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2000 Guineas

Yes, slim did with the earlier one. I think it was the colossal 81% of straight races won from 4 and below that got to me in the later one.
 
Hands up, I didn't realise there was a second set of stats. I just saw the numbers and thought it was a re-posting of the first one.

(Where's the 'embarrassed to f...' emoji when you need it?)

Oh to have had that kind of foresight on Friday morning...
 
barjon said:
Yes, slim did with the earlier one. I think it was the colossal 81% of straight races won from 4 and below that got to me in the later one.
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The tweet got great traction. I can guarantee you in a few months time everyone in the media will hold the opinion that there was a bias. Just watch for it.
 
barjon said:
I can’t believe that no-one appears to think this is particularly significant. Perhaps it’s because people know it and don’t want it bandied about :).
The racing press is beginning to pick it up though and there’s another article, Off the Bit in Racing and Football Outlook this time, about the draw bias and “golden highway near the far side rail”.

Whatever people think, so far as I am concerned the results show that after watering there is an extreme bias favouring a low draw and that anything drawn on the high side has an almost impossible chance of winning. All this means that I won’t be betting ante-post and will hold off until I know the likely conditions, whether much watering is involved and (if so) the draw. In the same conditions I certainly won’t be backing anything drawn high however highly they are regarded. I think Native Trail must be some horse to have got so close from his draw and I agree with the two articles that he would have won from a low draw.

Ps: always assuming they don’t realise they have a probl:lol:em and tweak the watering system.
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And all the groundstaff and officials are morons, who don't have years of experience and never look at the weather forecast - just because our morons know better. :lol::lol:
 
reet hard said:
And all the groundstaff and officials are morons, who don't have years of experience and never look at the weather forecast - just because our morons know better. :lol::lol:
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When you have to use one race from 1873 as your defence...
 
reet hard said:
And all the groundstaff and officials are morons, who don't have years of experience and never look at the weather forecast - just because our morons know better. :lol::lol:
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Reet, you cannot dispute where the results have come from and that over the last two Guineas meetings, when similar conditions and watering prevailed, a colossal 81% of the straight course races were won by horses drawn 4 or lower.

Your response has been to refuse to accept that there is any draw bias and say it is because that’s where the pace was. You may be right, but perhaps that’s because the faster ground is where the pace is to be found in which case the horses drawn low have the best chance of being in the right place.

Please don’t insult me by suggesting that I’m a moron. It is widely accepted that watering produces false ground and many is the trainer who won’t run their horses because of it - I expect they are morons too. If you have something constructive to add as evidence that there is no bias I’d be delighted to hear it, but I reckon you are going to have a damn hard task to find some.
 
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But, isn't your direct implication that all these proffesionals, with actual hands-on experience, are morons too?
And why would I search through years of replays to establish something I already know?
 
reet hard said:
But, isn't your direct implication that all these proffesionals, with actual hands-on experience, are morons too?
And why would I search through years of replays to establish something I already know?
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I'll trust my eyes and you can trust yours. Just don't tell me jockeys know what they are doing all the time. I watch enough racing to know better.
 
I love stats and Barjons figures are powerful,but I do have concerns.
In the big sprint the winner was drawn 4 but was more this side than far side and the 6th drawn 12 ended up far side.

At least I can now blame the draw for Strike Reds run...and I thought it was slow away and didnt try.

Another question is why do they come up the middle if the far side is more favourable?
 
Outsider said:
I love stats and Barjons figures are powerful,but I do have concerns.
In the big sprint the winner was drawn 4 but was more this side than far side and the 6th drawn 12 ended up far side.
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With Blackrod I think the jockey just decided to follow the pace, which was cut out by Justanotherbottle in the centre. As for Jumby, Buick was on him and he badly missed the break - personally think the jockey was doing a draw/track reccy for Native Trail. First Folio ran well from a near side draw in that race.

The last race on the Sunday was interesting from a draw point of view - the horses in traps 1 and 2 raced a little apart from the rest of the field and finished first and second. The third, a rag 33/1 poke raced in the middle but went far side as they went into the dip and beat the rest of the field despite the additional ground covered.
 
