Gate stats and track speed
Judge a draw, and a fast or slow day
Gate stats
Under each horse's gate number is a short label: Great gate, Good gate, Neutral, Poor gate, Bad gate or Low data. It says how that stall has done at this track and distance.
Hover the gate for the numbers behind the label: starts, win rate, Edge and Conf. Conf reads as in article 7. Edge is a little different here: it is the stall's win rate against what was expected of it, in percentage points, and it is not measured against the betting market.
In the form table you can also hover the gate a horse had in a past run. A poor run from a bad gate is easier to forgive.
Careful: the gate is the starting stall, not the saddle-cloth number. And "Low data" means what it says.
Track speed
Ground that is officially "Good" can still ride fast one day and slow the next. Track speed is our own measure of how fast the track actually rode on the day, calculated from the results, not taken from the official going report.
- In the race header you see the estimate for today ("Estimated track speed: Fast track").
- In Expert view the form table has a Speed column for every past run (Fast, Normal, Slow) and a Gate column with how good the draw was that day.
Why it matters: some horses need a fast surface and some need it slow. A horse whose best runs all came on fast days is a question mark when the track is riding slow, whatever the official going says.
See it on the card: open any racecard and press 📖 Tour at the top right. The tour points at each of these things in turn. Start the tour on the free sample card.
Want the thinking behind it? That is what the course is for. The Intro track is free; the full course is coming soon.