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I’m not a subscriber to Timeform but I do enjoy reading articles/columns published by their employees.
I do have a question, based on the following quote from David Johnson:
By looking at the sectional times of the individual performers in the Derby, it is possible to conclude that Pour Moi could be rated as value for as much as 4 or 5 lb over the bare result.
My question is simple: why?
Why are sectional adjustments made to some performances and not to others?
Good question that Cav.
Why are sectional adjustments made to some performances and not to others?
Good question that Cav.
Presumably it is because there is strong evidence to suggest the addition of a definite figure to the performance rating.
A race which has slowly run early fractions favours front-runners / racing prominently.
A race which has overly strong early fractions favours those held up / dropped out.In Frankel’s case the fractions tell us he went too fast early. The first five furlongs were unbelievable and would win a class sprint. By rights Frankel should have fallen in a heap. The way the 2000 Guineas was run suited those ridden from the back. Dubawi Gold was the one probably flattered to a certain extent. Frankel was better than the distances at the line suggest. Dubawi Gold and Native Khan only gaining on him because of the frantic early pace.
We know Frankel was much further clear 1 1/2 furlongs out than at the line. With every other horse in the race flat out. Dubawi Gold and Native Khan only gaining on him because of the frantic early pace. There is no doubt Frankel stayed a mile, he wasn’t weakening because he didn’t stay, it was soley due to the overly strong early pace. Had Frankel set even fractions there is no doubt he would have won by even further.
Because he was a lot further clear before the pace took its toll, Frankel can quite accurately be rated on what he achieved before the line.
It is more difficult to add a definite figure to Pour Moi, a hold up horse who won all out, yet came from a poor position. How much better is he than the distances indicate? So although I have added a little to Pour Moi’s performance rating, I can understand Timeform not adding to it.
Value Is Everything- Total Posts 17716
Ginger
The first five furlongs were unbelievable and would win a class sprint
No they wouldn’t!
The RP standard for the 5f course of the Rowley Mile is 57.6 secs.Frankel (IIRC) covered the first 5f in around 60 secs – on fast ground, and without the dip or the uphill finish.
Neither was Dubawi Gold "flattered", as he clearly showed with his 2nd in the Irish Guineas (when deemed unlucky by both his trainer and his jockey).
But never let the facts get in the way of a good argument, heh?The rating seems to disregard the more subjective aspects of the race and granted I understand Timeform use a variety of tools to compile their figure, it seems the overriding factor is always distance between finishers, a method as old as the hills.
Why are sectional adjustments made to some performances and not to others?
Timeform’s "variety of tools" is essentially the same one ancient tool used in different ways to ensure consistency ie the wrong answers are consistently given. They can, and do, always revise the figures up or down next time. They now are so apparently embarrassed, they have to write a desperate page of tosh to try and justify things.
As far as sectionals go, they appear to have none of their own and rely on the limited number of races that Simon Rowlands has privately hand timed. So much for the impression given of them crawling over every race video with a stopwatch.
Simon is using the sectionals method that Graeme North came up with in Raceform Update. It is to uprate slowly run overall races with faster finishes. The big presumption is that if the earlier sectionals were run faster then the finish could still be as fast as the race before – so earning the horse a higher potential rating. It could happen on occasions but not often – so it is pure speculation.
The Derby was not a slow overall, nor a slow early pace race – so the theory should not be applied at all to that race. Carlton House’s sectionals in the Dante were a slow early pace and a slow finish so Carlton House should be downgraded but that was ignored by Timeform Extra.
Ginger
The first five furlongs were unbelievable and would win a class sprint
No they wouldn’t!
The RP standard for the 5f course of the Rowley Mile is 57.6 secs.Frankel (IIRC) covered the first 5f in around 60 secs – on fast ground, and without the dip or the uphill finish.
Neither was Dubawi Gold "flattered", as he clearly showed with his 2nd in the Irish Guineas (when deemed unlucky by both his trainer and his jockey).
But never let the facts get in the way of a good argument, heh?Reet, with respect you are talking rubbish mate. Dubawi Gold and Native Khan were extremely flattered to finish so close to Frankel. RUK did a feature where they ran the Guineas side by side with the sprint from the same card andd at the five furlong point Frankel was 5 LENGTHS clear of the flat out sprinters without having been asked a question.
