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Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe 2012

Soumi was probably on a hurry two furlongs out, thinking about his pose for the photographers. Any top 10 Japanese jockey would have won that race.
I am not a violent man, but if I'd meet Soumi today, he will be calling for another dentist appointment tomorrow.:mad:
 
Desert Orchid said:
I would have sworn it coupling only occurred with horses in the same ownership.
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Think it's different for the Breeders Cup, but in France it was ownership and yard. Seems something may have changed now though, as mentioned previously.
 
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Aragorn
Aye, it's important alright, an absolute fundamental for judging how and why a horse performed as it did. That EC chooses to disagree to the point of perversity is a sign of his insecurity, not mine.

Gareth
Yes, I would trust RP standard times - in any situation where there have been enough top class races over any particular c/d to firmly establish them.
 
reet hard said:
Gareth
Yes, I would trust RP standard times - in any situation where there have been enough top class races over any particular c/d to firmly establish them.
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I wouldn't trust their standard times at Longchamp for a second, nor their calculated going allowance on Sunday.

Normally an 8-race card would be a boon for calculating speed ratings, but as they appear to have completely given up with races over 7f and 8f, they're left with just 5.

Of those 5, the 12f handicap was run over a heavily dolled-out course making comparisons between it and the main races impossible, whilst the Abbaye is run on a completely different strip of ground altogether (although that doesn't stop them including them anyway).

So they're down to just three races. On their system, the Cadran works out as 78lbs slower than the Arc, so that's rendered useless and they're down to two. The Opera works out as 24lbs slower, which if it was considered truly run would put the Arc winner's speed rating in the 140s. So that's out too.

All they've got to go on is the Arc itself. They have no choice but to assume that it was truly run, that the winner ran up to somewhere around their RPR, and then pin the rest of the speed ratings across the card from there. And the going allowance is calculated accordingly. From a single race. That going allowance is then compared against their (fairly arbitrary) table of going descriptions and corresponding allowance ranges, and Soft appears.

Not exactly rigorous, is it?
 
Gareth
They're subject to the same limitations as any other compiler, in that going allowances are - at best - an educated guess, and the 12f h/c, Cadran and Opera are no help in assessing that figure.
They may not have given a per furlong figure for the 7 & 8f races, but I'd doubt they've "given up altogether" as it's just a simple division of the time by the distance, and all 3 races can be done in seconds by any 6yo with a calculator, so I'd seriously doubt they've used any fewer races than other compilers.
They also 'may' have assumed the Arc was truly run, so (probably) have most other clockers - but the sectionals show that wasn't necessarily true, so maybe they all guessed wrongly.
RP standard times may not be the best in the world, but they're certainly not as black as you've painted them, and while I believe that no ratings can tie a horse (or a going allowance) down to the nearest pound, they'll service adequately - in the circumstances I described earlier.

Even ignoring all the foregoing, the visual evidence of Orfevre quickening strongly suggests the ground was no worse than soft, and I've yet to see anyone suggest a horse showing similar acceleration on anything worse.
 
They really have given up on the 7f/8f races. There's no Topspeed ratings for them and the standards don't exist anymore. They used to do them, and you can still find old 7f/8f races where they have TS ratings for them, but the standard time is now gone. Go look, it's pretty bizarre.

The quality of RP standards is variable. I wouldn't discount the ones for the big British tracks in the same way, although some of them do look shonky, as they're based on plenty of accurate data that we know the Topspeed compilers have. But their French ones? Like I said before, when they don't bother to differentiate between the same distance over the Grande Piste and the Moyenne Piste, you know that they can't be too preoccupied with accuracy.
 
Even ignoring all the foregoing, the visual evidence of Orfevre quickening strongly suggests the ground was no worse than soft, and I've yet to see anyone suggest a horse showing similar acceleration on anything worse.
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I agree it was extraordinary, but not even his jockey was expecting him to quicken quite like that. He is an outstanding horse and sometimes the things such horses do can be be exceptional. And don't forget, it didn't take very long for him to empty.
 
Keep up lads. I mentioned him on here months ago. :D

Gentildonna another one for next year if she stays in training next year. Won the Japanese triple crown as a filly.
 

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