Horse Racing Nation Introduces First-Timer Power Ratings
But that does not mean there is no information available.
Enter the Horse Racing Nation First-Timer Power Ratings Report. HRN looked at more than 9,000 debut runners to figure out which signals provide the most noise.
In a word, it's workouts. But workouts are in the past performances. What's not provided in the PPs is how those workouts relate to each other, and that's where HRN steps in to distil the data into an actionable rating.
The end product is a 1-5 ratings system with those first-time starters earning a 5 being the most likely to win and 1 being least likely (see efficacy through Aug. 10 below).
Most importantly, though, for bettors in a pari-mutuel game, the higher ratings out-perform their odds while the lower ratings under perform. The 5s win 22.8%, which is 6.8% more than bettors expect while the 1s win just 4.8%, which is 16.3% less than expected. The Horse Racing Nation Impact score uses the win pool to determine the expected number of wins. Using the whole pool instead of odds accounts for takeout.
And the better ratings are not just finding short prices, either. On Sunday, Aug. 14, Moma won race 2 at Saratoga and paid $21.20. A week earlier, Call Me Ice Man got it done at Colonial and paid $16.60!
While the ratings do provide a reliable quick reference, those looking to dig in further have plenty of detail provided for every first-time starter in the United States and Canada, including our proprietary workout rating as well as color-coded impact scores for situational sire and trainer stats.