Champion Hurdle 2015

Grasshopper said:
To be fair, reet was referencing an earlier use of "guessers" by yourself.

No matter. You are clearly fed-up trying to educate me, and I'm fed-up trying to understand it, so we can call it a score draw. A robust CH debate between us was long overdue anyway! :D
Click to expand...

i am impressed you are interested..but i know your heart is not in it:)
 
Grasshopper said:
You sure about this Frankel?

Couldn't win a Greatwood off 147 despite getting run of race? He will surely be outclassed by TNO....no?
Click to expand...

Without hard evidence to back it up, I wander if he was on the worst ground hugging the inside. Travelled well enough too. Was his first run, and how fit he was is another question. TNO isn't the speediest so I would expect Vaniteux to cling to him for a fair way at least.

As I say, I am open minded regards Vaniteux, but he just may well turn in to a Champion horse yet.
 
Frankel said:
Still open minded about Vaniteux atm. Hopefully he takes on TNO at the weekend. I would expect him to give TNO a real examination.
Click to expand...

Perhaps you are right but he should have won the Greatwood off that mark to be a Champion Hurdle horse I would have thought..
 
I gave it my best shot, EC......but your assessment is correct.

I don't have the time, the patience, the inclination or the numeracy skills needed to make this type of analysis work for me.
 
Hamm said:
Perhaps you are right but he should have won the Greatwood off that mark to be a Champion Hurdle horse I would have thought..
Click to expand...
I'm not so sure, I remember the year Osana was 2nd in the Greatwood behind Sizing Europe, Osana went on to run a cracker in the Champion, a length off Katchit in 2nd.

Admittedly this crop of 2 mile champion hurdlers looks of a higher class, but then that probably includes Vaniteux aswell I would have thought. I wouldn't write him off based on the Greatwood form.
 
Last edited:
Osana was trying to give 6lbs to a horse called Sizing Europe that day, marble, so not sure it's an apples-for-apples comparison.

With the benefit of hindsight, it's near miracle that anything finished remotely close to Sizing that day, given he ran from a laughably-low mark of 137. Just the 30lbs well in then! :lol:
 
marble said:
I'm not so sure, I remember the year Osana was 2nd in the Greatwood behind Sizing Europe, Osana went on to run a cracker in the Champion, a length off Katchit in 2nd.

Admittedly this crop of 2 mile champion hurdlers looks of a higher class, but then that probably includes Vaniteux aswell I would have thought. I wouldn't write him off based on the Greatwood form.
Click to expand...

Osana might well have won that CH had it not been for him trying to make all the running...........totally exposed with no cover he ran straight into a 40mph headwind that must have been like hitting a brick wall at the top of the hill
 
Grasshopper said:
These 'pars' you use, EC1......can their accuracy be validated through empirical analysis.......or are they guesswork?
Click to expand...

The only way to "validate" - or construct - a 'par' % time is to compare it to previous editions of a particular race (or races run over the same C&D contested by horses of a similar class). Ideally the sample size would be a lot bigger than 3 races, but without sectional times the amount of leg-work required to watch and time each race would be enormous.**

You can't treat expected % energy output - to go back to one of your earlier posts - purely by distance between hurdles in a set way because of the difference in topography in different sections (especially at somewhere like Cheltenham). And that would be even if we could calculate how far each hurdle is from the line (maybe that would be something the BHA could look at to after they have finished calculating how far the tape should be from the line).

I completely subscribe to EC's way of thinking, but I do think it's a lot harder to make sense of this stuff over the jumps than with flat racing. If you use furlong markers rather than jumps (which are usually the only identifiable 'markers' in a jumps race), you can calculate how "efficiently" a horse ran to 100% and compare it to a par based on previous horses of a similar ability that have covered the same ground. If you don't have distance markers, you have to rely entirely on like-for-like comparisons over the same 'sections' (and if you broaden it out beyond the Champion, you run into issues such as whether the jumps were in the same place on different days etc).