I’m amazed that anyone thinks Frankel wouldn’t have stayed twelve furlongs at Epsom. To stay a mile well enough to win the Guineas by as far as he did having gone such a ridiculous early pace it shows he has strong stamina as well as exceptional speed. In other words he’s a freak.
Ratings mean nothing, I’ve rated the winner 180, but the runner up 52. When they next meet off levels I will back the 52-rated runner because hey, anything can happen in this game as ratings mean absolutely diddly squat.
I noticed that when I posed the question how did Saddlers Bend, rated 72, beat Jacqueline Quest, rated 110, in receipt of just three pounds, not one person answered.
Ok, 99% of you will say that you don’t like replying to me, but then 99% of you would be telling a fib (that’s just my analytical thought process kicking in, just go with it) as the real reason not one of you ‘ratings’ experts answered is because you were all baffled as to that result. That result scrambled your brains didn’t it?
Of course, a few weeks after that race, some of you will say that one horse didn’t show it’s true form, the other horse is an improver, this horse is this, that horse is that etc. But what it all boils down to is that ratings mean nothing. Ratings always have been, and always will be, just one person’s opinion of how good a horse is.
Trainer Mark Johnston is the only sensible guy amongst us all, because he knows that handicapping is a load of – and pardon the pun – horse manure. Horses with an official rating inferior to their opposition prevail every single week when racing off levels, and always will. And that to me renders ‘ratings’ utterly pointless.
Are ratings calculated by a computer, are rules set in stone as to how a rating increases or decreases? No. Some fella will watch a horse race and give an animal an official rating based on what he has just seen with his very eyes. From then on, that animal can be raised or dropped in the ratings whenever the official handicapper sees fit. A horse can be raised x in the ratings for losing, whilst a horse can be raised less for winning. Why? Because it’s just some fella in an office with an opinion.
I have never had a bet on a horse race since a jockey – a personal friend at the time – told me how he got told to stop a horse from winning as the owners couldn’t get ‘enough’ on at the 50/1 price. The jockey deliberately stopped the horse, and hey presto, within the next 10 days it had landed two monster gambles.
The thing is, the same jockey also told me that if the sport of horse racing wasn’t so ‘ratings’ orientated, such shenanigans wouldn’t go on. The same jockey won a valuable race not so long ago, inidentally on a horse who was winning off it’s highest ever mark having had close to 50 runs. Get that eh, a horse improving after 50 runs.
Only the horse hadn’t improved, only a number – a rating – leads us to believe it improved.
Ratings mean absolutely nothing, and no-one can prove otherwise.
Ginger
The first five furlongs were unbelievable and would win a class sprint
No they wouldn’t!
The RP standard for the 5f course of the Rowley Mile is 57.6 secs.Frankel (IIRC) covered the first 5f in around 60 secs – on fast ground, and without the dip or the uphill finish.
Neither was Dubawi Gold "flattered", as he clearly showed with his 2nd in the Irish Guineas (when deemed unlucky by both his trainer and his jockey).
But never let the facts get in the way of a good argument, heh?Reet,
You are confusing "quick" times with "fast" times.
You can’t judge times soley on comparisson with Racing Post Standard. Allowance has to be made for going, wind speed and direction. Depending on those three things, it can be a "fast" time even if it is described as "slow by 1.8 secs" in Racing Post Results.If a horse beats the Racing Post Standard Time by a long way, all it is telling you is the ground is "quick". It is not until looking at the other times that day can anyone see if the time was "fast".
I actually don’t know what the time was for 5 furlongs so shouldn’t have quoted it. What I do know from an article by Simon Rowlands is the first half (4 furlongs) of Frankel’s Guineas was run in around 47.5 seconds. Tangerine Trees in the very next race won the Palace House Stakes (5 furlongs) in 59.7 seconds. Which was (judging by Racing Post Standard times) by far the second best time of the day (so it wasn’t slowly run). That means Frankel’s average furlong of those first 4 was done in
11.875 seconds
(47.5 ‘/, 4 = 11.875). Tangerine Tree’s average furlong in his race was done in
11.94 seconds
(59.7 ‘/, 5 = 11.94). So unless Tangerine Trees did the last of 5 furlongs in a lot slower time than he did the first 4, we can say Frankel did the first 4 furlongs in a faster time than a winner of the 5 furlong Group 3 sprint
a "class sprint"
. And what is more, Frankel had only got to halfway. He had another 4 furlongs to go before he was finished.
