When a trainer has built up his horse physically, cured him of any ailments, and taught him how to race, he wants to know how good he is.

It is generally accepted that gallops work is unreliable, the horses know each other, they know its not really a race, and are too near their homes.

To know what his horse is capable of a trainer runs him against other horses who he knows the class of. If his horse can be competitive in a race with horses rated 70 then he knows that his own animal is in that category. However if it gets outpaced by those horses he knows that his horse is inferior and he will only be capable of winning when there are no 70+ horses in the field.

But when his horse can not only accompany but, when nudged by the jock, it can pass 70 rated horses then he realizes his animal is better and can win a race of that quality.

When I read race comments I like to see evidence that a horse dominated the opposition at some stage, (barring the start). Generally speaking I don't back horses that wlto (unless they are going significantly up in class) so I'm not really interested in the race comments of winners which not unsurprisingly usually exhibit expressions of dominance.

However when I read that a horse made ground against the opposition before eventually 'weakening' I make a point of seeing what quality that opposition was. The 'weakening' is often due to the fact that the horse was on a fact finding mission and no money was down so I don't let that put me off. On the contrary when the race is a decent size with open betting and a handful of runners rated better than the horse I am looking at I believe I am looking at an animal who is better than his rating.

Rab mentioned ´quickened again' which is a graffic expression of dominance. If I saw that comment I would immediately look to see what the horse had quickened against.

Hiya all
only here because bad weather has stopped me working today so sods law means cheltenham has stopped working for the same reason.
JIB glad to see u about again, anyway may i chuck my tuppenorth in this may be off topic though.
Love him or hate him Nick Mordin has some interesting things to say about racereader comments & he notes that 2yo horses given the comment "good sort"in raceform have a very good record in the following seasons group 1 races, although this is very helpful there are only a couple of such comments each year so you will have a very short list of horses to follow.
hope this helps rather than hinders
all the best
Larry
ps with racing publications going through a lot of racereaders this comment may be obsolete as it is taken from "winning without thinking" which i beleive was 1st published in 1996 & as with most things it now may be over used making this post probably useless

That is really very interesting.

For the past year or so, I've been looking closely at how the class of a horse may be derived, and have concluded that it is not the AR, nor the race values, nor is it the grade. I beleive that it is the quality of the opposition it has ran well against - particularly in its last couple of races. Actually, it seems pretty obvious really. However, assessing the quality of the opposition of a field of horses is not so easy to do. There are no numbers to add up. There is no clear guage. It's a case of trying to get a feel for the races. Race grade/value does help, but it's more a case of tracking a line of horse form.

Introducing these expressions of dominance into the analysis may well assist. They may also point out a danger I wouldn't have otherwise considered.

Thanks John.

BC

the posts up till now begs the question who gives the best race comments ,do you have to pay to get better comments or will racing post,or raceform do.or can you use both

His last run as top weight in a G3 hcp was only his first ever hcp in what looks to be a top class nonhcp career, afterall its his novice season. I'm sure the idea was for the apprentice just to ride him along as a prep; topweight, 1sthcp, course debut. The only problem was they forgot to tell the horse who, when given a nudge to see if he was capable of being competitive just scooted into 2nd place.

Id agree with that 100% John, in my haste to point out Bobs Pride`s obvious trading potential yesterday it never occurred to me that this race would simply be another case of `smoke` and that he would not figure at all, more fool me!.
As it turned out there was never a hope of a trade with the horse being sent off at the back the pack on unsuitable ground, in the class, with the weight, still his mark should remain unchanged.I am asumming that although he was pulled up there is nothing amiss, we will find out soon enough.He was originally down to run in the county hurdle on Friday of (140) but the trainer will be looking for an opportunity where he is sure higher rated runners (in or out of form) will be standing thier ground.
Aintree or Punchestown 2m hurdle good - good to firm is where we should be looking for him, Weld could cut him loose at either meeting provided he gets the correct race conditions.I am fairly sure then that we will see him ridden nearer the pace as he should be.

BC,

I evaluate the quality of opposition in a race by averaging the ORs of all the runners which had an SP no greater than the number of runners.

The multi-billion pound British racing industry, direct and indirect employer of tens of thousands is based solely upon the OR. As the OR is the measure of ability it is wise to not sideline it whilst making our considerations. In my case it is the central pillar of my approach.

Johnd

Your trusty stopwatch was correct. I have found the sectional times for race 594 and Monkey Glas' speed works out as follows; 0-2f 36.26 mph, 2-4f 40.76 mph, 4-6f 37.89 mph, 6-7f 36.59 mph and 7-8f (finish) 36.29 mph.

quote:

Originally posted by john in brasil:
I evaluate the quality of opposition in a race by averaging the ORs of all the runners which had an SP no greater than the number of runners.