**It may be that the %'s for each section aren't actually the most efficient for the track/distance - but to my mind that doesn't matter. If you have the average of 100 races over C&D (stripping out falsely-run outliers) that happen to be run inefficiently, you will get an inefficient average, but I'd be happy to wager that the next 100 races will be run (inefficiently) in similar time (or %) frames. And by far the most difficult thing about speed analysis, in my experience at least, is not figuring out how fast the last race was run - it's figuring out how fast one the next will be.
 
EC1 said:
the guessers should know though that the whole field was going the same speed as IF though

this theory that if a horse is 10 clear its going a lot faster than the rest of the field is flawed thinking...and fools many guessers when watching a race

all the times i've put up..are for the winners..not the leaders

IF used a bit more energy to get his lead..then the whole field go the same speed..if they don't..then the leader gets progressively further and further ahead...thats not how races are run

don't forget ..these horses are running at a certain mph above even pace for a long way in these situations..so the further they go..the more those mph's above par take their toll..its not like its a 5f race where sometimes you can out run a field even after setting strong fractions

don't forget also that even pace isn't a breeze in the park..its a decent pace..so to run well above that by some way early will wipe you out over 2 miles...or wipe a whole field out

check out some athletics times and see the small amount of speed above even pace that can seriously damage your final time...then translate that to running a race where you get the pace wrong by a third of a furlong at half way

like i said..if people think IF and horses that generally lead fast are going a lot faster than the rest of the field in mph..then i'll leave them with that understanding..there is nothing i can say will change mindsets

i don't really care tbh whether people think RB is the greatest CH winner or the worst....but any argument against mine wants to be based on reality..not an engrained ignorance of what happens in a race.

i've spent enough time on this..to be fair on a racing forum with all the experts on here..some one else should be pointing these things out as well..it appears to me no one seems to understand even the basics of how races are run..or are happy to just let someone else waste his time trying to get it across

people have engrained views re horse racing..and will ignore even the most obvious arguments to continue with how they think the game works..no one ever seems to want to learn anything or gain knowledge..its..well i have this type of thinking..and am not changing it for anyone.

i don't mind that..but at least back up this thinking with something that at least does approach some type of logic..not some dyed in the wool 70's betting shop theories passed down by old lads in flat caps....time is only important in jail mentality etc.
Click to expand...

Nail on head.

If it is true that most punters don't understand this (and I'm not entirely convinced it is true, to be honest) the obvious next question is... how do we make money from it?

To my way of thinking, there should be two factors to focus on:

- We should pay a lot more attention (than I do currently at least) to energy used up getting a position early in a race - particularly a strongly run race - and particularly horses that use up energy to get to the front early and win (or finish a lot closer than other horses who used up energy to be prominent). Similarly, horses that make ground late in slowly-run races need to be marked up (as per Simon Rowlands' sectional analysis).

- It should be acknowledged that horses are not travelling at the same speed during a race - they are making or losing ground all the time. Consequently, post-race sectional analysis should aim to pick out horses that have made ground/travelled faster at a time in the race where the pace is increasing, which is something I am becoming more and more concentrated on. Of course, without sectional timings for an individual horse we are relying on our eyes to inform us, but it seems a logical, and possibly unconsidered by many, 'angle' when analysing a race.

What do you reckon?
 
trackside528 said:
It should be acknowledged that horses are not travelling at the same speed during a race - they are making or losing ground all the time. Consequently, post-race sectional analysis should aim to pick out horses that have made ground/travelled faster at a time in the race where the pace is increasing, which is something I am becoming more and more concentrated on. Of course, without sectional timings for an individual horse we are relying on our eyes to inform us, but it seems a logical, and possibly unconsidered by many, 'angle' when analysing a race.
Click to expand...

It also needs to be acknowledged that horse aren't necessarily travelling at the same speed during any individual section.
Using 3f+ sectionals on undulating ground (as in the Derby, or the Champion Hurdle) is fraught with ignoring pace changes during protracted intervals of the race, and (without proper and even sections over uniform courses) the eyes (aided by a knowledge of previous form of the protagonists) will always be a better guide than sheer reliance on what the stopwatch tells us.
Just my view, but sectionals were originally designed for use over short, uniform courses, improved by adding half-furlong sections, and the further a race is over - Flat or NH - the less use they are as a tool for judging pace changes.
 