Those are the
facts
Reet.
Value Is EverythingWhat Frankel possesses is the rare ability to sustain a certain level of speed even after having already run part of the race at a pace which would exhaust ‘normal’ horses. The blistering early speed in the Guineas exploited that vital aspect of his ability. If he’d run slower early fractions that aspect of his make-up may not have been so emphatically utilised and while he’d have still won easily one imagines, the winning distance may not have been as great. Still can’t reconcile the ‘extra’ two lengths that Timeform found – I need to get over fretting about that I think.
Thing is, he seems such a phenomenon that perhaps we need to think a little differently when applying the rules we noramlly apply when rating/assessing performances.
Can’t wait to see how he gets on at Ascot. You’d imagine/hope he’ll destroy them. I hope he runs often enough to allow us to get a firm handle on his ability.
Ratings mean absolutely nothing, and no-one can prove otherwise.
So Carlton House and Pour Moi should have started at exactly the same price as the vastly inferior rated Castlemorris King? Or was it some other reason for the difference in price?
Why does the handicapper bother?
Why not have every horse running off the same weight in a handicap?In a race where every other factor is equal. ie they all are equally effective on the course, ground and trip, all have good temperament, no draw advantage, every jockey and trainer in form etc. Yet the ratings are very different….. Are you telling me One Eye, that you believe every horse should start the same price because ratings mean "absolutely nothing"?
Of course every horse may or may not run to his best rating. There may be good reasons for him doing so.
To answer your question about Jacqueline Quest. She had been off since July (10 months). So without much doubt had been injured. Timeform say she "finished distressed" at Leicester too. To use a cliche One Eye "they are not machines".
Value Is Everything- Total Posts 17716
I actually don’t know what the time was for 5 furlongs so shouldn’t have quoted it. What I do know from an article by Simon Rowlands is the first half (4 furlongs) of Frankel’s Guineas was run in around 47.5 seconds. Tangerine Trees in the very next race won the Palace House Stakes (5 furlongs) in 59.7 seconds. Which was (judging by Racing Post Standard times) by far the second best time of the day (so it wasn’t slowly run). That means Frankel’s average furlong of those first 4 was done in
11.875 seconds
(47.5 ‘/, 4 = 11.875). Tangerine Tree’s average furlong in his race was done in
11.94 seconds
(59.7 ‘/, 5 = 11.94). So unless Tangerine Trees did the last of 5 furlongs in a lot slower time than he did the first 4, we can say Frankel did the first 4 furlongs in a faster time than a winner of the 5 furlong Group 3 sprint
a "class sprint"
. And what is more, Frankel had only got to halfway. He had another 4 furlongs to go before he was finished.
Those are the
facts
Reet.
Had you read Simon Rowland’s article correctly (or even had the slightest clue what you were talking about), you would have known the quoted figures deducted the time allowed for a standing start (2 seconds – as per James Willoughby) which is included in both the RP standard time and that of Tangerine Trees.
As can be clearly seen (and verified by Dave Edward’s figures, which are little different) when that adjustment is made, Frankel’s time for the 5f would have been around 3 secs over standard, on ground Timeform had as g/f.
Your "facts
", and – like Dubawi Gold being "flattered" – they bear little relation to what happened in the real world.
Frankel was running into a headwind. To compare his actual time for the first 5f in the Guineas directly with the basic RP standard and say it was 2 or 3 secs slower is a flawed argument.
Saddlers Bend at Leicester on 23rd May was well clear on this seasons speed figures, and together with the race being run at a crawl, the result from a "ratings" perspective was hardly a surprise.
People may have assumed that as a Guineas "winner" Jacqueline Quest just had to turn up to collect. But she was the slowest Guineas winner in living memory, and on time figures didn’t have anywhere near as much in hand as the official ratings suggested. If she was not fully tuned up, was liable to be turned over.
