Hi everyone
There will be an update to the horse racing software deployed this morning (10th October 2024).
Some of the fixes are changes which could affect your backtesting results, so please do read the following, especially if you use the Draw Bias rule or the "inherit restrictions" option in your scope rules (the first two changes described below).
Here's the list and explanations of what's changing:
🏇 Draw bias update
We're updating the draw bias rule to capture an individual value for each race which can be properly backtested, rather than a fixed "current" value. This will be more accurate by removing any look-ahead bias and "smoothing" the figure to reduce the variation caused by individual wins at a particular stall. We have some more improvements planned. There's a full explanation here (please feel free to join the discussion!).
You'll want to re-run and potentially revise any strategies involving draw bias accordingly. It's difficult to predict how the results will change, but in my own strategies, the change has basically just reduced the profit due to the removal of the look-ahead bias, while still leaving them profitable. Despite the reduction in profit, it will however now be a more accurate figure. Please take a look at the link I included above and let me know of any questions.
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🏇 Fix for scope rule inheritance
In some cases where you tick the "inherit restrictions" box in your scope rules, the software was previously not calculating the count of past races correctly and therefore not finding the right results. This has been corrected. Please re-run any strategies where this option has been used.
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🏇 New strategy rules
We've added these new strategy rules:
Declared Runners: The original number of runners declared for the race, before any non-runners were removed
Lengths To Next: We already have Lengths To Winner (basically "Beaten by..."). Now we also have the number of lengths to the next horse behind this one
2D PRB: This is a squared version of the PRB rule (Percentage Of Rivals Beaten). Literally the PRB multiplied by itself. What this does is applies a higher weight the closer the horse was to the front, emphasising better performance
Early Morning Price: The current Morning Price is a snapshot taken at about 11:00am. This is a snapshot of the price at around 08:30am
Horse/Trainer Runs: You can now filter on the number of runs a horse has with this trainer. This is very useful for finding horses that have just switched trainers, which can present some opportunities
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🏇 Comparison modifiers
Bit of a mouthful. If you've ever created a dobbing rule where you're filtering on something like "BSP greater than Lowest in-running price x 2", that last part ("x 2") is the compare multiplier.
Well now, for some strategy rules, instead of only being able to apply a multiplier, you can now use an add/subtract modifier as well.
So for example, you can filter on horses whose official rating equals their LTO rating +/- 2. Or maybe find horses that have moved up 2 classes ("LTO Class - 2").
Official rating and Class number are the only two rules where this modifier is currently available. Let me know if there are other rules you'd like to see this applied to!
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🏇 Profit-based staking for back bets
You can already calculate your stake based on the liability of your lay bets. This new option lets you base your back stake on the profit of the back bet!
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🏇 BST timezone fix on Macs
Previously, the individual trades results (probably qualifiers as well) weren't applying Daylight Savings Time properly if you're using a Mac, leading to a discrepancy of 1 hour in the race times. This has been fixed.
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🏇 Access strategy notes from bottom save bar
Previously you could only type notes for a strategy in the Strategy Bunker table. We've added a notes dialog to the bottom save bar, so you can run your strategy, see the results and enter any notes at that point before saving, for convenience.
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🏇 Draw / Pace stats heatmap
For races running from stalls, we've added a interactive draw/pace heatmap so you can see which combinations of draw and running style seem to produce the most winners.
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🏇 Daily Qualifiers page re-vamp
This has been bugging me for ages. The old page was horrible. Now it's not 🤣
It's now an expandable table of sorts, more densely arranged with less wasted space and you only need to display the info you're interested in.
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🏇 Fix for "include presets" option on Daily Qualifiers page
This option had become non-functional. It now works again
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🏇 "Report invalid selection" button on strategy results
Sometimes, you may find a selection in your backtesting trades that you think should not be there, or there seems to be something wrong with it, like some kind of impossible situation if the backtesting had executed correctly.
This generally happens when there is a gap in the price snapshots sue to a minor outage of Betfair's API or a server issue our end.
You can now report these to us. We'll review the reports and either plug the price gap or take whatever other action is necessary to fix it.
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🏇 Notification when strategy created
We've had a few people thinking that nothing has happened when they're creating new strategies, because the strategy has appeared on a part of their strategy list that's currently paged off-screen. The notification will tell you what the strategy's called, so you know what to look for in your strategy bunker table.
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🏇 Course records distance filter
You can now filter the course records table by different distances:
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You'll be able to verify that your browser has picked up the update by viewing the Changelog in the software and checking that it has 10/10/2024 at the top and "v3.3.0".
If not, or if the page is completely blank, your browser has failed to pick up the new version. Try clearing your cache for our site AND clearing your cookies for our site, restart your browser, log back in and then access the software through the button on your user dashboard.
I'll post on the changelog thread on the forum when the update has been released.
