The Virtual FormGuide - Plus Ratings
Service Description
Plus Ratings take into account times, weights, distance suitability, positions in running, barriers, beaten and winning margins, the class of race and the overall field strength. The entire history of a horse's career is evaluated and an emphasis on recent form patterns, together with consistency and fitness levels provide the basis for the Plus Rating.

Plus Ratings are available from our site as soon as final acceptors are available and they are indeed an ideal starting point for those who do their own form or rely on comparisons from other services. Riders are not taken into account at this point. With this knowledge you can apply your own adjustments for riders as you see fit.

On raceday Plus Ratings are reassessed after track conditions, jockeys and scratchings are known.
How To Use This Service
The ratings are designed to be applied to any race in Australia. However some races such as Maidens, Class 1 races and 2yo events lack the necessary form exposure to be really reliable. Races that have unraced horses competing, continually prove to be unreliable. One reason for this, is that they are generally lower class races and the top rated horses still rate poorly. A good rule of thumb is to favour races where the top rated horses rate at 47kgs or above. Top chances that rate 50kgs or above and have a 3 kg. advantage on the field have a good winning record.

Ratings are worked out for each of the horse's last 5 runs with greater emphasis placed on the last 3 runs. These ratings are displayed for each horse and are a good indication of whether it is improving or not.Older horses take longer to reach peak form and fitness. Natural distance increases will suit some horses and their ratings will improve as distance increases. Normally a stayer will take 4 to 5 runs from a spell to reach peak fitness whilst a sprinter can hit peak form much earlier in a preparation.

Betting strategies can vary according to individual preferences. The best strategy is to avoid horses which are priced in the market at or below their rated odds. Horses rated up to 4/1 ($5.00) represent the best value, particularly when they are paying double figure odds. All horses that have raced receive a rating and regardless of the rated price, the ratings themselves give an order that can be used for Quinellas and Trifectas etc.

The column headings in the Plus Ratings report are :-

API average prizemoney index
DAYS days back to last start
ST3 rating for 3rd last start
ST2 rating for 2nd last start
ST1 rating for last start
F Yes No indicator to whether program thinks horse goes well First Up
LBD "last best distance", basically the distance of the best start out of last three (based on closest finishing margin or best winning margin)
D Yes No indicator to whether program thinks horse will handle distance
PKDR peak distance rating which is the highest rating of past starts over similar distance plus age improvement
BASE for most horses a weighted average of the last 3 ratings
IM Yes No indicator for showing Improver Pattern
LEN predicted margins in lengths
%x10 predicted percentage chance times 10 (eg 220 = 22.0%)

 
Service Availability
Plus Ratings are first made available at the time final acceptances are processed for each meeting. This generally in the early afternoon 2 days before each meeting. All races for Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays are generally processed on Thursday. These early Plus Ratings are produced in saddlecloth number order with a rating for each horse.

A new version of Plus Ratings are produced on race mornings when scratchings and track conditions are available. This version is produced with scratchings eliminated.
Service Pricing
On a Pay Per View basis, Plus Ratings are priced at $0.50 per race or $3.00 per meeting.
TVF Services Which Include This Service
Plus Ratings are available on a subscription basis as a component of these services :-
Demonstration Sample of This Service
You can view a sample of this service here. TVF Members can see free Plus Ratings from previous days in their normal data access menu. An archive of monthly Plus Ratings in zip format is here.