Coral Eclipse Stakes

Shadow Leader said:
RVW was also beaten by Delegator and Gan Amhras in the Guineas, and Fame and Glory and Mastercraftsman in the Derby so I can't quite have it that he is just unlucky to come up against one special horse. He most probably wouldn't have won either of the first two colts' Classics on current evidence, Sea The Stars or no.
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He wasn't really trained for the Guineas, though. That's my point as far as that race is concerned. He wasn't even given a hard race in it yet wasn't beaten far and my immediate post-race comment was to say it was a very impressive performance by STS. The race appears to have knocked Delegator backwards for his next run and GA, it seems, still hasn't recovered.

I reckon you can write off the Derby. The horse was an unlikely stayer, was ridden like one and was also given far too much to do in a race the yard tried to tee up for it, to the point of sacrificing the chances of their true stayer FAG.

I think it's pretty obvious that if he'd been trained for the Guineas he'd have been a good second to STS and he really shouldn't have been sent to Epsom but clearly they felt he was better by some way to FAG. The plan failed.

I accept I will come across as making excuses and coming up with scenarios to suit the figures I've come up with for Saturday. I'm OK with that. I've done it before and I've been right. I've done it before and I've been wrong. Time will tell.
 
I think RVW is definitely being overrated a bit here. His performances in the guineas and derby are definitely miles off hawk wing's two, both of which were superb, in completely different regards too. I would say at this stage mastercraftsman over 10 furlongs, and F&G over 12 (and perhaps 10) would be favoured to beat him.
 
Galileo said:
Initially I thought Conduit ran miles below form...but looking back at it he won a Leger from a Group 2/3 filly and won a Breeders Cup Turf coming from last off a suicidal pace set by Soldier Of Fortune and co. Likely to be better over further but probably by not that much....one to oppose in the King George.
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Conduit also beat the Derby fourth, the Oaks winner and the Irish Derby winner in that Leger.
 
Looking yet again at the form and trying to get into the heads of the handicappers, it may well be that they're taking a conservative view of the Brigadier Gerard and working from there.

RPRs for that race were as follows:
CDT 115 (1lb below its OR and 4lbs below its Arc RPR)
Conduit 121 (1lb below its St Leger RPR, 4lbs below its OR and 6lbs below its BC RPR)
Stotsfold 112+ (4lbs below its OR and 7lbs below its end of season RPR)
Drumfire 111 (7lbs above its OR and the same as its previous best RPR)
Pipedreamer 111 (6lbs below its OR and 9lbs below its previous best RPR)
Staying On 110 (same as OR; same as previous best RPR)
Steele Tango 109 (1lb below OR; 4lbs below previous best RPR achieved in the same race as Pipedreamer's best RPR)

It looks like they've rated the race via Drumfire and Staying On, therefore concluding the others weren't at their best.

This is interesting because my time rating for CDT in the Brigadier Gerard was 109, not far off what it should have been, and the Raceform speed ratings had it bang on par at 113, so it can’t really be considered a falsely run race, therefore there aren't particularly strong grounds for believing the others were below par.

Taking Conduit as 121 brings the figures down by 7lbs, putting STS on 131+. The problem I have with that is that it doesn’t allow for any improvement from Conduit from its seasonal debut when some good judges claimed it looked as though it would come on for the run and was reportedly coltish beforehand. Another problem is that it means CDT has gone backwards by 3lbs and the others by much more. Stotsfold has come out and won in France while Drumfire has been beaten when upped in trip and held up in a slow race. Pipedreamer and Staying On have still to race again.

It still all points to a conservative figure for the winner in my view but I’m coming round to the idea that my own figures may be a tad high.

Another thought:

When time ratings fail to match form ratings and lesser horses have run apparently in advance of expectations, I tend to be wary of the higher ratings for the latter and work on the assumption that a race within a race took place. That is, that the lesser horses have run their own races relative to each other while the better ones have done likewise but at a slower speed. Just another angle...
 
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The problem for me is the distance that Conduit and the rest have been beaten by. 4 1/2 lengths and then another five back to the rest.

I find it difficult to accept that Sea The Stars and Rip Van Winkle have run to a figure about 10lbs. better than their Derby efforts.

Are those distances exaggerated for some reason? can't really come up with one.
 
It's not that the distances between horses in the Eclipse were exaggerated; it's that the distances between horses in the Derby were overly compressed due to the slower pace.
 
That depends how you look at it - was Rip Van Winkle flattered to get so close in the Derby because of how the race was run, or was he actually just as inconvenienced by the slow pace as Fame And Glory and (yes, despite winning it) Sea The Stars?
 
