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In regards to Ascot being a specialist track, I think its hard to bring in form from anywhere else that holds up well and theres been a theory around for a while now that Kempton does.
The calibure of horse that runs at Ascot is probably 5-10 lbs better than any other course in the country and probably indicating why the times are in general very high.
Ascot is the creme de la creme, its a fair track that brings out the absolute best in a horse although thats why I am quite wary transfering performances from Ascot to another track because they can be made to look better than they are which is an awful trap to fall in.
It’s silly to suggest that no horse which wins at Ascot can’t back it up next time out because Ascot caters for good horses.
I think its hard to bring in form from anywhere else that holds up well and theres been a theory around for a while now that Kempton does.
http://www.scepticalpunter.com/?p=901#more-901
and the second part of:
- Total Posts 17716
I think its hard to bring in form from anywhere else that holds up well and theres been a theory around for a while now that Kempton does.
http://www.scepticalpunter.com/?p=901#more-901
and the second part of:
Great read, thank you!
I think its hard to bring in form from anywhere else that holds up well and theres been a theory around for a while now that Kempton does.
Look at the geographical bias to his table.
TOP SANDOWN, GOODWOOD, EPSOM, SALISBURY, NEWBURY
BOTTOM RIPON, PONTEFRACT, AYR, NEWCASTLEBit like southern trained polytrack horses losing 2L by vanning them 500 miles.
Perhaps not a specialist track, but certainly an unusual one. I can’t think of any other 12F course that begins with more than 2F running downhill.
That produces the oddity that the average speed per furlong for 12F races is faster than that for 10F races or for 8F races on the round mile, based on the course record times for each distance as reported by the Post website.
Old Mile 1 38.3 12.29 secs/fur
10F 2 03.4 12.34 secs/fur
12F 2 26.8 12.23 secs/fur
AP
One of the all-time great performances, but not one of the all-time greats
Yes, I agree with that. Might also be one of the best horses of all time as well.
But the thing is, when the word great comes in, it brings in things such as consistency, versatility and longevity.
I see I’ve read again that Ascot is a specialist course. Can someone explain what makes it that compared to every other course in Britain?
Someone recently posted a list of Ascot G1 winners. They had virtually all won a G1 elsewhere as well, apart from Art Connoisseur.
Sorry, can’t remember who posted it, or on which thread. Could even have been you, Jose!
It was me, Gerald, on the Arc thread. If someone can prove it clearly is a specialist track, fair enough, I’ll shut up. But nothing too strange occurs there imo.
Uphill, downhill? Is that not like many of our tracks? Epsom, Newmarket – can anyone find anything like these tracks anywhere else in the world?
Seeing the thread title made me spit out my drink. Before this past month I heard very little about him from this forum and the racing press, now he’s an "all-time great"? Was that quote supposed to be sarcastic?
Harbinger’s King George was an all time great performance; arguably the best King George performance ever.
However, this was his first and only group 1 win and before we even go anywhere near mentioning him alongside the true greats, more evidence of that brilliance was required. A York International, an Arc, a Breeders Cup perhaps might have furthered his claims on that score, but now we will never know.
Incidentally, call me an old cynic, but I’d love to see that x-ray. Well …
As for what constitutes true equine greatness ? What is the criteria ? The short – lived career of a Sea Bird II,who never broke sweat when cantering all over top opposition in the five 3 year old races he contested in 1965, or would it be the redoubtable and resolute magnificence of Brigadier Gerard, who, unbeaten at a mile, ran over three seasons, losing once in eighteen outings – over all distances and on all types of ground – or maybe the undefeated and imperious, Ribot who pulverised all comers ? – or what about Kelso, the great American racehorse, who raced for 8 seasons running 63 times and was American Champion 5 years on the trot ?
The debate will rage on forever.
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Nick Mordin’s view – one of his better pieces…
HARBINGER NOWHERE NEAR AS GOOD AS THE HYPE
I’ve been watching the British racing scene for a long time now. But the extraordinary way horses get heralded as all time greats on the basis of a single questionable performance never ceases to amaze me. Despite having seen so many of the horses they’ve touted flounder when attempting to justify the hype British racing hacks seem prepared to don their rose tinted spectacles en masse at least once a season.
The latest horse to receive the accolades is HARBINGER (42) because he’s just romped the King George by eleven lengths in course record time from two Derby winners.
According to Timeform Harbinger is now the equal of Ribot.
Let’s take a look at that:
Ribot won all sixteen of his lifetime starts including two Arcs, a King George and three other events that were awarded Group 1 status when the pattern was introduced. He won at the top level in all three seasons that he raced.
Harbinger has just become the first older horse since the pattern was established to win the King George without previously placing in a Group 1. He has been beaten three times below that class in a career spanning just fifteen months.
In winning the King George Harbinger beat a runner up that didn’t seem to get the distance after chasing the strong early pace, a third placed horse that’s now seven and has won just one of its last 21 starts, a fourth placed horse that clearly ran below form, a fifth placed horse that pulled too hard due to seeing too much daylight and his own pacemaker who ran a suspiciously close sixth seeing he clearly doesn’t stay the distance.
