Cheltenham Sectionals

EC1 said:
to try and expand on that Grass..When Punjabi ran.. the ground was a lot slower than yesterday..2 seconds per mile slower..he ran in those conditions up to the 3rd hurdle in 86.20..the same as HF bar 4 hundreths of a second.. in those conditions going that fast was seriously going to damage the final time..yet he still managed to run from the 2nd last to line in 43.1..just 1 second slower than yesterdays
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Surely, though, the only logical conclusion one could draw from the comparative times, is that Punjabi's was the better Champion Hurdle, EC?

That patently isn't the case on every other measure, so is the time misleading, or the other evidence in the formbook?

If the time is misleading, might there be valid reasons for this? Or is my base conclusion all wrong? If it is, what is the correct conslusion to draw from the comparative times?

Genuine questions - trying to see if I can get my head round this angle. :cool:
 
Grasshopper said:
Surely, though, the only logical conclusion one could draw from the comparative times, is that Punjabi's was the better Champion Hurdle, EC?

That patently isn't the case on every other measure, so is the time misleading, or the other evidence in the formbook?

If the time is misleading, might there be valid reasons for this? Or is my base conclusion all wrong? If it is, what is the correct conslusion to draw from the comparative times?

Genuine questions - trying to see if I can get my head round this angle. :cool:
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no i don't think Punjabi is the better horse..it just doesn't equate how it took 42 seconds yesterday..i'm mystified by it tbh
 
I'll check that out..cheers

The final times today worked to a tee pointing to very similar going apart from two slowly run races..think the ground was similar to yesterdays

Race-------------------Race Par---Time
4m chase--------------497.3----512.1----= 14.8 slow---= slow 0.46 per fur
Neptune---------------301.5----316.6----= 15.1 slow---= slow 0.72 per fur
RSA Chase ------------369.2----385.8----= 16.6 slow---= slow 0.68 per fur
Champion Chase------232.6----240.3----= 7.67 slow---= slow 0.48 per fur
Coral Hurdle-----------302.5----311.1----= 8.60 slow---= slow 0.41 per fur
Fred Winter------------235.6--- 241.2----= 5.62 slow---= slow 0.34 per fur

The Fred Winter was the fastest race and if the second horse is used it gives a going allowance in line with the others slow by 0.40 pf ish.

The going looks about 0.40 to 0.45 slow per furlong which points to proper Good To Soft ground
 
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Grasshopper said:
Isn't any kind of analysis which relies on a very precise measurement (in this case time) diluted somewhat, when you start complementing it with imprecise measurements such as 'similar ground', or even 'very similar ground'.

Given we're talking fractions of seconds, surely even subtle variations in ground conditions will influence the overall time, and therefore the analysis?
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If anyone has an answer to this, I'm all ears. :cool:
 
Grasshopper said:
If anyone has an answer to this, I'm all ears. :cool:
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not sure what you wanting here tbh..i can list all the races i've got with all the sectionals corrected for the going on the day..but i haven't done that as people then say..how do you know you have calculated the going correctly?

you can represent sectionals by % which ignores the ground..but you then can't really judge anything about the worth of the actual run..just where the pace was
 
doomster said:
I'm guessing you have watched this but I will bang it up.

http://www.racinguk.com/video/watch/cheltenham-split-screen


Angus seems to think the damage was done accelerating up the hill.
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We need to see more of that on cooncil TV!

Interesting that ROR was 16 lengths ahead of Champagne Fever at halfway despite the ground possibly being softer. The obvious conclusion is that they've gone way too fast in the Champion (yet Grandouet was doing it on the bit where the Fly could live with it) but that's an awful long way from saying Champagne Fever is better than anything that ran in the champion (not that anyone is saying it).

I'd be pretty sure if the CH field went at the same pace as the Supreme the main hopes would have slaughtered Champagne Fever.
 
16 lengths?

not sure where you are seeing that

if you watch it again..but instead of watching ROR..watch where HF is in relation to CF...at the third they take it just about together..at the 4th HF is a couple in front...he's about 5 or 6 behind ROR..so at that point ROR isn't 16 lengths in front
 
Just watched it again. At a couple of stages ROR is clearly 5-6 strides (10-12) lengths ahead. When I watched it earlier I must have miscounted it as 8 strides.
 
