Yep, ridiclious as it might seem the window is about 10 days away from closing on the identity of the 2010 Champion Bumper winner. Whilst most people are looking towards Goodwood and it's hideous over officious snobbery, the shrewdies who yearn for nothing more than icicles hanging off the south facing crags of their nose are starting to stir, because they know that July is Champion Bumper time.
I used to hate the bumper, until one day when I was playing around with a theory I was working on that drew something from criminal profiling and identikit offenders, that I suddenly discovered how easy it was to win. The secret seems to lie in when they made their debut, which is then reinforced with a win or second last time out, plus a strike rate of 50%. It's amazing just how regularly this one comes back, and yet punters appear oblivious to it. As I'm fond of saying, you can only get the correct answer if you're asking the right question, and I hadn't been asking the right question. I started off by reverse engineering the winner and looked for the sort of attributes I'd expect a horse to have, and therefore the sort of campaign pattern it would have been given to develop or demonstrate these. Bingo!!!
The logic is simple, in that any horse winning bumpers so early in their development is probably quite a precocious and a fast maturing type who'll be at an advantage until such time as they level off with each other in later life. The fact that such horses are kept to bumpers instead of going novice hurdling is another clue. They wouldn't be kept on the level and forgo a season unless the connections were more than just a tad confident they had serious prospects of picking up one of the three big bumpers in the Spring.
1: Won last time out
2: Debuted in an NHF race during or before July of the previous year
3: 50% strike rate
Dunguib - 26/4/08 - Yes
Cousin Vinny - 20/2/08 - No
Cork All Star - 14/7/06 - Yes
Hairy Molly - 28/12/05 - No
Missed That - 1/5/04 - Yes
Total Enjoyment - 1/5/03 - Yes
Liberman - 17/3/02 - Yes
Pizarro - 24/4/01 - Yes
Joe Cullen - 7/6/99 - Yes
Not bad, that's 7 out of the last 9 (77%) from a sample of how many qualifiers? Well normally, (and quite surprisingly) it's a fairly small number who fit the bill. :blink:
Last year for instance, at the entry stage stage there were just 4 out of 53 (7.5%) who had debuted prior to July 31st. Vivona Hill came out, so when they went to post you had a short list of 3 (that was 12.5% of the field of 24), for a strike rate that was 6 times that - 75% (and Dunguib would add to it). I normally draw the line at July 31st, but decided to extend it a week later to bring in Rite of Passage who debuted on August 2nd 2008 (and ultimately finished third) so the number fo qualifiers was actually 4 on my book and not the 3 stated (but that is to split hairs). There were only three serious possibilities as Abroad at 33% didn't have the 50% S/R a bumper winner normally has, so you were left with
Dunguib, Meath All Star and Rite of Passage (just). If you applied it strictly on the July figure, you'd have a short list of 2 horses or 8% of the field, who were covered by a 77% stat. Is there any stats race with such a large disparity in the win to qualifers ratio?
For the record
Dunguib won
Rite of Passage 3rd
Meath All Star 11th
So with just 10 days left, there is already a good chance that the 2010 Champion Bumper has advertised their claims, and if we limit the search to Ireland, then we must be in a position to ask for some nominations
I used to hate the bumper, until one day when I was playing around with a theory I was working on that drew something from criminal profiling and identikit offenders, that I suddenly discovered how easy it was to win. The secret seems to lie in when they made their debut, which is then reinforced with a win or second last time out, plus a strike rate of 50%. It's amazing just how regularly this one comes back, and yet punters appear oblivious to it. As I'm fond of saying, you can only get the correct answer if you're asking the right question, and I hadn't been asking the right question. I started off by reverse engineering the winner and looked for the sort of attributes I'd expect a horse to have, and therefore the sort of campaign pattern it would have been given to develop or demonstrate these. Bingo!!!
The logic is simple, in that any horse winning bumpers so early in their development is probably quite a precocious and a fast maturing type who'll be at an advantage until such time as they level off with each other in later life. The fact that such horses are kept to bumpers instead of going novice hurdling is another clue. They wouldn't be kept on the level and forgo a season unless the connections were more than just a tad confident they had serious prospects of picking up one of the three big bumpers in the Spring.
1: Won last time out
2: Debuted in an NHF race during or before July of the previous year
3: 50% strike rate
Dunguib - 26/4/08 - Yes
Cousin Vinny - 20/2/08 - No
Cork All Star - 14/7/06 - Yes
Hairy Molly - 28/12/05 - No
Missed That - 1/5/04 - Yes
Total Enjoyment - 1/5/03 - Yes
Liberman - 17/3/02 - Yes
Pizarro - 24/4/01 - Yes
Joe Cullen - 7/6/99 - Yes
Not bad, that's 7 out of the last 9 (77%) from a sample of how many qualifiers? Well normally, (and quite surprisingly) it's a fairly small number who fit the bill. :blink:
Last year for instance, at the entry stage stage there were just 4 out of 53 (7.5%) who had debuted prior to July 31st. Vivona Hill came out, so when they went to post you had a short list of 3 (that was 12.5% of the field of 24), for a strike rate that was 6 times that - 75% (and Dunguib would add to it). I normally draw the line at July 31st, but decided to extend it a week later to bring in Rite of Passage who debuted on August 2nd 2008 (and ultimately finished third) so the number fo qualifiers was actually 4 on my book and not the 3 stated (but that is to split hairs). There were only three serious possibilities as Abroad at 33% didn't have the 50% S/R a bumper winner normally has, so you were left with
Dunguib, Meath All Star and Rite of Passage (just). If you applied it strictly on the July figure, you'd have a short list of 2 horses or 8% of the field, who were covered by a 77% stat. Is there any stats race with such a large disparity in the win to qualifers ratio?
For the record
Dunguib won
Rite of Passage 3rd
Meath All Star 11th
So with just 10 days left, there is already a good chance that the 2010 Champion Bumper has advertised their claims, and if we limit the search to Ireland, then we must be in a position to ask for some nominations
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. Mind you if you can coax a couple of wins from her, then she'd go to 50%. 