Hennessy

My own take on the race itself:

As for the Hennessy, there is so much to discuss. I think maybe the soft ground has played a major part in how it all panned out but there were many laudable performances.

Many Clouds once again showed the value of the RSA as an informative event in the context of this race. I noticed he changed his legs at least once on the run-in and was flicking his ears a good bit in the final few strides. I think he is the one to take out of the race despite his 9lbs rise.

Houblon Des Obeaux, closely handicapped with Merry King on their form in the £100k handicap chase at Ascot last November, ran a blinder under top weight in the ground (which probably suited him more than the rest) in second but he was off only 157 so it was maybe a question of class telling over lesser mortals. His 4lbs rise – laughable compared to Hey Big Spender’s rise – reminds me once again of Nicky Richards’s complaint that you can win a duff race at Carlisle and go up 9lbs but only go up 5lbs for running second in the Hennessy. He was spot on.

Triolo D’Alene ran a lot better than the bare result and Geraghty didn’t persevere when it was clear he wasn’t getting through the ground. He travelled well for long enough despite that.

Le Reve ran a great race from the front but probably just did too much up there. I just wonder if he was still feeling the effects of his Sandown win, where he was ridden right to the line to get his mark up high enough to get into this. I’m prepared to forgive him his final placing.

The Druids Nephew ran a phenomenal race after a blunder that would have finished many.

The only one of the five bets to really disappoint was Rocky Creek so we’ll need to see what Nicholls decides to release as an excuse.
 
BennyB said:
The sponsorship is a condition of the scheme under which racehorse owners can reclaim their VAT. A sponsorship agreement must be registered with Weatherbys for a minimum amount and the horse must wear logos on any one or combination of permitted sites, including silks, paddock sheets and attendant's clothing. There are compliance officers at courses to check that sponsored horses display logos, and that unregistered logos aren't displayed.

Some owners set up their own sponsorship and some trainers have 'yard agreements' which owners can join.

Occasionally for a big meeting a race sponsor will override the usual arrangements and have all horses wearing their logo. An example would be the grand national.

So it has nothing to do with whether the horse is off, and everything to do with reclaiming VAT.

I know all this because in 2005 I worked for Weatherbys administering the scheme. Any more questions just ask!
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Many thanks for this reply, Benny.

I just thought it was more than a coincidence that a jockey can have only minimal advertising stuff on his kit (not the horse or the tack or the attendant) when a horse disappoints but the day he's splattered with logos the horse goes and runs out of its skin. It will be interesting to see how much stuff Geraghty is wearing the next time he rides Oscar Whisky. I noticed before the Mackeson, he wasn't wearing any logo on his chest yet the velcro was there.

But I might be wrong about all this!
 
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There are only two permitted logo sites on the silks - on the front of the chest and the collar. The jock can also be sponsored in their own right and wear logos on the breeches.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
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Just to clarify - for future form purposes - that the Hennessy was not run on attritional ground.
Turfrax pegged the chase course (hurdle course was softer) as soft, good to soft in places on Saturday off a going stick reading of 6.0, and the RP have the timed ground as no worse than soft (on the chase course) for the whole meeting.
It's significant that the race was run just 17.1 secs above RP standard, and the two 2m 1f chases on the same day respectively 14.0 and 11.7 over. It's also worth noting that - though there was 15l between 3rd & 4th - the finishers were quite closely grouped in their 2 discrete bunches, which is not the sort of result you'd see in a heavy ground marathon.
Whatever happened to any horse in the race, it would be folly to dismiss it as down to heavy ground - imo, anyway.
 
Thanks reet. While that would back up Ruby Walsh's comments on the Morning Line that the chase course wasn't riding heavy - I think he said nearer good-to-soft - on the Friday, the times suggested otherwise.

Saturday's times do suggest it was less soft again on the day. I haven't done any time analysis yet.
 
Desert Orchid said:
Thanks reet. While that would back up Ruby Walsh's comments on the Morning Line that the chase course wasn't riding heavy - I think he said nearer good-to-soft - on the Friday, the times suggested otherwise.

Saturday's times do suggest it was less soft again on the day. I haven't done any time analysis yet.
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Don't forget the RP standards ..in fact all official..standards are made from when the races started from when the tape went up..on my calcs you can on average add 4/5 seconds to every race time to remove this...or knock 5 off every RP jump standard time. People are forgetting this when looking at times compared to RP standards on other forums.

On saying that even with 5 seconds added the times don't suggest really bad ground..and yet i read a quote somewhere that one jock said it was the worse ground he had encountered at Newbury:confused:...i hope we haven't got distance problems here too;)
 
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Here's there anomaly for me, EC1.

