I had assumed for years that the progeny of a typical sire would have a preference for either dry or wet ground, and that the further the needle moved in the favoured direction the more often they won. There are some sires whose progeny do indeed show such a tendency. For example, Street Crys win 3% of their races on heavy, 5% on soft, 10% on good to soft, 11% on good and 13% on good to firm. It seems the faster the going, the more often they win. Lyphard is the complete opposite, his progeny love the mud: heavy 20%, soft 11%, good to soft 10%, good 9%, good to firm 8%.
But it turns out that these examples are not typical. Street Cry's profile is unusual, and Lyphard's wetter-the-better profile is downright rare.
I see five types, in order of what I believe to be their numeric importance:
U-Curves
1) The largest group of sires follow a pattern similar, to a greater or lesser degree, to Shantou's 18-13-10-13-20 profile, which would resemble a U if depicted on a graph.
For some the U-shape is rather shallow (e.g. Bob Back 11-11-10-12-14)…
...or one of its sides is skewed (Dr Massini's 9-9-8-12-13 is both shallow and skewed to the right)…
...but nevertheless in this group there is a general pattern whereby the least preferred going is GS and they do better on the extremes of either H or GF.
Flatliners
2) For some sires, including some of the most successful ones, there is no big difference from one type of going to the next. Sadler's Wells and Galileo would be in this group
Inverted Us
3) If there is a group that shows an aversion to GS ground then there has to be another which does well on it, if for no other reason than the races run on such ground are still there to be won. But more than that, there's a group which does better on GS than any other type of ground. Milan (10-11-16-14-13) is in this group, and, to a less pronounced extent, King's Theatre (11-13-14-12-13).
Sloping Line
4) These are the types like Street Cry and Lyphard already mentioned above, who improve as the ground gets progressively drier/wetter.
Mongrels
5) A lot of sires don't fit exactly into one of the preceding categories but still recognisably belong in one of them. But, as always, there is still a group which don't fit in, even in an approximate way, e.g. Accordion (11-13-11-12-9) or Nayef (13-11-10-7-10).
So what is going on? Why do most horses seem to fall into either the U or inverted U-curve categories? Why do so many of them go worst on Good to Soft while being happy enough with Heavy and Good to Firm?
Maybe what matters most to the majority of horses is not the scale between wetness and dryness, but between stickiness and 'fluidity', a term which could apply both to loose wet ground and to fast ground. GS stands out as the dividing point because this is the type of going which most often comes up holding/tacky/sticky and it is the liking or aversion to such conditions that is coming through in the statistics. It is also possible to have sticky conditions on Heavy and Soft, but less often perhaps than on GS, so the difference between the two groups is less pronounced.
Does all this sound daft or am I merely stating the bleeding obvious? The French going descriptions suggest that I am, to them at least. As well as terms for Good (Bon) and Heavy (Lourd), there are others such as Souple (supple/smooth going), Collant (sticky) and Tres Collant (downright gluey) which generally are mistranslated in the English version of the French form book, because the concepts are not equivalent.
I wonder if this is at the root of the frequent complaints that French going descriptions (as translated into English) often seem to bear no relation to the times of races? And might we be better off with a going typology that takes account not only of how far the stick goes in, but how easily it can be pulled out again (so to speak)?
But it turns out that these examples are not typical. Street Cry's profile is unusual, and Lyphard's wetter-the-better profile is downright rare.
I see five types, in order of what I believe to be their numeric importance:
U-Curves
1) The largest group of sires follow a pattern similar, to a greater or lesser degree, to Shantou's 18-13-10-13-20 profile, which would resemble a U if depicted on a graph.
For some the U-shape is rather shallow (e.g. Bob Back 11-11-10-12-14)…
...or one of its sides is skewed (Dr Massini's 9-9-8-12-13 is both shallow and skewed to the right)…
...but nevertheless in this group there is a general pattern whereby the least preferred going is GS and they do better on the extremes of either H or GF.
Flatliners
2) For some sires, including some of the most successful ones, there is no big difference from one type of going to the next. Sadler's Wells and Galileo would be in this group
Inverted Us
3) If there is a group that shows an aversion to GS ground then there has to be another which does well on it, if for no other reason than the races run on such ground are still there to be won. But more than that, there's a group which does better on GS than any other type of ground. Milan (10-11-16-14-13) is in this group, and, to a less pronounced extent, King's Theatre (11-13-14-12-13).
Sloping Line
4) These are the types like Street Cry and Lyphard already mentioned above, who improve as the ground gets progressively drier/wetter.
Mongrels
5) A lot of sires don't fit exactly into one of the preceding categories but still recognisably belong in one of them. But, as always, there is still a group which don't fit in, even in an approximate way, e.g. Accordion (11-13-11-12-9) or Nayef (13-11-10-7-10).
So what is going on? Why do most horses seem to fall into either the U or inverted U-curve categories? Why do so many of them go worst on Good to Soft while being happy enough with Heavy and Good to Firm?
Maybe what matters most to the majority of horses is not the scale between wetness and dryness, but between stickiness and 'fluidity', a term which could apply both to loose wet ground and to fast ground. GS stands out as the dividing point because this is the type of going which most often comes up holding/tacky/sticky and it is the liking or aversion to such conditions that is coming through in the statistics. It is also possible to have sticky conditions on Heavy and Soft, but less often perhaps than on GS, so the difference between the two groups is less pronounced.
Does all this sound daft or am I merely stating the bleeding obvious? The French going descriptions suggest that I am, to them at least. As well as terms for Good (Bon) and Heavy (Lourd), there are others such as Souple (supple/smooth going), Collant (sticky) and Tres Collant (downright gluey) which generally are mistranslated in the English version of the French form book, because the concepts are not equivalent.
I wonder if this is at the root of the frequent complaints that French going descriptions (as translated into English) often seem to bear no relation to the times of races? And might we be better off with a going typology that takes account not only of how far the stick goes in, but how easily it can be pulled out again (so to speak)?
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