EC1
On a break
good,,disagree away..thats what the boards for Granger..i'll be stickin on this one..and i'm sure you will be too
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If UDS was good enough to win a champion hurdle he would have run in a grade 1 by now. Mullins ran the Fly in grade 1 company as soon as he could because he knew. He's no mug and if UDS was that good he would have lined him up as they Fly's replacement, but he didn't. You have to respect Mullins judgement.
I agree about his training of chasers though. Nicholls is the master trainer of chasers without doubt. His horses improve when they meet a fence.
I agree about his training of chasers though. Nicholls is the master trainer of chasers without doubt. His horses improve when they meet a fence.
S
SlimChance
Guest
You're all missing the point. UDS was crying out for fences. He will be a monster over 2 miles.
As for the Champion Chase nonsense, has Wille Mullins ever pitched a novice into Grade 1 company? Why start now when he'll with the JLT?
As for the Champion Chase nonsense, has Wille Mullins ever pitched a novice into Grade 1 company? Why start now when he'll with the JLT?
Len Madeiros
Rookie
Remember how everyone urged Hendo to pitch SS at the QMCC? He may well have won too in a non-vintage year (Finian Rainbow's year) - but it was a risk too far for a novice, even SS.
tiggers1972
Senior Jockey
Looked a real monster truffle digging yesterday!
links781
Journeyman
Vautor the best first time performance since the aeroplane.Effortless and hardly touched a twig.One can be ridden any way one can only be ridden one way imho.Neither will probably go championship route as EC says in an earlier post,horsebox politics rule the west wing of the equine world.vautor will achieve more in the future in my eyes but that doesn't neccessarily mean he will go the more valuable route as let's be honest.........the guys a noob.
I think the clues are there that it could be done though (even though I wouldn't expect Mullins to do it for one second).
Dodging Bullets wouldn't be anyone's idea of a top drawer 2 miler yet he was a novice in the Game Spirit last year only narrowly going down by a quarter of a length to Module giving 3Ibs, who himself would finish 3rd, just 6.25L's behind Sire de Grugy
Hinterland did run as a novice of course and travelled pretty well laying up just behind Sire de Grugy until Baily Green fell in front of him and gave him no chance.
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There's a difference between technically being a novice and being 'novicey' in my opinion. We saw that difference between Vautour and Un des Sceaux this week. Vautour jumped like a man and Un Des Sceaux made a schoolboy error.
I also think it's fair to say that there have been a litany of novices who take to chasing like a duck to water, and are better at their fences than many seasoned campaigners.
Horses are individuals, some are stupid, some are brave, others are thinkers, whilst proven top class horses are generally smart.
The flip side for comparison would be putting hurdles in front of Usain Bolt. The best sprint hurdlers would beat him unless he was a natural. If he was though he'd stuff them out I'd sight just as Vautour would in my opinion if he ran in the Champion Chase without a 100% Sprinter Sacre. Un des Sceaux on the other hand wouldn't on what we've just seen despite having a serious engine.
Whatever. Willie Mullins is like most big name trainers and afraid of a potential outcry a la Gloria Victis if something went wrong. But since the re-siting and flattening out of the downhill fence I don't believe the same level of risk exists and this season is set up perfectly and ripe for Mullins to fast track Vautour.
I also think it's fair to say that there have been a litany of novices who take to chasing like a duck to water, and are better at their fences than many seasoned campaigners.
Horses are individuals, some are stupid, some are brave, others are thinkers, whilst proven top class horses are generally smart.
The flip side for comparison would be putting hurdles in front of Usain Bolt. The best sprint hurdlers would beat him unless he was a natural. If he was though he'd stuff them out I'd sight just as Vautour would in my opinion if he ran in the Champion Chase without a 100% Sprinter Sacre. Un des Sceaux on the other hand wouldn't on what we've just seen despite having a serious engine.
Whatever. Willie Mullins is like most big name trainers and afraid of a potential outcry a la Gloria Victis if something went wrong. But since the re-siting and flattening out of the downhill fence I don't believe the same level of risk exists and this season is set up perfectly and ripe for Mullins to fast track Vautour.
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Just an additional thought. Willie isn't afraid of pitching Djackadam into the Hennessy today after only two completed starts over fences, and it's one of the toughest handicaps on the calendar. Also don't forget Djackadam fell in the JLT which is far from ideal.
If Djackadam won or went close today could we take it as a sign that he may not be afraid of pitching Vautour into the Champion Chase if he proves himself?!
If Djackadam won or went close today could we take it as a sign that he may not be afraid of pitching Vautour into the Champion Chase if he proves himself?!
archie
Senior Jockey
Crucially though, it was as a second season novice and in his sixth chase. Ruby is on record as saying he's more concerned about experience than the age of a horse and there's simply no sign that Vautour is being prepared for a run in the QM.
Referring to my previous post though, Ruby has said Djakadam's inexperience doesn't worry him today Archie.
I suspect whilst Ruby is a superb judge there will also be an element of personal interest, plus he'll toe the party line. Sometimes you have to take what he says with a pinch of salt, particularly when he there is an obvious contradiction as there is right now. Ultimately Willie will listen to Ruby's thoughts, but I'm sure all the decisions are made by Willie with Ricci also having his say.