Desert Orchid said:
Just watched it again. At a couple of stages ROR is clearly 5-6 strides (10-12) lengths ahead. When I watched it earlier I must have miscounted it as 8 strides.
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watching it like that is ok but when you are changing view from one to another you lose a bit of whats happening

i'll stick to the timings i think..its easier:lol:
 
I think the CH 'pace collapse' is bollox, frankly.
In the normal course of events you'd expect novices to be around 2 secs slower, yet here they were 2 secs to the good, Nowhere, at any stage of the respective races, was there anything like 4 secs between them.
For mine, Ruby (CF) set the ideal pace for a horse needing further, leading from the off and gradually stretching them while keeping enough in reserve for the finish. Noel Fehily, in contrast, led at a a stop/go pace on ROR, and hadn't stretched the field nearly enough to to take the sting out of Hurricane Fly.
Put Ruby on a different horse in both races, and either result could well have been overturned. The man's a genius.
 
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reet hard said:
I think the CH 'pace collapse' is bollox, frankly.
In the normal course of events you'd expect novices to be around 2 secs slower, yet here they were 2 secs to the good, Nowhere, at any stage of the respective races, was there anything like 4 secs between them.
For mine, Ruby (CF) set the ideal pace for a horse needing further, leading from the off and gradually stretching them while keeping enough in reserve for the finish. Noel Fehily, in contrast, led at a a stop/go pace on ROR, and hadn't stretched the field nearly enough to to take the sting out of Hurricane Fly.
Put Ruby on a different horse in both races, and either result could well have been overturned. The man's a genius.
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I think Ruby couldn't believe the injection of pace at the top of the hill..and thats what caught him out for a few seconds on HF...he was probably thinking wtf....no way would he have stepped up like Fehily did if he had been on ROR...all Fehily had to do was go similar to what he did last year to keep it even...he had done well up to that point.

If Ruby hadn't have gone after them at that point he would have won easier than he did when you look at the time the race took from the second last..he could have cruised 15 length behind em from the top of the hill whilst they burned themselves
 
I agree with EC1 about the champion hurdle pace


about Ruby
I think he didnt do anything special this meeting.
Quevega saved him,
Rode a stinker on Inish island
Pont alexandre another bad ride
some of falls (silvianaco, marito)

Good ride on champagne ,
Nothing especial with hurricane

He has ridden in the festival 20 races,
7 horses at 4/1 or shorter
he won 4 races that someone like cooper, carberry, gerathy, mccoy or twonend would have won

Ruby is a very good jockey, he is good for the big occassion but what is remarkable about him is the diplomatic skills to have a job like he has, riding at the same time for Mullins and Nicholls
 
sunybay said:
I agree with EC1 about the champion hurdle pace


about Ruby
I think he didnt do anything special this meeting.
Quevega saved him,
Rode a stinker on Inish island
Pont alexandre another bad ride
some of falls (silvianaco, marito)

Good ride on champagne ,
Nothing especial with hurricane

He has ridden in the festival 20 races,
7 horses at 4/1 or shorter
he won 4 races that someone like cooper, carberry, gerathy, mccoy or twonend would have won

Ruby is a very good jockey, he is good for the big occassion but what is remarkable about him is the diplomatic skills to have a job like he has, riding at the same time for Mullins and Nicholls
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Crap, ain't he.:lol:
Where do you work?
 
I didn't think he was great on PA. should have kicked on earlier but seemed intent on riding PA for a turn of foot which he's never shown. I thought his ride on Inish island was good though, game of opinions I guess.
 
I'm sure he would've, Aragorn, had he felt the horse was right.
It was so obviously the wrong ride for the horse, right from the early stages, that Ruby was palpably more interested in conserving the horse than any effort to win on it.
 
A conclusion you could only arrive at if mesmerised by the stopwatch, imo.
Firstly, I'd doubt many jockeys would even be aware of the time the first race was run in, rather relying on what they invariably do - their own impression, and what their colleagues reported.
Secondly, the Supreme was undoubtedly one of the strongest run races of the whole Festival, although a novice race, producing the highest T/S figure of the entire first 3 days (4th day not yet reported)
Last (and certainly not least :)) the Champion Hurdle was won by a horse you yourself were wont to believe was 'speed horse', from 3 horses probably all better over further, which clearly indicates the race wasn't nearly the stamina test you'd need to make your figures fit.
Sometimes, just sometimes, you just have to believe what your eyes are telling you.
 
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