By its very definition, "time analysis" has to be precise. If, due to the vagaries of how races are clocked, you're compelled to add arbitrary numbers like "about 5 seconds", it immediately moves you away from 'precision' and into 'guesswork' territory. At that point, isn't any further analysis of times pretty-much meaningless?
 
Right enough, EC1. Given, though, that the standards [the ones I work from] were derived from fast times I imagine they must have jumped off smartly in those races anyway but your point is worth noting. A going allowance of somewhere around 0.3spf suggests some juice in the ground but I would have expected in excess of 0.5spf for soft.

It looks like the novice handicap chase won by Royal Regatta might be pretty hot form.

The hurdles races look a lot slower.
 
Grasshopper said:
Here's there anomaly for me, EC1.

By its very definition, "time analysis" has to be precise. If, due to the vagaries of how races are clocked, you're compelled to add arbitrary numbers like "about 5 seconds", it immediately moves you away from 'precision' and into 'guesswork' territory. At that point, isn't any further analysis of times pretty-much meaningless?
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no..because they are now timed from when they pass the post..and any times i analyse over twigs are taken from the first obstacle anyway..and so are far better for my purpose.

a bigger obstacle to accuracy generally..is races being run over wrong distances and reported wrong ground conditions

I can overcome inaccuracies to suit myself...punters generally though look at a form book and see horse A has won on soft ground over 3m1f ..and even a general description like that is wrong..so to suggest times are meaningless due to a few vagaries when the whole formbook is flawed with massive amounts of inaccuracies is just singling out a small fault and ignoring a massive one.

I would suggest those that think times are meaningless..take a look at what they think is set in stone with great accuracy..and ask themselves how come they nit pick one small item then allow themselves to be misled a 1000 fold in other key areas
 
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to clarify the 5 seconds Grass..that is only to try and make the RP standards look correct going wise..its not a general practice.

most punters are looking at the times compared to RP standards and thinking the ground is quicker than it is..due to the timing change... ..there is no flaw here with times generally..if RP knocked 5 seconds off every NH standard..they would have a standard that now reflects the going more near to reality..as it is they don't..they will cahnge gradually as they update over a period of time....so now when someone says..the ground is Good because its equalled RP standard..it isn't truly reflective because the race is probably 5 seconds slower than standard
 
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I wasn't trying to suggest that only time is flawed from a form-reading perspective, EC1, and readily agree that all aspects of form-reading are flawed - it is an imprecise science.

Here's my Christmas wish-list, in terms of what I want from time analysis. I think this is the bare-minimum I'd need, before I could genuinely make purposeful use of it, in my own form-study:

1. A list of 'Standard' times for each track.....one each for Heavy, Soft, Good-to-Soft, Good, Good-to-Firm and Firm ground. Any subtle variances in-between will take care of themselves.
2. These 'Standards' to be published as a routine part of the race-card.
3. Results to include a 'Sectional' view - to be transcribed into a user-friendly format - to give an indication of pace e.g Fast Early, Even Tempo, Slow first mile etc etc. I appreciate this would be subjective to a degree, but it would be useful nevertheless.

If I could get access to the above info, then I think I could use it positively.
 
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If I know the standard for Soft and Good-to-Soft, I can figure out (sort of) from the times, if the 'actual' going was somewhere in between.......assuming the 'Pace commentary' supports that the race was true-run.

All of it caveated by the 'imprecise science' rule.

Basically, the more information I have at my disposal, the better. My general issue with 'Time' as a form-tool, is that it always appears to tell me more after an event, than it does before it. Equally, it appears to be both an incredibly time-consuming (pardon the pun) and excruciatingly tedious endeavour overall, and given my notoriously-low boredom-threshhold, it's something I have an in-built, genetic, distaste for.

However, if the information could be summarised in the manner I have articulated above (i.e. some drone does the legwork for me), then I think it would be foolish not to add the mixture into the form soup.
 
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Grasshopper said:
1. A list of 'Standard' times for each track.....one each for Heavy, Soft, Good-to-Soft, Good, Good-to-Firm and Firm ground. Any subtle variances in-between will take care of themselves.
2. These 'Standards' to be published as a routine part of the race-card.
3. Results to include a 'Sectional' view - to be transcribed into a user-friendly format - to give an indication of pace e.g Fast Early, Even Tempo, Slow first mile etc etc. I appreciate this would be subjective to a degree, but it would be useful nevertheless.

If I could get access to the above info, then I think I could use it positively.
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I've got all that..for the AW..I'm presuming you talking about the twigs...but i have to get most of it myself...its 2 hours a day to do 2 AW meetings from previous day..but l..when you have all that...you can make money...because very few other punters have it..most don't even do final time speed figures..and even they only tell a small story.

