Editing the Track Ratio File
To allow more intricate handicapping methods, you can have QuickDog attempt to convert race times from another track to race times at the track you are playing today. This conversion process uses "Track Ratios", and the data for calculating these ratios are in a file called \jaidogs\trkratio.txt.
If you select the Track Ratio File feature, the display in Figure 1 will appear.
Figure 1 - Selecting the Track Ratio File feature
This file contains many lines which define tracks and race distances. Refer to the figure above, and the first line shown that begins with "BM" - "BM,5-16,1650,ALL,20,30.03". This line represents that there is a race track with the track identifier "BM" (Birmingham Race Course), that has as one of its distances 5-16 mile, which is equivalent in feet measure to 1650 ft. The word "ALL" means that in order to derive the average time run for the 5-16 mile that ALL GRADES are to be used. This word could have been a GRADE itself, such as A, or B, M, or D, etc. The next item in the line means that at least 20 races are necessary in order to create an average, and the last figure, 30.03 is the value to use for the average UNLESS 20 races are available from which to form an average.
Let's back up to the first race distance. The "5-16" - this text is the actual representation that appears in the race program. Notice there is another line for BM which lists "3-8", and another which begins "BM,550". Since QuickDog was made available in 2000, some tracks have changed the listed distances from "5-16" (mile) to "550" (yards). Some have even changed them back again. When Birmingham changed its listed distance to "550" then the programmers at QuickReckoning had to add another line to describe what is a new distance for Birmingham even though, both are listed at "1650 ft". It appears that as of this writing the Birmingham has changed back and now used 5-16 as the race distance in the race program.
Note similar updates have taken place at other tracks. The reason a new line is added, rather than simply replacing the old line, is that old race programs which may be used to handicap might still be using the old distance of 5-16.
At any rate, that is the explanation of why there are multiple lines for some tracks which have the same FEET distances.
All of the tracks which QuickDog has covered since it was first released in the year 2000 are listed in this file regardless of whether or not those tracks are currently running. You can delete tracks if you wish as long as you know you won't have any data for those tracks. The key thing to remember with this file is that you EDIT a track's information as a new distance is added or renamed. If that distance isn't added to this file, then track ratios will not be available for that distance. Recently Birmingham started racing 3-16 races and users complained that all their racing data was filled with ????. The problem was, even though they were using track ratios, that an entry for 3-16 at Birmingham was not in the track ratio file, and therefore QuickDog couldn't convert dogs who'd run 5-16 races into valid times for 3-16 races. If QuickDog is not using track ratios and a dog is competing at a distance that it has never run before, then QuickDog can not guess at a time for that dog, so that dog's data is ???? (unknown).
Once you make any changes to this file, simply save it back to "\jaidogs\trkratio.txt". Editing this file will not complete the process necessary to create track ratios. This is only one input to the process. To create track ratios and convert speeds run at different tracks, one must learn to use the Variant features of QuickDog.