Coursewinner

ACE (Advanced Computer Entertainment)

Spectrum, £15.00cs C64, £15.00cs, £18.00dk BBC, £15.00cs, £18.00dk CPC, £15.00cs, £18.00dk PCW, £18.00dk IBM PC, £18.00dk Atari St and Amiga versions due March/April, £18.00dk. Selec's Pete Chadwick describes Coursewinner as 'a tool' for weighing the factors involved in predicting the outcome of horse races - whether on the flat or over the sticks. He emphasises that 'it's not a magic system'; it uses exactly the same factors as a human with pen and paper would - it just deals with them much more efficiently. To use the program you'll need a copy of The Sporting Life or The Racing Post - or at least a daily paper with detailed info on runners and riders etc. Factors such as weight carried, distance, going, speed factor, jockey's record can be taken in to account. In fact, there are 15 or 16 different pieces of data that can be entered for each horse in the race. The more you enter, the more effectively the program will do its job - but Pete Chadwick emphasises that you can use as many or as few of these factors as you wish. Furthermore, before you run the computer analysis of the data, you can alter the 'bias' - that is, the weight given by the program to the individual factors. So, if you think that the trainer of the horse is insignificant, you merely turn that one down to zero. In this way you can use whatever expertise you yourself have to add to the computer's analysis. Used over the course of a season, Pete Chadwick reckons Coursewinner will turn in at least a small profit, but bear in mind that entering ALL the data for races can be a long and tiresome task; you need to be pretty dedicated to stick at it.