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It’s a while since I read Brohamer, but my recollection was that there was both some good stuff in there and some pap.
As far as assessing what maiden winners have achieved, I have never come across a method better than race standardisation, linked to time analysis.
Sure, an inexperienced horse can be thrown off its stride by getting into a competitive race for the first time, but in many instances the horse has essentially been overfaced in the first place.
Sorting the wheat from the chaff is a much more valid exercise than taking a stance on maiden form in handicaps in general.
Not surprisingly, I find maiden form the most difficult to assess. I’m not convinced about race standardisation and don’t have the tools at my disposal to carry out the exercise effectively, so I tend to focus on times. Occasionally, you get the odd ‘failed’ handicapper returning to maiden company and this can give a fair line to the form.
Where I do find race standardisation very helpful is in assessing handicaps and better races but my perception of standardisation may well differ from others’.
The best example I can give of what I mean is to go back to the 2003 Champion Hurdle. My figures said Rooster Booster had posted a mark in the Greatwood Hurdle (November 2002) on a par with any hurdler in the previous dozen years bar Istabraq so I started backing him then.
Also at the PP meeting another year, Rhinestone Cowboy turned up for the Bumper having been robbed of the festival race six months earlier. His figures were so far ahead of any of the new crop I reckoned he only had to go down and come back in one piece. He could afford to be a stone below his festival form and still win easily. And yet 9/4 was readily available to decent money :o Talk about an early Christmas!!
I take a similar approach to handicaps, though. I have calculated what it takes to win most handicaps and I focus on those horses most likely to at least equal that level, ideally surpass it.
But I’m digressing. The query was about maidens, and I have to say that because I tend to look only at races worth £20k+ maiden form seldom comes into it, thankfully.
I agree that decent speed ratings usually signify reliable maiden form, particularly over 5f and 6f where the majority of races are fairly run. As the season goes on and the juveniles move up to 7f+, the pace of many of these contests mean that good speed figures are harder to achieve. So any horse recording a good figure over these trips is worth keeping an eye on.
I wouldn’t discount good maiden performances from some of the lesser tracks, either. All tracks are now standardised for race times, so a 85 speed figure is just as valid at Yarmouth as it is at Newmarket.
Finally, those maidens that are aiming for good handicap marks are just as likely to be in the middle of a large field at Newbury as they are at Nottingham. In other words, we just don’t know about them, and probably never will.
Never forget that a fast horse can put up a slow time. A slow horse cannot put up a fast time.
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" This is obviously directed towards American racing with sectional timing and fractions a prominent feature but should hold true with our racing too – after all, it all boils down to the effects of pace which is essential whatever the style or code of racing. Seems logical enough, but how accurate is it and should it be applied to our style of racing too?"
‘Pace’ in American racing, with its short, sharp courses, and most of the races over 1m or less, is vastly different from that in the UK, imo.<br> Very few UK races, including sprints, are run at a true, or even, pace for the whole of their length, probably because, on the majority of British courses, a prominent running role does not confer the same advantage it does on tighter USA tracks, nor is kickback such a consideration.<br> If one accepts that, then one should appreciate that, by the very nature of UK courses, horses are going to be asked different questions, and at different stages, in most of the races they run in.<br> Speed figures then, are limited in that, although they indicate how fast a horse can run, do not account for  tactics, or the opposition competed against.<br> While a horse may produce a high s/f off an even pace, and against much inferior horses, there is no guarantee they will reproduce it in circumstances where they have to produce an effort at a different stage of the race, or against better horses. To use the the athletics analogy, some may recall that numerous attempts were made to break the 4 minute mile, all met with failure until an even pace was deliberately engineered for Roger Bannister to do so.<br> There is no question, however, that he definitely had the class to do it, as he won many races, before and after, with all sorts of ‘speed figures;)’, which suggests that may be a better way to approach judgement of maiden winners in handicaps.
Stav, I’m certainly wary of short priced horses that have never put up a fast time rating in my book.
Other apparently very fast ratings can be misleading, especially early in the season. Galient at newmarket, for example. Maybe while it’s still so early in the season, jockeys haven’t tuned in to the course resulting in meaningless comaprisons as far as the bigger picture is concerned. And yet others, eg Ramruma and Ouija Board in their respective 3yo seasons, turn out to be very reliable.
Fella who wrote this has the right idea, use it, adapt it, but it all boils down to how good your interpretation of these races are<br>…………..
There is a common misconception that handicapping involves little more than guessing which horse has “run to formâ€ÂÂ
I just did a Google on "race standardisation" to see what was actually out there and it came up with this from February 2005:
http://www.b2yor.co.uk/05_articles/05_0 … tings.html
Well, I suppose I have read worse articles, but the writer has given a fine example of a little knowledge being a dangerous thing.
"Most races are over-rated, rather than under-rated, because the ‘race standard’ makes the assumption that the race in question will be average or slightly better than normal."
Is complete fabrication. Race standardisation does not assume averageness (much less slightly better than averageness), it identifies a range of ratings which the race would fall into based on past runnings and then adjusts according to other standardisation procedures (time, breeding, trainer and even collateral form). The biggest misconception seems to be that time plays no part in standardisation.
In any case, I fail to see how rating a race on the standard would lead to most races being over-rated.
As far as race standardisation being a blunt tool is concerned, it has, when used properly and in conjunction with time and other standardisation procedures, clearly outperformed other methods of handicapping of Flat races that I have ever come across.
That is based on the results of tens of thousands of races and not a few misconceptions and a bit of muddled thinking that have not been tested properly.
I probably can’t claim to be a neutral critic as I have used (time-adjusted) race standardisation very successfully for about 20 years and it kicks the ass of any other single type of form handicapping I know of.
I have no idea if Timeform’s 2yo ratings are still profitable. I do not work there.
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