The first is by the early split time.
This is found in most good form including the FREE Greyhound Racing Victoria's Watchdog Form.
(You will need to download Brainstormer version as a minimum though.)
Split times are different for different tracks and sometimes they are not recorded as you will see looking thru the form.
In the enclosed image early split times are in Brackets ... e.g. on the Meadows run 24th June (5.30).
If you wish you could work out an early speed rating figure using the Vic-Greyhounds.com Ratings Method. you would need to get the early split Track Record of course and insert it where in formula Track Record is.. and of course the dogs early split time where race time was. But this will only work in a race where the Dog Lead to the first split.
The early split time is only for the leader in the race. We have no idea from the form how many lengths away the dog running second is at the early split for instance.
So the method may be unable to be done on a race where some dogs have never led in exposed form to the 1st call position.
The most common method people will use is either Memory (remembering who are habitual leaders or swoopers) or using the form guide call positions.
Below is an image of Watchdog's Brainstormer form I have circled the area of the Call Positions in the guide.
You read it like this.
Firstly .... their is a letter before the call positions. S,M or Q. Means Slow Medium or Quick, referring to early speed.
Now their are numbers for the position the dogs are in the run.
Look at 29th May Meadows Run.
M/44432
This tells me the Dog was Medium to get away.. was 4th in the Early and Mid Stages and in the later stages rand on a bit to 3rd and then finished 2nd.
Some punters may work out a rating by getting average early call number using the first number only for each dog from the exposed form.
e.g. if first Call Position of a dog is over 5 run 4,3,5,2,6 respectively, then the Early Speed Rating Assessment may be
"(4+3+5+2+6) divided by 5" = 4
The Dogs with the Lowest Early Speed Figure would be assessed as the likely early speed dogs.