No one has yet answered the question - why do expierenced groundstaff and officials, supposedly, balls up the watering year-after-year?
 
reet hard said:
No one has yet answered the question - why do expierenced groundstaff and officials, supposedly, balls up the watering year-after-year?
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Because you can't get two people to agree on pretty much anything these days so why do you expect thousands of people sticking their oar in to all have the same opinion
 
reet hard said:
But, isn't your direct implication that all these proffesionals, with actual hands-on experience, are morons too?
And why would I search through years of replays to establish something I already know?
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Where have I ever suggested they are morons? They have a watering system that was installed years ago and bar digging it all up and starting again there’s not much they can do about it if it is providing uneven watering however clever and experienced they may be. Your mind seems closed on it. I have produced evidence by virtue of the preponderance of low drawn winners and the absence of any highly drawn ones. You have produced nothing but your opinion and a bit of mild abuse. So be it, we’d best agree to disagree :).
 
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Outsider said:
Another question is why do they come up the middle if the far side is more favourable?
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To give them a choice I imagine. Most will act better with other horses to race against rather than being left on their own
if the best horses happen to be on the nearside and the advantage of the farside isn't enough.
 
barjon said:
What you don’t do, reet, is explain the results. Here they are again, straight track winners’ draw for the meeting: 5 2 2 2 1 1 4 7 1 1 3 6 2 3 3 1 3 1 that’s 50% drawn 1 or 2 and both Guineas 1.

Not only was there a massive proportion of draws 1 and 2, but there were only three above 4 - 5,6,7 - and none at all higher than 7. If those results don’t indicate a bias I don’t know what does.
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In deference to your wish, I've begun to check replays.
Only managed Friday's so far and results are not at all surprising. Every darn race was won where the pace was.
Bear in mind it is a RH track, smallish fields, so the field will naturally gravitate toward that rail.
From the limited infomation available, nobody actually in the races breathed a sigh about your 'golden highway'.
 
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reet hard said:
In deference to your wish, I've begun to check replays.
Only managed Friday's so far and results are not at all surprising. Every darn race was won where the pace was.
Bear in mind it is a RH track, smallish fields, so the field will naturally gravitate toward that rail.
From the limited infomation available, nobody actually in the races breathed a sigh about your 'golden highway'.
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Find me one race this season where they came up the near rail.
 
reet hard said:
In deference to your wish, I've begun to check replays.
Only managed Friday's so far and results are not at all surprising. Every darn race was won where the pace was.
Bear in mind it is a RH track, smallish fields, so the field will naturally gravitate toward that rail.
From the limited infomation available, nobody actually in the races breathed a sigh about your 'golden highway'.
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Not my golden highway, reet, that was quoted in the article. I don’t dispute at all that the pace was there, but it would be wouldn’t it if horses were able to travel a tad faster there? As I said much, much earlier before I started looking at the stats, my own eye was struck by looking at the bigger field closing stages where it looked as those on the far side moved forward more strongly when the field entered the dip, although I concede there was nothing scientific about gaining that impression.

I can’t get away from the fact that over the last two Guineas meetings taken as a whole 81% of the races run wholly on the straight course were won by horses drawn 4 or less and no hooves from a horse drawn higher than 7 trod the winners enclosure. 81%!! Surely, there’s got be something up.

Anyway I seem to becoming obsessive and probably boring about it, so I’d better back off.
 
Timeform's Jim McGrath quoted a famous jockey, who when asked what was the best draw replied 'where the pace is'. I think Reet Hard is right that it's the major factor in defining the best place to be drawn. As an example I'd look at last year's 1000G where I think the two best horses in the race were drawn on the wrong side, Saffron Beach and Alcohol Free. Neither got to grips with the race, they looked to be up against from 4f out yet ran on well. They both proved themselves superior to the winner later in the season.
To list all of the results on the Rowley Mile isn't sufficient. I can't believe in fields of fewer than 6-7 runners that the draw matters. However I don't think 'where the pace is' is the only factor. I do think artificial watering brings about inconsistencies. It's nothing to do with the groundstaff being morons, it's just that artificial watering can never be as uniform as natural rainfall. The current trend has been to deliver good/good to soft ground which I'm against but that's another story. But when you get a month like April when it hardly rains, it's nigh on impossible to produce fair good ground. 2 weeks ago if you'd looked at advanced going reports it would be good/good to firm (watering). So Saturday's ground had been watered and I believe favoured the lower half of the draw.
So I agree with Reet Hard but think it's not the whole story. Whatever it was Coroebus had all the pluses and Native Trail had none. I think Native Trail could go on to be champion miler this year.
Is anyone else surprised that Coroebus is not being talked-off as a Derby possible. I should think, with his pedigree and his style of running, he could easily get 12f at Epsom. Maybe when all the Godolphin Derby hopes flop he'll be considered.
 
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