Proform Software Review by David Renham

With the demise of rsb (racing systems builder) there really is a chance for a horse racing software research product to really corner the market.

In this article I am going look in detail at Proform – this is a product I have used for a few years now so I am hopefully in a good position to analyse its strengths and weaknesses. For the record ‘LTO’ stands for last time out.

Essentially Proform can be broken into two parts – a form book and a system builder. I am going to concentrate in detail on the system builder, which is what I personally use the most.

As a racing researcher, the ability to examine past races quickly is key. Gone are the days where I used several form books, a big notepad, a pencil and a calculator! I cannot believe I used to spend days, weeks and sometimes months researching one specific area! With the computerised age, those nights burning the midnight oil are long gone and you can analyse years of data in a very short space of time indeed.

The Proform system builder goes back to 1997 and covers both flat and National Hunt racing in the UK. Hence, there is plenty of data to be manipulated! There are 13 tabs / areas where you can develop, refine and report upon your systems / queries. These are: Race Date, Race Filter, Race Course & Going, Race Classification Filters, Horse, Jockey & Trainer Filter, Ratings Filter, LTO Horse Filters, LTO Race Classification Filter, LTO Race Course, LTO Race Filter, Preferences, System Results, Results Presentation. Let us look at these tabs in more detail:

Race Date – fairly self explanatory, but you can filter by year, month, or a certain number of days. You can also restrict your search to a specific race or date.

Race Filter – the race filter allows you to differentiate between, turf flat, turf all weather, National hunt chases, National Hunt hurdles or National Hunt flat races. Of course you may wish to analyse all of them together, or simply flat only, or National Hunt only. You also have the choice of whether you want to search ‘all races’ or just handicaps only, or non handicaps only. There is also a facility to restrict races with a ‘Race Name Search’. Hence you may want to look back at a specific contest, or you may want to restrict races with say ‘maiden’ in the title. Within this tab you can restrict by class if you wish – classes are split into A to H (old class divisions) and 1 to 7 (new class divisions. In addition to all these filters, there are other ones within this tab:

a) ‘value’ (prize money);

b) distance (this in yards so for example if you want to restrict to races of 1 mile or less you would enter <1761);

c) runners (number of runners in a race – you can restrict to 10 runner races only, or >10 runners, etc);

d) Handicap limit (so you can restrict to races of 0-90 only, or for races of 0-90 or higher, etc);

e) Min Age / Max Age limit – this allows you to restrict races to a specific age group if you so desire.

Race Classification Filters – this filter can be used to try to analyse specific race types such as maidens, or sellers, etc. You can also use a ‘NOT classification’ filter so if you wanted to avoid maidens say you could tick that box and the results would exclude maiden races.

Horse, Jockey & Trainer Filter – this is the filter where you can really analyse lots of different variables. The list includes: age, starting price odds, days since last run, draw position, jockey name, trainer name, sire name, weight rank, sex of horse, country of horse, headgear, etc. For the ‘systemites’ out there, this is the area where you test numerous ideas in various combinations. For example, you may want to look at all male runners, aged 4 or older, priced 5/1 or shorter, and running with 7 days of their last run. This clearly is a very useful and comprehensive part of the system builder.

Ratings Filter – Proform has a variety of different ratings that can be calculated and these can be used in this section. You can also use ORs (official ratings).

LTO Horse Filters – this section is similar to the ‘Horse, Jockey & Trainer’ filter, but focuses on the last race. Hence you can check variables such as finishing position LTO, LTO odds (SP), LTO Weight Rank, etc. Another good area where you can test numerous ideas, theories or systems.

LTO Race Classification Filter - this filter can be used to try to analyse specific race types LTO.

LTO Race Course – this filter allows you to look at specific courses where the horse ran LTO. You can also filter these courses by type – eg. left or right handed for example; or by ‘easy’, ‘undulating’ etc.

LTO Race Filter – this filter gives you all the choices / variables in the ‘Race Filter’ section (see above). Obviously though, this filter is for the LTO race.

Results Presentation – this section allows you to view the results as you wish. Hence if you want to see all the results in a breakdown, you would click the ‘bottom line’ tab and then click the ‘run system’ button. Depending on the amount of data, you will then see the results with number of runners, number of wins, strike rate, profit to SP, ROI to SP, profit to BSP,etc, etc. In addition, placed runners are shown and placed profits/losses are also shown. You also have a breakdown of the longest winning and losing runs, which are useful for those people who try to improve their ideas/systems with staking plans.

You may want to view the results more specifically, and you have a wide variety of choices such as yearly breakdowns, course breakdowns, trainer breakdowns, position LTO breakdowns, etc. The list is not endless but there are over 70 ways of breaking down the results with standard variables. In addition, the results can be analysed by different Proform ratings.

You can also view the results in a different way, by drilling down into the results by double clicking on them. You then get all the qualifiers with the date, name of race, etc, etc, but there is the ability to create numerous extra columns. You can choose what columns you have by choosing the variables in the ‘Preferences’ section. Also these results can be saved in a csv. File and hence you can analyse them in more detail using applications such as excel.

Preferences – this section has numerous different variables that you add to the ‘drill down results’ columns. For example, you can have a column showing the total number of runs in the horses’ career, or one showing key horse history including such things as ‘course winner’, ‘beaten favourite’ etc.

System Results – the results of your queries are shown in this tab (after clicking the run system button in ‘Results Presentation’.

As you can see, there is plenty of scope to test an infinite number of ideas / systems, etc. Not only can you test a system, but once you are happy with it, you can save it. (Of course you may wish to save it before being ‘happy’ with it – you may want to revisit it at a later date to see if you can find improvements). Once a system is saved, as long as you download the daily racecards, any system qualifiers are showed on the welcome screen. Hence, there are no excuses to miss any system bets!

So far in this article I have been extremely positive – with good reason though I may add. However, in terms of the finished product it still has a little way to go. The biggest missing area for me is that there are no Irish results. Hence, when there are big meetings and big races, certain data is incomplete. For example, Forpadydeplasterer, who won the 2009 Arkle at the Cheltenham festival, has only 3 of his 13 career runs in the Proform software. Hence, it is virtually impossible to analyse past records of Irish runners when they race at say the Cheltenham festival.

In terms of moving the software forward therefore, I personally would make the addition of Irish data the most important. The good news is that the Proform software is constantly being evaluated and additions are made on a fairly regular basis.

Despite my Irish gripe, you will find it difficult to find horse racing software as good on the market. Another positive worth knowing is that help and support systems are very good. In addition the ‘help pages’ are detailed and are well explained, and there are excellent videos as well. As with any new piece of software, it takes time to get used to it, but once you do, it is very flexible and easy to use.

If you are interested in finding out more go to http://www.proformprofessional.com

ProForm Discount Offer

Proform have offered all Punterprofits readers a 30% discount of their first Proform Subscription.

Use the campaign code PP30 on the Proform site to qualify.