Fwiw, have awarded time figures of 110+ to Pour Moi and 108+ to Reliable Man in the Prix Du Jockey Club.
Agree with the poster who suggested we did not see the best of Recital on Saturday, though whether we will actually ever see that is another question. Think he may have an ailment which causes him to hang badly when put under pressure.Also agree with the post about Frankel having a lot more stamina than the general population believes. To not fall in a heap after running sprint fractions at Newmarket suggests that is almost certainly the case, and amazed that the pundits have not picked up on this.
The general view that Frankel is not amenable to restraint is also wrong imo. It was Tom Queally who allowed him to go too fast at Newmarket…. because in his own words, "I didn’t think we were going that fast, to be honest". Now that Queally has been allowed to ride him at full stride for the first time in 5 races, he will know a lot more about Frankel and will be able to ride a much more even pace…….. and win by even further.Was a mistake to miss the Derby, imo. He thrashed a horse many thought should have taken his own chance at Epsom, Nathaniel, over 1m in soft ground on 2yo debut. And Nathaniel was given a poor ride when just failing to get up against the Derby runner up, Treasure Beach at Chester.
Absolutely no doubt Frankel would have "stayed" the trip well enough to win comfortably in what turned out to be an ordinary Derby on time figures at least. Whether that would prove his best trip from a ratings perspective is another matter.Reet,
Whether we are talking about cosines, hypoteneuse or adjacents, response delay or parallax errors. Frankel showed in the Guineas he’s capable of doing a very similar time for the first 4 furlongs to a Group 3 sprinter. And then go on another 4 furlongs to win the mile Classic. I find "unbelievable", but you are determined to rubbish. Whether you like it or not Reet, Frankel
is
capable of winning a class sprint.
Value Is EverythingPour Moi was the best horse on the day. Carlton House has no valid excuse.
The shoe falling off, half a furlong from home? CH was never getting past Treasure Beach anyway.
He had to come a long way round? The winner followed his path through and still went past him as though he were standing still.
The winner will beat CH every time. CH is a a very good animal though and will win his share, as long as PM is not in the field.
Heck Carlton house was not even second.Two horses tied on the line,one had led for the last furlong and the other came fron last to first so Carlton House was beaten by both rides.He needed more than a shoe to win.
Timeform’s "variety of tools" is essentially the same one ancient tool used in different ways to ensure consistency ie the wrong answers are consistently given. They can, and do, always revise the figures up or down next time. They now are so apparently embarrassed, they have to write a desperate page of tosh to try and justify things.
As far as sectionals go, they appear to have none of their own and rely on the limited number of races that Simon Rowlands has privately hand timed. So much for the impression given of them crawling over every race video with a stopwatch.
Simon is using the sectionals method that Graeme North came up with in Raceform Update. It is to uprate slowly run overall races with faster finishes. The big presumption is that if the earlier sectionals were run faster then the finish could still be as fast as the race before – so earning the horse a higher potential rating. It could happen on occasions but not often – so it is pure speculation.
This is the reason I no longer come on here. This "forum for intelligent discussion" has become overrun by embittered individuals like "robert99" – a former Raceform employee, I believe – peddling lies and painful misunderstandings about others.
Timeform’s variety of tools has evolved greatly over the last decade or two, and is not "the same one ancient tool used in different ways". I know, because I have been one of those who has been most involved in these developments.
Contrary to what robert99 states, my sectionals method is different to Graeme North’s, and predates by a number of years anything he published in Raceform. This is something I imagine Graeme would happily confirm. But it does not stop robert99 from making such a completely unsubstantiated and untrue claim.
We developed our approaches independently but at similar times. Unsurprisingly, given that Graeme knows what he is doing, his conclusions do have validity. But you have misrepresented both him and me with your remarks, either through ignorance or nastiness, or perhaps a bit of both.
My sectionals methodology is not "pure speculation". It has been validated against results countless times. It is an approach with basis in evidence. Like similar approaches – such as more conventional form ratings – it does not always work. But it does have overall utility.
The only "desperate tosh" I can read round here is this poisoned and intellectually limited individual’s persistent attempts to pass comment on things which he clearly cannot comprehend.
Simon Rowlands
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