To be honest the figures debate should probably have it's own thread rather than on here.

Specifically to EC1, I understand the frustration, but I can tell you whilst I'm not in any way qualified to add to the debate, it has always interested me, and I'm genuinely appreciative of the work you do and the time and effort you put into posting. Parts of this will always be contentious, open to individual reading, and therefore debatable meaning that not all will agree or even subscribe. For me however there's no area of this I would dis, and I always read and try to absorb, and I suspect there are many other onlookers who do the same and stay silent.

Given the nature of jumps racing it'll always be harder to get right over the sticks. My view is it still has a value though, but my thoughts are figures need to be used in conjunction with other methods.

As an example, I remember having a debate with Alun elsewhere many moons ago, although if I'm honest I can't remember where we got to with it. My view however is that the nearest you'll get to having useful figures is from 2 mile graded hurdles, and from there is gets harder and harder to trust what you've got. He may well chip in on this, but I'm pretty sure and I'm not sure why, he had his most reliable figures from juvenile hurdles. He was having some considerable success when factoring likely improvement using an historical angle. And given the great work Bachelors Hall is also doing in this sphere, and with a possible breeding angle too, I reckon there's some real scope to put several methods together to find an angle.

It's this kind of work rather than a single method that can give an edge. The problem with using one method is many others do the same giving no edge when it comes to the odds. An open mind to the methods others use is important, but collaboration is the key.

From my perspective there are many factors I use to make a selection, but one of the key factors I've used recently is predicting the likely pace of the race. I met a guy in Australia who has done this very successfully for flat racing, and recently I've been trying to adapt this to UK and Irish jumps with some early success. Given the pace of a race can fundamentally change outcomes this area surely should be something that is factored in when using speed figures is it not? And taking this back to the title of the thread. I'm sure most would agree that the pace of previous Champion Hurdles has a had a fundamental impact on results.
 
Last edited:
Maruco said:
To be honest the figures debate should probably have it's own thread rather than on here.

Specifically to EC1, I understand the frustration, but I can tell you whilst I'm not in any way qualified to add to the debate, it has always interested me, and I'm genuinely appreciative of the work you do and the time and effort you put into posting. Parts of this will always be contentious, open to individual reading, and therefore debatable meaning that not all will agree or even subscribe. For me however there's no area of this I would dis, and I always read and try to absorb, and I suspect there are many other onlookers who do the same and stay silent.

Given the nature of jumps racing it'll always be harder to get right over the sticks. My view is it still has a value though, but my thoughts are figures need to be used in conjunction with other methods.

As an example, I remember having a debate with Alun elsewhere many moons ago, although if I'm honest I can't remember where we got to with it. My view however is that the nearest you'll get to having useful figures is from 2 mile graded hurdles, and from there is gets harder and harder to trust what you've got. He may well chip in on this, but I'm pretty sure and I'm not sure why, he had his most reliable figures from juvenile hurdles. He was having some considerable success when factoring likely improvement using an historical angle. And given the great work Bachelors Hall is also doing in this sphere, and with a possible breeding angle too, I reckon there's some real scope to put several methods together to find an angle.

It's this kind of work rather than a single method that can give an edge. The problem with using one method is many others do the same giving no edge when it comes to the odds. An open mind to the methods others use is important, but collaboration is the key.

From my perspective there are many factors I use to make a selection, but one of the key factors I've used recently is predicting the likely pace of the race. I met a guy in Australia who has done this very successfully for flat racing, and recently I've been trying to adapt this to UK and Irish jumps with some early success. Given the pace of a race can fundamentally change outcomes this area surely should be something that is factored in when using speed figures is it not? And taking this back to the title of the thread. I'm sure most would agree that the pace of previous Champion Hurdles has a had a fundamental impact on results.
Click to expand...


thats a good post

one thing i'm not saying here is that its as useful for nh as it is for the flat...on the AW i only use sectional analysis to get 95% of the selections i put on the what you backing thread..and i've only been analysing in real depth this year since i took redundancy. I know for a fact that if you apply figure analysis to AW..you can make a lot of money...one reason being very few will take the time to to it..and do it in a way that is profitable.

