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I ask the question based on the following observation today from Catterick
I watched the 3-20 race as I fancied the eventual fourth Special Catch.
However i was particularly struck by the running of Dreams of Milan.
For whatever reason the horse lost touch down the back straight after stumbling jumping the middle hurdle. No problem there.
However turning in the horse was miles behind the 5 principals.
Without appearing to make any serious effort the horse made up a tremendous amount of ground from jumping the second last to the line, so much so that the horse only finished 7 lenghts behind fourth home Special Catch.
I am not concerned about the running of the horse as clearly it may have lost its action or whatever after the stumble and will clearly go in my notebook as one to follow over a longer distance next time.
My beef is the comments in running from the Sporting Life webiste which state "In touch, reminders after 5th, weakened from next" which in all honesty could not be any further from the truth.
I wonder how often these comments are made which are not anywhere a true reflection of what took place.They’re a matter of the race reader’s opinion.
I do my own in running comments for racing on the Scottish and North of England circuit and often find my opinion is at variance with those of others. It can be useful if you think you have seen something positive then it’s worth keeping to yourself and using it in future.
Your comment came from the Sporting Life, while the Racing Post reported:
‘In touch, pushed along when not fluent 6th, already struggling when stumbled 3 out, no threat after’ (Partially true but not telling the whole story)My own comment would have gone something like ‘outpaced and stumbled 3 out, kept on from 2 out’
Similarly I can’t agree that he ‘weakened’ as he was at least holding his own up the straight.
Key point here is that the race was run at a decent clip, 6 seconds faster than the opening seller, and 2nd, 3rd and 4th are rated 124, 128 and 128. Anything at least holding their own in the closing stages is worth another glance. Dreams Of Milan has won a three mile point in Ireland and over 2m 4.5f at Uttoxeter, so must be worth upping in trip.
Rob
As Rob says the "comments in running" are the personal interpretation of the race reader, although it has to be said in some instances (and depending on the ego of the race reader) there is sometimes discussion in the press room over an incident before a "definitive" version is agreed.
For example, and a less contentious one, when Franklin Roosevelt departed at the first at Leicester on Wednesday, there was a brief discussion as to whether it was an attempted "run out", "refusal" or "unseated" – in the end it was an unseat because the horse did actually cross the fence.
Another important thing to bear in mind is there are effectively two sets of "comments in running", those produced by the Press Association, which are used by Sporting Life and those from Raceform, used by the Racing Post and official form book.
In the case of the Press Association 99% of meetings are covered by the race readers from home using the ATR / RUK coverage, so if there is a split screen scenario they may have problems.
Whereas with Raceform, 99% of meetings are covered on-course. How the individual race readers work does vary. Most watch the race live through bins and then use the recordings to supplement their observations. Some, like the commentators, use a combination of bins and the TV, whilst one or two rely almost exclusively on the TV.
The reporters working on-course have a recording of the course feed and that usually includes a more comprehensive head-on than shown on ATR / RUK, especially on busy days when the broadcasters don’t always have time to show the head-on.
The race reading can sometimes be objective and down to personal opinion. Most of the PA reporters are ex-jockeys so they are good at spotting some of the finer nuances in a race.
I must admit when I’m looking at the comments-in-running in the Racing Post form I do like to know who has written the comments as that can impact how much emphasis I put on the analysis.
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