for races A and
B (these will be 0 if any race was not assessed), Race A rating is shown
first.  These ratings have not been sorted for the following reason, any horse
that is top weighted and has a high rating is a strong contender in today's
race.  Its rating has been achieved through its ability and class rather than
a large drop in weight, conversely any horse at the bottom of the list with a
high rating should be treated with circumspection as its rating may be due to
a large drop in weight which usually means a rise in class.  That is the
reason why I suggested that horses to be rated should be entered in race card
order as it enables the final rating screen to make more sense.

On the final screen you can continue to rate another race (C).  BEWARE once
you have selected continue, the ratings for that race will be lost.

GENERAL INFORMATION

I have tried to make the program as friendly as possible, you can alter any
piece of information after entry if you make an error, and the only keyboard
input, apart from answering a question is the input of the Speed Ratings and
the distance a horse was beaten by, all other input comes from either pointing
and clicking or selecting from menus.
 
Treat all ratings for what they are, a numerical attempt to assess the
relative chance of each horse in the race.  There are many other factors
involved in selecting winners and these are not open to mathematical
interpretation, that having been said I hope that you will find that a good
percentage of winners come from the top two rated without further refinement
and that this percentage increases in relation to the gap between the horses'
ratings.

FURTHER DEVELOPMENT

I am in the process of producing a version that will allow input of racing
records weekly from the form book, thus meaning that rating a race will simply
entail entering today's runners and the weights they are set to carry.
Hopefully this version will at least allow some indication of distance and
going requirements to be presented along with final ratings, and also contain
more accurate Speed figures (the research is going on at the moment for the
1992 NH season).  The new version will also produce a hard copy if you own a
printer. 

The release of this version will only be made to registered owners of V1.6
and will not be released in any other form.  If you wish to register for
this future upgrade you may do so by sending £20 to:
 
M J Thompson
41 Nelson Road
HULL
North Humberside
HU5 5HN

All people who register will not only receive all future upgrades free of
charge, which will include seasonally recalculated speed ratings, but will
also receive copies of 10 racing systems.  These systems had a total market
value of over £100 when sold separately, so registering is not such a bad
deal.

Registration is relatively painless and the rewards could be great, don't
delay do it today.

THE FINAL BIT

Although the program was written in AMOS, the screens were created using
DPaint II, and thanks go to them for a great art package.  Through the medium
of this program I would like to make a few comments, firstly with regard to
AMOS, I have read some comments that tend to put the program down for lack of
speed, all I can say is that from a layman's point of view not only is AMOS
adequately fast for most applications it should be remembered that it is a
BASIC and those of us old enough to remember AMIGABasic should be eternally
grateful for a language that allows speed with ease of programming.  Secondly,
I would like to thank all those programmers who produce such fantastic stuff
for the AMIGA and then release it as shareware or licenceware, relying on
people's honesty to pay them if they use their program (this is not another
plea for you to register with me), if you use a program you should pay for it.

Is there anyone in this area who would like to form an AMIGA club, if so write
and let me know.  Finally thanks to my long suffering wife who has no interest
in computers but has put up with all my problems in getting this program
together, and thanks also for making me buy an AMIGA in the first place.

For all of you out there who think it can't be done, my advice is that it can,
it may not be pretty coding (though I promise to try harder next time) but if
it works does it matter?  Buy AMOS, have a go!  

All material in this program is copyright and is distributed as shareware as
long as this Read Me file is treated as part of the program.  Any copying or
distrubution of the program without this Read Me file, or the copying and
distribution of registered versions is contrary to the copyright laws of this
country and constitutes theft.

LONG LIVE THE AMIGA!!!


May 13th 1992