Over the jumps i rarely do sectionals..but this race i have a lot of data for..and i think as a post race tool it does help to see how these top races were run

Its not really hard to work out what races to use to set a par for ideal/even pace for this exercise...i generally just throw out the obvious slow pace ones and take an average..but..as i showed on this thread..you can use small samples ..IF they are very useful examples. People want to see lets say 100 races to prove the figures are accurate pars..but thats flawed..because in those 100 races you will get races that were run too slow early...then your average par is wrong..but you have used a lot of data there..which looks impressive..but isn't.

We are back this accuracy thing i've mentioned before..punters readily accept a race might be 1.5f different to advertised..the ground might be 50lb per mile slower than they are informed of..and are quite happy to accept that...but tell them a race was run too fast early on..and its...oooh i can't see that..i hope you figures are to the nearest millisecond or i won't believe it.

It doesn't really matter whether people are bothered or not about this as far as i'm concerned..but its interesting how when we watch a big race..the commentator might say..oh they've gone a good pace here..and i can guarantee someone will just take that as read and quote it when discussing the race..just because someone told them it was and they then convinced themselves it was a decent pace. So sometime later whne someone actually shows it wasn't...they won't accept it..brain won't let them..as they have convinced themselves from the moment the race finished..it was run in whatever way they were told whilst watching it.
 
I'd echo the majority of Maruco's post.

The paranoiac in me wondered if EC1 was having a wee dig at me for not contributing to the time debate as he knows I compile time ratings but I don't usually rely on them and I didn't want to contribute anything that would inflame the situation. EC1 also knows I'm much more of a form student who likes to see whether times back up cast doubt on form. I'll never agree with him regarding RB's Champion Hurdle so I keep out of that debate and I'd still argue he'd have won in 2004 if Johnson hadn't given him a hard race in the TGT. Even Lord H settled our gentlemen's agreement ahead of the festival.

I am an avid reader of EC1's sectional posts and these threads come to life when they provoke intelligent, respectful debate. Once they start straying away from decorum I stop reading. Like many, I have a limited attention span, though, and I confess I don't read all of Bachelors Hall's excellent work on the juvenile scene but it doesn't mean I respect him or it any less. There just aren't enough hours in the day to do everything and my focus is on the big weekend races so I tend not to get too into things midweek. I even made the ancapallesque decision not to row in with Slim's good thing yesterday because I didn't read the message until after the horse had shortened to a best-price 7/2. I'd have felt I'd lost anyway.

Regardless of where EC1 posts his figures and thoughts they're always worth reading and I understand how disheartening it can be spending hours working stuff out and sharing it with the best intentions only for people to come back and either snipe or nitpick, most of all when the snipers and nitpickers seldom contribute anything beyond their own opinion which often isn't backed up. I actually don't mind people ignoring it. Doesn't bother me in the least. It might mean I stop seeing the point of sharing but I'll always have the stuff myself and I hope EC1 pretty much sees it that way too but I really enjoy his stuff. I find when our findings back each other up I'm that bit more confident.
 
Desert Orchid said:
I'd echo the majority of Maruco's post.

The paranoiac in me wondered if EC1 was having a wee dig at me for not contributing to the time debate as he knows I compile time ratings but I don't usually rely on them and I didn't want to contribute anything that would inflame the situation. EC1 also knows I'm much more of a form student who likes to see whether times back up cast doubt on form. I'll never agree with him regarding RB's Champion Hurdle so I keep out of that debate and I'd still argue he'd have won in 2004 if Johnson hadn't given him a hard race in the TGT. Even Lord H settled our gentlemen's agreement ahead of the festival.