BTW I'm guilty of giving Jim McGrath plenty of stick, but his Eclipse commentary was top notch.
 
Galileo said:
That is fair enough. I have long held Rip Van Winkle in high regard (higher than most on here) but 136 does not sit well with me but I bow to the knowledge of some of the ratings buffs on here.
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136 is a pound better than Nashwan after he had gone on to win the KG following the Guineas, Derby and Eclipse. RVW 136!! you have to be frigging kidding.
 
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Desert Orchid said:
I'm not being paid to be conservative so I'll re-state the first two are brilliant horses and the form is accurate.
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RPRs are not conservative. They are normally much more generous than ORs. The RPR and the OR are the same on 131 (an indication that this is fairly accurate). Although I'd be prepared to give 133p by Timeform house room, anything higher is plain ridiculous at this stage. STS is not the best Guineas or Derby winner we have seen. The Eclipse was very good, but let's get some grip on reality.
 
SteveM said:
RPRs are not conservative. They are normally much more generous than ORs. The RPR and the OR are the same on 131 (an indication that this is fairly accurate). Although I'd be prepared to give 133p by Timeform house room, anything higher is plain ridiculous at this stage. STS is not the best Guineas or Derby winner we have seen. The Eclipse was very good, but let's get some grip on reality.
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I'll concede your opening point, Steve. They are, however, equally guilty of being hopelessly conservative, as they were when Ghanaati won the Guineas. Where was their grip on reality there. In fact, I think a few of us were accused of going OTT with our 123-ish for Ghanaati that day. Who was right? What's to say we're not right now?

Don't forget, Nashwan the wodner horse only scraped home by ½l from Cacoethes in his King George. Good horse though he was, Nashwan was no Troy. STS is as good as Troy.
 
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Desert Orchid said:
I'll concede your opening point, Steve. They are, however, equally guilty of being hopelessly conservative, as they were when Ghanaati won the Guineas. Where was their grip on reality there. In fact, I think a few of us were accused of going OTT with our 123-ish for Ghanaati that day. Who was right? What's to say we're not right now?
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It’s not that I’m criticising your method of rating horses, I’m not (indeed quite the contrary, I look forward to seeing your ratings). But they are only of any real value when comparing to your own ratings on other horses. While your method clearly uses the same basis of calculation, different rating organisations will have different sets of filters attached. Most of your ratings are very high compared with ORs for example (half a stone or more on top sometimes). There is nothing wrong with this until people start to compare one set of ratings with other – like comparing apples with oranges – and applying them randomly to ill effect.

If we are taking the IC as a standard, there is no way STS is a 138 colt (at least not yet) and certainly no way RVW is a 136 colt.

As for Nashwan… you must have seen his Eclipse. The field contained the champions from the two previous season and a subsequent BC winner and he hung them out to dry.

A reminder of what a good colt he was: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bL33IF-3vP8
 
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I'd say my figures are to the same scale as ICs/ORs.

The reason horses win handicaps, for example, is because they are too leniently rated by ORs (and, by implication, ICs). Perhaps there is less disparity at the very top of the scale but there is disparity nonetheless.

Obviously if figures are conservative across the board, as ORs tend to be, and new form is rated on those ORs, then the new figures will be conservative too.

What we have in the Eclipse is the authorities not even going by their own ratings because they make the front two look too good to be true. Why can't it be true for once in 40 years?

Nashwan's Eclipse can lead to some questions. Opening Verse was a 200/1 shot that day (pacemaker for Indian Skimmer?) but beat the latter for second place. Surely that must cast some doubt on the form. No pacemaker got within 28¼ lengths of the winner on Saturday!

Nashwan's Kig George saw a moderate horse called Top Class not beaten far in third and Cacoethes itself was a bit of an outsider.

I suspect Nashwan was over the hill and on the slide by the King George. Maybe the Eclipse bottomed him. STS arguably hasn't had anywhere near as hard a race in any of his three G1s this year and may well be fancied to go on improving.
 
Steve

I am not understanding why a 3yo can't produce a high figure early in the season..they add wfa to the figure so its a mature figure

I'll stick with my speed figure figure of 130 for this..thats without wfa..because adding it assumes too much..

I am enjoying reading your defence of the higher form figure though DO..but I do believe that Conduits rating should only be based on what he achieved previously at 10f..not 12 or more...it looks to me that the RPR's have been calculated using Conduits previous best 10f RPR

I believe that a 130 speed figure and a 130 RPR are right on the money tbh.
 
SteveM said:


As for Nashwan… you must have seen his Eclipse. The field contained the champions from the two previous season and a subsequent BC winner and he hung them out to dry.