Hi John,

I'm not sure I follow.

See if I'm on the right lines:
The 425 at Southwell is a 4 runner race.
Exit to Luck's last race contenders with SP's < runner nos. featured:

My Mentor SP 4/1; OR 67
Exit To Luck SP 4/1; OR 73
My Friend Fritz SP 6/5; OR 71

(67 + 73 + 71) / 3 = 70

So Exit to Luck has a JIB-rating today of 70.

By the same token:

They All Laughed = 63
Victory Quest = 71
Red Wine = 108

Am I close?

BC

6 runners
Betting 2/1 5/2 5/1 8/1 12/1 20/1
take first 3 OR`s for that race and average to get jib`s race class
then id imagine he uses finishing dist (in lengths) x 15 / race dist (in furlongs) = lbs, to calc distances btn.

Thanks Walter.

BC,

First unless the race had been run in a v quick time I woulddn't consider a 4 runner race as being able to communicate anything of any value about a horses' ability.

Second I prefer to stick to hcps as I don't regard claimers, sellers, etc as being reliable.

However taking your example as you give it you need to examine how Exit to luck ran against his (meagre) opposition. I apply the formula given above to see how many pounds of class it was either above or behind the opposition.

In Exit To Lucks case his 6l win is worth 8lbs. However yesterday he got trashed 14ls which is 16lbs which indicates that all is not well. Considering that the horse has had his mark raised a hefty 12lbs since his 3lto and that he is of an age where improvement is hard to come by I would say the horse has shot his bolt.

All things considered the 425S is a horrible race though Red Wine, on a decent mark, and with an encouraging last flat performance would be my bet though only if extreme force was applied to my privates!

Fear not good John. No force shall be applied to your privates on Ye Olde Gummy's Racing Forum.

The race I picked was for example purposes. As it only has four runners left in, I thought it would be a quick way of seeing whether I have applied your formula correctly.

Without any force being applied to my nether regions, I had opted for They All Laughed. On closer inspection, I've laid it off. Win or lose - thanks for pointing out my folly - it was a daft bet!!

Very interesting stuff!

I haven't done much in the way of LTO SPs, so this formula may be a big help. Thank you.

I did try a similar idea for filtering out by RP betting forecast: that method said
divide the number of runners by 2

and ditch anything forecast at greater than this reultant figure.

So, for example, in a 14 runner race, reject any runners priced at greater than 7/1.

I tried this idea for a while but did no good with it.

JIB's method looks better, though I still like the idea I've seen posted on this forum, ie

" Consider the first six in the betting".

Noting these for the first day at Cheltenham provided the winner-containing short-list in most races.

Anyway, I'm digressing.

Can't wait to find out the key race-reading report! I thought BC's was interesting and I knew about N mordin's one that Larry mentioned.

Hi Sean

Ectoo wrote somewhere here recently that all the winners from day 1 had won their prep race. Add that to the mix I'd say!

BC

Raking around tomorrows form I came across a horse which is interesting in the context of recent posts. Government.

Thanks, BC.

I remembered ectoo's remark, when i was trying to pick the winner of tomorrow's big race.

Came up with
TAMARINBLEU ( my methods, although a possible vdw selection too, imo).

Assuming the lto race was ther "prep" race,
I had to reject
VPU and Twist Magic.

So Tamarinbleu to beat Master Minded are my selections.

---


Off to check out Government now!

I haven't sussed anything significant about Government yet.
Seems to be almost a non-trier for most races, keeping to the rear.

Then it races up with the leaders or may even lead, before weakening.
Then it makes all and wins ( not often though!).

I can't spot the sign that it's ready to win, but I'll keep looking.

1st) There is one type of race comment which is a sure fire indicator of a horse that is going to win nto. Obviously it is a rare occurence, not even appearing once a week, but that is only to be expected, however its reliability at indicating that a horse has been brought to the boil is unquestionable. As far as I am aware no one has ever commented on this on any forum and certainly never on a vdw one. I am not currently inclined to be the first correspondent to do so but the subject is one worthy of more debate.

Will you be telling us sometime soon john?.

Sean,

Since last year I've not had an internet connection of any functional use. As such I've not been able to keep track of things.

Government, during 10 days in January, arrived and departed before I ever became aware of him.

Walter,

If I break wind your best reaction is to find some way to avoid the contamination, you certainly don't want to have to suffer the consequences at first hand. On the other hand you only have bacon for your breakfast because someone takes care of the pig.

I was only trying to help Sean.