I am an avid reader of EC1's sectional posts and these threads come to life when they provoke intelligent, respectful debate. Once they start straying away from decorum I stop reading. Like many, I have a limited attention span, though, and I confess I don't read all of Bachelors Hall's excellent work on the juvenile scene but it doesn't mean I respect him or it any less. There just aren't enough hours in the day to do everything and my focus is on the big weekend races so I tend not to get too into things midweek. I even made the ancapallesque decision not to row in with Slim's good thing yesterday because I didn't read the message until after the horse had shortened to a best-price 7/2. I'd have felt I'd lost anyway.

Regardless of where EC1 posts his figures and thoughts they're always worth reading and I understand how disheartening it can be spending hours working stuff out and sharing it with the best intentions only for people to come back and either snipe or nitpick, most of all when the snipers and nitpickers seldom contribute anything beyond their own opinion which often isn't backed up. I actually don't mind people ignoring it. Doesn't bother me in the least. It might mean I stop seeing the point of sharing but I'll always have the stuff myself and I hope EC1 pretty much sees it that way too but I really enjoy his stuff. I find when our findings back each other up I'm that bit more confident.
Click to expand...

good post DO..good one

no i wasn't digging at you personally..there are many here who like the time aspect and i do seem to get a bit isolated in these discussions becasue there are usually more people who post against than for..so i just get a bit frustrated

i don't think my analysis is set in stone either..but i do know that actually looking within a race with figures is a more accurate way of assessing a race than watching it for me anyway..like i said.

One thing i wouldn't do is this..read a lot of information that someone has spent a lot of time on..then just rubbish it

if i went on Bachelors thread and said..well what a load of bollocks..you don't know what you are talking about..i would imagine every person who posts here would destroy me with verbals..and rightly so. But when you post anything here re times..thats basically what happens..not on this thread i'll add..at least it has been discussed in a proper way on this one

I'm very happy how i analyse the game..mainly flat obviously..and if what i do is flawed..how do i get the results i get?..which aren't bad i don't think..so must be doing something right
 
Last edited:
I have little appetite to be honest to engage in a Talking Horse mud flinging fest (would much rather prefer to do that on other non racing threads) but I'll add a couple of things

The first thing to understand is that stamina is a factor of pace and has little to do with distance. You can see the same thing happen in track and field. The winner of an Olympic 400m Gold Medal will burst the tape, collapse on the floor, and be gulping in oxygen as fast as he can in a desperate attempt to recover. They'll barely be able to give an interview. By contrast Mo Farah can qualify in a heat at a distance 12 times further, put his hands on hips and walk away smiling and perfectly capable of talking with little more than perhaps a hint of heavy breathing. Why? It isn't hard to work out, but people who blindly invoke a distance win without making any concession to pace only have half a picture

This is a mistake that jumps fans make very often when assessing 2 mile races which they mistakenly equate 'minimum distance' with 'speed'. What they think is speed, very often is stamina. The last horse to stop slowing up. 2 miles let us not forget is actually a quite energy sapping distance. It's only because its the minimum trip over jumps that people get seduced into thinking its a greyhound race. It ain't

Speed itself comes in two forms

There is the galloping speed of a horse that goes through the sections at a strong even pace and returns an fast time. There is no other way of running a fast time. Horses have a cubic capacity (lungs) and their biomechanics ensure that they have a maximum speed whereby they wouldn't get their legs out in time to support their forward movement if they exceed this. In other words they'd fall over nose first into the turf. Think of this as cruising speed

The second type of speed is tactical speed, that is to say the horse that can use its fast twitch to settle a race with a devastaing burst of acceleration which they can drag out to a maximum of about four furlongs. Typically a horse can only use this weapon once in a race, and once its deployed it won't be there at the end of a race. You see plenty of these types of races in novice hurdles where a visually impressive winner skips clear and is immediately installed at a prohibitive short price. The first time they're asked to run at a Championship pace though they become vulnerable

In open company Hurricane Fly is a good example of a horse that wins using tactical pace and becomes a lot more vulnerable to a strong pace