Ive gone full circle with this one, and depending how the season plays out with Sprinter Sacre and Sire de Grugy, plus just how good Vautour turns out to be over his fences, I think there's a genuine chance Vautour may be fast tracked. Let's face it, Josses Hill would rate a bigger danger in the Arkle than what would remain in The Arkle without SS and SdG.
I suspect whilst Ruby is a superb judge there will also be an element of personal interest, plus he'll toe the party line. Sometimes you have to take what he says with a pinch of salt, particularly when he there is an obvious contradiction as there is right now. Ultimately Willie will listen to Ruby's thoughts, but I'm sure all the decisions are made by Willie with Ricci also having his say.
Ive gone full circle with this one, and depending how the season plays out with Sprinter Sacre and Sire de Grugy, plus just how good Vautour turns out to be over his fences, I think there's a genuine chance Vautour may be fast tracked. Let's face it, Josses Hill would rate a bigger danger in the Arkle than what would remain in The Arkle without SS and SdG.
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archie
Senior Jockey
Incorrect I'm afraid:
http://blog.paddypower.com/2014/11/...s-age-is-my-concern-in-the-hennessy-gold-cup/
Mullins has no record of over-facing his horses but we can't compare a handicap and a championship race. 12/1 Vautour for the QM is a crazy price.
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EC1
On a break
He said it on the morning line today archie...
Stranegly enough, it was David Pipe, who only a few years ago seemed to be consdiering in all seriousness, a pop at the Gold Cup again with Grands Cru. I think the Gold Cup adds and element of gruelling attrition to it that the Champion Chase doesn't have. There were of course those within Sevenbarrows who would tell you at the time that Simonsig was the equal (some went further) than Sprinter Sacre (admittedly stable staff are often too emotionally involved with their own horse to form an objective view).
The wider issue is that jumps trainers (in fact horse racing in general) is inately conservative and the number of innovators you can usually count on one hand (Martin Pipe would of course be one). It's not like many other sports where the managers/ coaches/ trainers etc are constantly looking for an edge and experimenting with new ideas and introducing new sciences, racing is one of the slowest adopters of innovation and tends to be deeply suspicious of it as a default position
Euronymous
Senior Jockey
Examples?
The one that springs to mind for me is the read option in American Football.
I'm not seeing much innovation in football or baseball in recent times.
Quantitative analysis. Look there's hundreds of examples. Honestly. The only trainer of a horse I've heard say anything to make me think he's studying this kind of thing and factoring it into his planning when he says things like "we'll go back home and see what the numbers say" is Aiden O'Brien - he doesn't do too badly
Every other major (and minor) sport now deploys this. Racing is the exception. A good quantitative analyst would stick about 10Ibs of improvement on an average horse by being able to tell a trainer what the horse is really doing and how its really performing, and not relying on someone watching it from a mile away.
If you want to use quantitative data analysis though I'll give you some examples of sports that have been revolutionised by it.
Formula 1 they're on the apex (come to think of it, all motorsports) tell a formula 1 team that they're know longer allowed to use performance telemetry and they have to rely on their instinct instead and see what would happen. Football, the Kaiseurslauten university pre-prepared extensive dossiers for Germany that exposed where the frailties in the opposition were. The Carling Opta index is similarly showing up data that managers prebviously never had available. Cricket is now another apex user of performance telemetry, not a single ball gets bowled now without it going into a database. The untold story of the last Ashes series was how Australia's backroom staff serial killed England's batsmen by blocking out scoring areas and putting fielders in th areas they hit the ball through the air against off certain bowlers, bowling certain lengths. Tennis is another one. When a player takes to the court now he'll know exactly what someones return percentages are against certain serves, how much ground they cover, what their preferred shots are, where they're aggressive, where they're defensive. Athletics also use data performance telemetry. Rugby also generates telemetry now, most amusingly (as it proved Rob Howley wrong) Wales won a 6 nations recently on the back of a data analyst telling him something he was unaware after a defeat against Ireland that saw a team change and four straight wins
In racing though you still have farmers looking into the eyes of a horse, or trainers forming startegies based on whether a fox ran across the course at Exeter. If Colin Tzzard had been able to adopt new methods, he'd know Cue Card didn't run 3 miles at Haydock as a very simple example
Euronymous
Senior Jockey
Fair enough. From a fans perspective though are those sports (F1 and Rugby Union excepted imo) any better than they were back in the day?
As for racing, modern medicine has surely contributed to horses being able to have longer careers than they would have had years ago.
As for racing, modern medicine has surely contributed to horses being able to have longer careers than they would have had years ago.