You don't need standard times for each surface..you need a Good ground standard..then any deviation from that is the variance in going...they are usually set measures of deviation.

I don't do extensive figures for the jumps..i do like at same day/distance comparisons..which can be enlightening..and i do a bit of sectional stuff.

The problem you would have is if all that info was in the public domain..you wouldn't have an edge unless you then formulated a way of using it that no one else did.

I'll be honest..the more i see about people not rating time analysis the better..particularly flat..at least there is an edge if you are prepared to delve. The jumps is certainly difficult and tbh i don't bother that much with it re speed figures..there aren't enough hours in a day to keep up with it all..the AW alone is enough for me.
 
Grasshopper said:
My general issue with 'Time' as a form-tool, is that it always appears to tell me more after an event, than it does before it.
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but you can say the same about many going descriptions..you find out later what the ground was...unless you get a decent assessment from the course

what you have actually got now is laid out how you want it though..but is at times misleading and inaccurate to a degree you wouldn't accept from someone quoting times.

if i said to you..oh that race was run with the winner getting a time rating of somewhere between 140 - 160 ...you would say straight away..wtf good is that?..but you get a COC saying..oh well the ground is riding anywhere from 10lb a mile slow to 40lb a mile slow..and you say..oh right thanks bud.
 
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Bollocks to Variance from Good......it's more sums which we've already established I cannot be ar*sed undertaking. :)

Whilst I concede you need to place a degree of trust in the accuracy of the CoC's reported ground, you're reliant on that being the case in every pre-race scenario......otherwise the clock is just being clever after-the-fact, which is of limited use to anyone.

The best practical application of Time I've seen to date was the great work put in by yourself, reet and others, to expose the trip/going anomalies in races like the 2013 Betfair Chase. But it was more useful to me in terms of telling me which races to question/not bet in, than anything else.

I'm just trying to find a way where I could use times in a more practical way, before-the-fact. If I can't have a standard for each Going description (is there any good reason why I can't?) and summarised pace-view, then I'll have to continue ignoring it for the most part - because there's no way I'd commit 2hrs a day to building a database - life is too short for that bleedin' lark.
 
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Grasshopper said:
Bollocks to Variance from Good......it's more sums which we've already established I cannot be ar*sed undertaking. :)

Whilst I concede you need to place a degree of trust in the accuracy of the CoC's reported ground, you're reliant on that being the case in every pre-race scenario......otherwise the clock is just being clever after-the-fact, which is of limited use to anyone.

The best practical application of Time I've seen to date was the great work put in by yourself, reet and others, to expose the trip/going anomalies in races like the 2013 Betfair Chase. But it was more useful to me in terms of telling me which races to question/not bet in, than anything else.

I'm just trying to find a way where I could use times in a more practical way, before-the-fact. If I can't have a standard for each Going description (is there any good reason why I can't?) and summarised pace-view, then I'll have to continue ignoring it for the most part - because there's no way I'd commit 2hrs a day to building a database - life is too short for that bleedin' lark.
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yes of course you could make a standard for each going..i've done it for Cheltenham before..i remember you asking that very thing..don't just give the time for good...so i gave ranges for each going type. all you need to do to imitate the man made going descriptions is to allow about 1.5 sec per mile either side of Good over the twigs..and call that Good..and remember that Good is nearer Firm than it is Soft...i've seen some ranges that have the ground quickening as much as it softens from Good..which doesn't actually happen.

for instance

we have a 2 mile standard on Good of 230 seconds.
from 227 to 233 is Good ground.
Good to soft is a wider range than Good to Firm..so G/S would be 233 to 239
Good to Firm 223 - 227
Soft 239 - 248

Anything outside of these would be classed as Firm or Heavy...but to be fair these are broad strokes to describe pretty large changes in going at the slow end...there is heavy ground and bottomless etc. Soft is a very large slab time wise...you could have a horse that acts at the bottom end of soft..but doesn't like the top end...as the difference is large

anyway...hardest bit is getting the initial Good ground standard.

jumps is hard re speed figures Grass...and i just don't have the time/inclination either..i'm sure others who post here must do it

you have a few problems over the sticks that you don't get on the flat.
 
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EC1 said:
for instance

we have a 2 mile standard on Good of 230 seconds.
from 227 to 233 is Good ground.
Good to soft is a wider range than Good to Firm..so G/S would be 233 to 239
Good to Firm 223 - 227
Soft 239 - 248
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... assuming a true run race, obviously, and assuming horses had it in them to run that fast on good ground.

I imagine you'd get plenty of race where they put up a time in excess of 250 on fast ground simply because they didn't run a fast pace.

And a slow horse will never run a fast time.
 
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