If you don't want to calculate your own figures, you can use the Posts

Simply look for the winning TS and RPR of a race (Hurricane Fly is a good horse to do this with actually). If the differential between the two is 7Ibs or less, then you have evidence of strongly run race. Remember it's the winners stats you want, not those for the horse under the microscope as it's easy to make that mistake

When you split Hurricane Fly's races into strong, moderate, and slow, (including those on the flat - as it's the sam epair of lungs and muscles he's using) you'll see a very definite pattern which no one would fancy backing 5/4 about in a bigger field strongly run race. I think he's won once in something like eight attempts in such races, yet has harvested more slowly contested races by using tactical speed
 
EC1 said:
One thing i wouldn't do is this..read a lot of information that someone has spent a lot of time on..then just rubbish it

if i went on Bachelors thread and said..well what a load of bollocks..you don't know what you are talking about..i would imagine every person who posts here would destroy me with verbals..and rightly so. But when you post anything here re times..thats basically what happens..not on this thread i'll add..at least it has been discussed in a proper way on this one

I'm very happy how i analyse the game..mainly flat obviously..and if what i do is flawed..how do i get the results i get?..which aren't bad i don't think..so must be doing something right
Click to expand...

Who has rubbished your analysis, EC1?

It is a figment of your imagination.
 
Including Flat runs to trash the Fly's overall stats, and prop-up a theory....because "it's the same set of lungs and muscles"? What about physical development over time, or through different training regimes, etc?

You can poke that load of oud boll*ocks where the sun don't shine, pal!* :nono:

* This message has been brought to you by "Grasshopper Curation Ltd"
 
Last edited:
Grasshopper said:
Including Flat runs to trash the Fly's overall stats, and prop-up a theory....because "it's the same set of lungs and muscles"? What about physical development over time, or through different training regimes, etc?

You can poke that load of oud boll*ocks where the sun don't shine, pal!* :nono:

* This message has been brought to you by "Grasshopper Curation Ltd"
Click to expand...

"trash" let us establish is an emotive word that you introduced. I invited you to look coldly at some data from a neutral source and told you how to do so. If it doesn't suit the conclusions you want to hear, then that's too bad, but I'm sure you can see why you frustrate EC, as he'll adopt a more scientific approach which shuts out emotion whereas you wear blinkers. I'm not too concerned as it happens, as I said, I really can't be that bothered with the racing threads.

I understand EC's analysis, and if it were a boxing match, the ref would have stopped you some time ok whilst you were protesting how fit you were to carry on despite having had both eyes punched closed, and self-proclaiming a draw

Why EC bothers, i don't know. I think a thread that runs out to 40 odd pages about fishwives and fear is a lot more informative. Good luck with it

Oh, and in the finest traditions of after timing, since the allegation is of "propping up a theory". I did actually lay Hurricane Fly, backed Rock on Ruby to win, and backed Overturn to place. No propping up therefore, but backed with my own money. I got 12/1 Rock on Ruby as I recall, and 25/1 e/w on the McCain horse, on top of the lay of Hurricane Fly. It was a good Champion Hurdle.

There is a more interesting analysis concerning the respective Supreme as it happens and what that tells you about the stamina of both Hurricane Fly and Peddlers Cross, but as OFSTED would say, standards have declined and since we can't get off the first base, we'd better not even try and introduce that. I would be interested in Hurricane Fly in the stayers hurdle though, as that race isn't the drain on stamina that people think it is. The Champion Hurdle will normally take a hurdler to the edge of their endurance before a stayers will despite the latter being a mile further. If its run at a middling pace, the Fly would potentially be a factor in what looks like a weak renewal (aside from one horse in Ireland)

*Brought to you by Warblers underground secret data laboratory in deepest Caithness
 
Last edited:
I was only pulling yer leg a bit, Warbler - calm doon.

But surely even you can see that the Flat runs are totally irrelevant, and if they weren't used, you would have nothing very much at all to hang your thesis onto?
 
Back
Top