"better" is a different measure though (as you say from a fans perspective). I think you could argue the spectacle has declined and that F1 in particular might benefit if teams were denied data and had rely on the old fashioned symbosis of driver - car - and mechnaics to diagnose and performance tune. Similarly, I'd accept that rugby has suffered for moedern defence alignments (again the product of data) personally I think the pitch needs to be made wider
If you were looking at it from trainers point of view, "winning", "placing" or improving the horse as the next best output is what they're concerned about. I have little doubt that a competant student armed with a stats package like SPSS could reasonably easily produce determinant coefficients based on multi variant correlations to decode a horse and supply that information so that trainer and jockey put it to better use. Indeed, I've done it myself with 4 horses now that I can think of to differing degrees, and each one was successful, albeit in two instances it was more of a case of providing a report about the horses prospects based on what the data was telling me (I was right on both occasions) albeit this was the owner/ manager who asked me to take a look. The sticking point on the other two occasions was a trainer who frankly wasn't versed in the finer aspects of quantitative data analysis. Again though we were vindicated and I think one of the horses concerned improved by about 25Ibs when it was finally asked to do something that it could, and put into races that allowed it to
"He looks good day today Jethro"
"Doesn't he just"
"I heard a cuckoo yesterday you know"
"Really? I think perhaps we ought to race at Ayr then"
If you think about it logically though, it's little wonder that trainers don't cotton on and adopt. In a lot of cases orthodoxy is handed down through familiies, or apprenticeships served in yards. Racing reproduces in its own traditional self image and is deeply conservative in its outlook. Outsiders with new ideas tend to be treated with suspicion (or accussed of cheating if the new innovative methods they bring to the sport makes them successful). The other issue is the education these people recieve. How many trainers go to university where they undertake a quantitative analysis module? Probably very few. That's not to say they're stupid. They simply drop out the system to pursue equine careers before they ever get exposed to sports analsyis. This obstacle will have improved in recent years however as younger trainer emerge who are schooled in the more scientific areas and vetenairy practise, but I wouldn't mind guessing that most of them aren't that much more advanced than Execl? Even the better ones will still leave a rump who are ... well .... pretty much clueless. A lot of trainers come through the jockey ranks and I think I'm right in saying that some survey picked jockeys out as being on the same level as footballers and boxers when it came to academic achievement (qualifications only are admittedly a snapshot rather than being a strong indicator). Again they tend to fall out of formal education and never get exposed to modern possibilities
Ultimately, just ask yourself this:
What is the likelihood that every other sport in the world is wrong in its adoption of data analysis to improve performance, and that horse racing is right?
A small time trainer I think could get an edge here if they were a little bit more broad minded and receptive to data analysis
BennyB
Senior Jockey
chroniclandlord
Senior Jockey
edgt
Senior Jockey
Interesting CL, as I've also heard Aiden saying "That's what the numbers told us" as he's also been able to rattle off gallops sectional splits for his horses in interviews before. The only reason they'd be wearing GPS is to monitor the precise amount of ground they're covering and you can probably safely assume that somewhere or other, something is rigged up to a timing device. It won't necessarily be Aiden whose on the pit wall though, they'll be some analysts crunching the numbers for him and then delivering a verbal report, feasibly within an hour, and I'd assume some kind written record which he then archives and works from within 24
Aiden you might argue has the resources to do this kind of thing, but then so do many other trainers. The whole thing is relative anyway. A trainer who trades in the 0-70 handicap circuit would be just as capable of deploying data analysis based on race data against trainers who aren't using it. Every time a horse runs it generates telemetry. The issue then is capturing that data and interpreting the relevant bits in such a way as that you learn about the horses performance to assist you in campaigning it. Some of it is relatively easy to assess, some if it requires mining a bit deeper and performing more complicated calculations that a stats pacakge will do for you
The other trainer who I think is a left field innovator prepared to use a New Approach is Jim Bolger (which proves it doesn't have to be an age thing) it's a mindset thing really
Paradigms in the application of data analysis to sport have come along way. If it works so well in other sports, why shouldn't racing adopt it? EC1 will have a better idea as to the going that a horse has been running on than the trainer who relies on a clerks description. This kind of data will take him 5 minutes to generate and could be available to the trainer at about 6.00pm every evening. If he were to approach a typical trainer though offering this data, even if he offered it for free, he'd likely be rebuffed. Most trainers are just too traditional and notoriously slow adopters
Aiden you might argue has the resources to do this kind of thing, but then so do many other trainers. The whole thing is relative anyway. A trainer who trades in the 0-70 handicap circuit would be just as capable of deploying data analysis based on race data against trainers who aren't using it. Every time a horse runs it generates telemetry. The issue then is capturing that data and interpreting the relevant bits in such a way as that you learn about the horses performance to assist you in campaigning it. Some of it is relatively easy to assess, some if it requires mining a bit deeper and performing more complicated calculations that a stats pacakge will do for you
The other trainer who I think is a left field innovator prepared to use a New Approach is Jim Bolger (which proves it doesn't have to be an age thing) it's a mindset thing really
Paradigms in the application of data analysis to sport have come along way. If it works so well in other sports, why shouldn't racing adopt it? EC1 will have a better idea as to the going that a horse has been running on than the trainer who relies on a clerks description. This kind of data will take him 5 minutes to generate and could be available to the trainer at about 6.00pm every evening. If he were to approach a typical trainer though offering this data, even if he offered it for free, he'd likely be rebuffed. Most trainers are just too traditional and notoriously slow adopters