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His class was evident in the Derby. His Eclipse was a nothing race because Indian Skimmer didn't train on from 4till5 and Warning didn't stay 10f.


EC1 said:
Steve

I am not understanding why a 3yo can't produce a high figure early in the season..they add wfa to the figure so its a mature figure
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No reason whatsover. The likes of Generous and St Jovite had already proven themselves 135+ animals by the July of their 3yo careers.
 
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Desert Orchid said:
He wasn't really trained for the Guineas, though. That's my point as far as that race is concerned. He wasn't even given a hard race in it yet wasn't beaten far and my immediate post-race comment was to say it was a very impressive performance by STS. The race appears to have knocked Delegator backwards for his next run and GA, it seems, still hasn't recovered.

I reckon you can write off the Derby. The horse was an unlikely stayer, was ridden like one and was also given far too much to do in a race the yard tried to tee up for it, to the point of sacrificing the chances of their true stayer FAG.

I think it's pretty obvious that if he'd been trained for the Guineas he'd have been a good second to STS and he really shouldn't have been sent to Epsom but clearly they felt he was better by some way to FAG. The plan failed.

I accept I will come across as making excuses and coming up with scenarios to suit the figures I've come up with for Saturday. I'm OK with that. I've done it before and I've been right. I've done it before and I've been wrong. Time will tell.
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I'm sorry DO but if RVW really is the wonder horse you say he is, second only to Sea The Stars and rated alongside such greats as Nashwan, it shouldn't really matter if he were 'trained' for the Guineas or not - if he was that good he shouldn't have been beaten into 4th! Nor would O'Brien have taken him to the Guineas half cocked or using the race as a prep I'm sure; it may not have been his main target for the season but I'd be pretty sure he was ready for the race.

I just can't get my head around why RVW seems to have been elevated to such a status; especially on the basis of one run alone. Plenty of others have beaten him in the past and I'm sure others will beat him in the future.
 
SL

Dylan Thomas didn't win the Derby either..what rating would you have given him after the Derby?

You have to ask why..when AOB had F&G in the Derby did he run the race to suit RVW..that tells you something alone
 
EC1 said:
I am enjoying reading your defence of the higher form figure though DO..but I do believe that Conduits rating should only be based on what he achieved previously at 10f..not 12 or more...it looks to me that the RPR's have been calculated using Conduits previous best 10f RPR
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I can go along with that but I'm bearing in mind Conduit was deemed on RPRs (and ORs) to have improved quite a bit for coming back from the Leger trip to 12f in the US. I'm also bearing in mind that CDT seems up to running equally well at 12f and 10f and is unlikely to have been wanting for fitness in the BRigadier Gerard. Conduit was using the race as his seasonal prep and was reportedly likely to improve a fair bit for it. The fact he's increased his superiority over CDT by some way tends to vindicate that opinion.
 
The worry you'd have about Rip Van Winkle is that he's one of these horses who has enough ability to chase whatever is in front of him, but to not actually go past. Makes the Sussex Stakes very interesting indeed.
 
Shadow Leader said:
I'm sorry DO but if RVW really is the wonder horse you say he is, second only to Sea The Stars and rated alongside such greats as Nashwan, it shouldn't really matter if he were 'trained' for the Guineas or not - if he was that good he shouldn't have been beaten into 4th! Nor would O'Brien have taken him to the Guineas half cocked or using the race as a prep I'm sure; it may not have been his main target for the season but I'd be pretty sure he was ready for the race.

I just can't get my head around why RVW seems to have been elevated to such a status; especially on the basis of one run alone. Plenty of others have beaten him in the past and I'm sure others will beat him in the future.
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I understand where you're coming from, SL. I have admitted it doesn't sit entirely comfortably with me that I've rated the pair so highly but this Eclipse is one of those very rare races where everything points to it's having been exceptional.

The form book comment for RVW after the 2000 Guineas is:
"...whose only previous defeat came in unsatisfactory circumstances when a hot favourite for the Dewhurst, had his preparation held up by a bruised foot. He came from off the pace and stayed on so well that he only just failed to snatch third. It's impossible to say how much the hold up cost him, butit can not have helped and he still probably has improvement in him. It's debatable how far he will stay but while he will surely get further than this, he is by no means sure to get the Derby trip."

He would have had to have been 100% to have beaten STS (unlikely anyway, I reckon) that day but he could have been good second to a superstar. Delegator made Mastercraftsman work very hard in the SJP so the Guineas form is very solid.

As I said, I keep going back to the Eclipse looking for reasons to bring the figure down but I'm struggling to do so. To single out RVW as the 'weak link' in the form puts some very good horses way down on their previous best.
 
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