It’s also worth noting that Harbinger’s so-called course record was achieved around a new course that has only been used just 46 times for 12 furlong races when the word ‘soft’ hasn’t appeared in the official going description. He ran a time just half a second faster than three year old handicappers achieved when establishing the previous course record.
How anyone can justify saying that single performance merits rating Harbinger alongside Ribot and ahead of such legendary stars as Mill Reef and Nijinsky is beyond me. I rate him just an average Group 1 winner that was made to look good due to his main rivals running below their best in a tiny field.
And let’s not forget that Harbinger has a history of tying up. His form fell apart after July last year in the only two subsequent starts he managed. So the chances of him even making it to the Arc look pretty darned slim. The idea of him being as short as even money for the race is just plain daft.
Given the press coverage and that enormous Timeform rating it’s going to take a lot of courage on the part of Harbinger’s owners to run him again. It will surely be awfully tempting to exploit the situation and retire him right now rather than risk denting his currently huge stud value with another loss.
The one other Group 1 that I’d give Harbinger a serious chance in if he stands up to training and continues to run would be the Irish St Leger. I say that because he’s already scored over 13.5 furlongs and won the King George by outstaying his rivals off a strong gallop. There aren’t many decent horses around in the staying division and he’d have a good shot of beating most of them.
Jesus wept.
As posted pretty much everywhere else this "article" has popped its head up, Mordin has got the wrong Timeform rating. This is because he is a lazy journalist who regularly does not check his facts. It has been brought to his attention, but I do not expect him to correct himself any more than he has corrected himself when making similar factual errors in the past.
He says that "according to Timeform he [Harbinger] is now the equal of Ribot" and goes on to cite Ribot’s long and distinguished career.
Surely it does not need me to point out the flaw in his argument?
Timeform has rated Harbinger’s King George PERFORMANCE 140 (not 142). They have never claimed that Harbinger was as durable, consistent, versatile or whatever as Ribot. It is completely irrelevant to point out that Ribot posted that sort of performance time and again unless Timeform were claiming otherwise. They do not: Timeform performance ratings make that very point.
As stated at the opening of this thread, one of the problems is that some people mistake rating a performance as "great" to be the same as rating a horse as "great". They are not necessarily the same thing.
I expect such ignorance from Mordin but not from someone of your standing, TDK.
I was at Ascot on the day when Harbinger won the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes, and whilst it was undoubtedly a very impressive performance, I didn’t leave the course feeling that I had just seen an all-time great.
For me, a great horse is one that proves himself / herself consistently over all types of courses, distances and states of going, and of all the horses that I have seen over the last 40 years or so (on the flat at any rate), the one who epitomised that was the magnificent Brigadier Gerard.
I could not rate Harbinger anywhere close to the wonderful Brigadier !
It is strange that people say a horse needs to prove himself, after putting up such an outstanding performance. Of course we’d all like to see them do it again, just to make doubely sure. But is it really neccessary?
After all, Sea The Stars only produced two truly outstanding performances in his career. Eclipse, which did not look out of the top drawer at the time, yet the form worked out that way. Irish Champion, where some criticised the rating after Mastercraftsman and Fame And Glory disappointed afterwards. Bizarly, only after Sea The Stars put up a below par effort to win the Arc did people believe his 140 rating.
Did Shergar "confirm" his Derby run?
Why should Harbiger’s performance rating be knocked down, purely because he did not do it again? He’s not being rated on consistency, it’s the level of ability "stupid". It should be rated on the form available. Unless you believe every horse ran way below his/her previous run, then he has to be rated around 138 to 141 (Timeform comparison).
It does not matter that the other runners weren’t brilliant. Had Workforce ran to form or Fame And Glory run, they’d (more than likely) have been between Harbinger and Cape Blanco. The form shown would’ve been rated exactly the same. After all, form equals how far each horse beat the next.
If you believe Harbinger is not that good, then Youmzain and Daryakana must have run exactly the same amount below their Saint Cloud form. Cape Blanco must have run almost the same amount below his Irish Derby form, as Youmzain and Daryakana were below form. How likely is it for three runners to be the same amount below the form of their previous start, under similar conditions?
Harbinger, (performance-wise but not consistency-wise) today deserves to be rated a "great". If what happens in the rest of this season, (re Cape Blanco, Youmzain and Daryakana) show the form is not quite as good; then by all means reduce the rating of Harbinger.
Some horses are in our hearts because of their consistency, doesn’t mean they can be "rated" as greats. For example Yeats won the Ascot Gold Cup four times. Does not mean he can be "rated" as a great, because no individual performance can be rated that way. Even though in our hearts he may be a "great". Indeed, some years it could be argued his form was not the best in the World, Europe, Ireland or even his yard. It was disappointing he was kept apart from Septimus. When just one (may be two with Stoute) stable dominates staying breds.
Was Provideo a "Great"? The two year old won so many races, but they weren’t in the top races, never in Group 1. Yet was Timeform’s horse of the season.
So if Prvideo can not be rated as a "Great" in terms of rating. Then even in Group 1 company, others who might be capable of winning a sequence of Group 1’s do not deserve to be "rated Great" if no individual performance was outstanding. Even if we think of them in our hearts as being "great".
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