- This topic has 41 replies, 13 voices, and was last updated 14 years, 10 months ago by
.
- Posts
If this wasn’t Cumani /Fallon involved nobody would be taking any interest. Found guilty by reputation. Yes, they should have said something on June 10th, but so should dozens of trainers / jockeys every day of the week. Including Stoute, Cecil, Dettori and Moore.
Get a good form book Stilvi, the clues were there.
Thanks for the tip but as you appear intent on reproducing the formbook on the forum it would clearly be complete folly to even contemplate purchasing one.
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Interested to know if you ever bet, the indications are you don’t but perhaps you could confirm. It is very easy to take the views that you do if you have no financial interest.
As for Cumani despite what you describe as ‘great training’ (others might suggest pulling the wool over people’s eyes might be nearer the truth) his career has gone backwards. Take away their own stud and the backing of one Greek owner and there isn’t a lot there. He was significant 20-30 years ago but is now no more than a relative bit-part player at the top table.
Forgive me for reserving the right to silence on my betting habits! In any case, whether or not I had a financial interest in this case is irrelevant. Any half-decent punter is going to take care to look closely at a Cumani runner in precisely these circumstances. As
Ginger
says, in this specific case the clues were there for anyone who cared to look at the form book.
Of course Cumani is not the major player he was ten years ago. But that does not of course mean that he does not know what he’s doing, as he still proves on a regular basis. His 20% strike rate so far this season compares well against Hannon (15%), Fahey (16%) – or Cecil and Al Zarooni if you want to compare him against trainers who’ve sent out a similar number of runners.
You ignore him at your peril in these kind of events: and the veiled insinuations of "foul!" here are in my view completely out of order.
Mr Cumani is, and always has been a great trainer of handicappers. His stock however diminished, in my opinion, as a major player, with the removal of the Aga Khan’s horses.
I don’t think that he does anything illegal or against the rules, but he plays the system, as we all know that this is possible. As corm mentioned earlier in this thread there is so much to investigate that it would be logistically impossible to do it thoroughly. It is actually the system that needs to be changed, not the people who take advantage of its inadequacies.
An interesting statistic relating to the trainers that Pinza mentions above may be interesting when you compare the proportion of winners to placed horses.
HANNON 46%
CECIL 54 %
FAHEY 74%
AL ZAROONI 75%
CUMANI 105%Those who think that Cumani’s yard may be a gambling yard who manipulate the handicap system may think that there may be some significance in this i.e. their runners are likely to win or finish nowhere
Maybe you can spell out what ‘clues’ were there without making veiled insinuations, nudge nudge wink wink style, of foul play yourself.
The last time this horse ran over 14f on good to firm he doubled in price. In fact he’d have be a contender for highest Betfair SP of the season for a horse that was initially morning fav.
Two lamentable runs later and he gets backed into half those odds and is transformed.
I like the sport because it gives individuals as astute as Luca Cumani the chance to show off their wits, without breaking the rules.
Pinza – can you describe in detail what is sharp-witted about Luca’s MO (with this horse’s performances as examples)?
Kazbow made a remarkable improvement on my speed figures i.e.
35,55 and now 96
.
I have him 12lb ahead of his official mark of84
and I expect the handicapper to put him up by at least a minimum of +10lb…
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I like the sport because it gives individuals as astute as Luca Cumani the chance to show off their wits, without breaking the rules.
Pinza – can you describe in detail what is sharp-witted about Luca’s MO (with this horse’s performances as examples)?
Certainly. I will be as brief as possible.
First, let’s establish some facts. Kazbow is a Rainbow Quest 5yo out of an Alzao mare who has never been over-raced, and so might be expected to improve this year. He’d been well placed to accumulate a high win/2nd place ratio (9 from 14) and was running and winning off a mark in the high 70’s at the point before his 11 month lay off from June last year. Nearly all his best runs were for Kieren Fallon and J-P Guillembert, who’ve again ridden him this year.
Raised to 90 as a result of a 10L success in June of last year, it’s perhaps not surprising that he wasn’t taken to the well again (assuming injury didn’t in any case intervene – do we know anything about that?)
No surprise that on his comeback (May 14th), racing off a mark (90) 11 pounds higher than he’d ever won off, Kazbow blew up and weakened rapidly 3F out – and this over 14F, a furlong short of his optimum distance of 15F (at which he achieved his high Official Rating). The market expected this.
On his second run back, four weeks later, he ran very well indeed (if a little freshly) under top weight, racing in second and coming to challenge the leader ominously before running out of steam 1.5 furlongs out and being heavily eased by his jockey when his chance had gone. This race was over a stiff 16.5F, longer than he’d tried before, but worth a shot on the basis of his stout breeding. Watch the race:
the RP comment does not do justice to a very good run under top weight
.
No wonder then that in his next run two weeks later, dropped four pounds in the handicap and back over his optimum trip, the market expected a better show and got it.
That win on 24th June was achieved carrying 5 pounds more than he’d ever won with previously. Praise is certainly due to Cumani for (a) giving him the right training and racing regime to build up stamina reserves after two below-par runs which had seen him blow up after such a long lay off; (b) taking him up in trip for his second race this year, tackling a distance he’d not tackled before and which he didn’t appear to quite see out, to test that stamina; and (c) having the faith to persevere with his accustomed front running, prominent style, despite those 2 failures to get home.
All these factors produced an (apparently) dramatic improvement in form: but the clues were certainly there for anyone who read the form book, or watched those comeback races with care.
The fact that (d) the trainer intelligently took the horse back to Doncaster, where his previous course and distance appearance had produced an impressive 10 length success – with
precisely the same jockey and in precisely the same race last year
! – was hardly rocket science.
There was no change in tactics. There was no change in jockeys. The only amazing thing, is that anyone should have found the result on June 24th at all amazing. And considering the pattern of this horse’s career, cynicism is totally misplaced. Praise is due to the trainer for getting a 5yo stayer back to something like his best despite nearly a year on the sidelines.
A first-class example of in-depth, rational and to-the-point form study Pinza, most enjoyable
After all, the elucidation of horse, form and race is rather more Times Crossword than Sudoku isn’t it?
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A first-class example of in-depth, rational and to-the-point form study Pinza, most enjoyable
After all, the elucidation of horse, form and race is rather more Times Crossword than Sudoku isn’t it?
You are more than kind
Drone
. I did rather relish the exercise, as I’d been challenged to do it.
Now if only I’d been able to say what needed to be said in just two sentences…. James Willoughby, for instance, can sometimes wield his analytic scalpel with the deftness of William Empson dissecting a Shakespeare sonnet!
I was surprised to see that the handicapper has only raised Kazbow handicap rating from
84
to
90
, I expected at least 10lb
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That puts him back to last year’s high mark. It was difficult for the handicapper to put the horse up more than that, for what was an an all-out 3/4-length victory over a horse rated 85 (though that runner-up’s been raised too, to 88). Six pounds over 15F will equate to a fair number of lengths, even on the horse’s preferred Good / Good to Firm going. So
Kazbow
‘s been given a reasonable chance to win again off the new mark, but no more than that.
A drop in trip to the same distance, and on the same ground, it was beaten by 50l over on his first outing of the season?
Just how easy is it to pull the wool over racecourse stewarding, and is there any wonder that trainers do it with such gay abandon?I absolutely agree Reet.
I read this post a few hours ago, but I’m still shaking my head in disbelief at 1) the reasons given for the Cumani horse’s improvement, and 2) that the stewards accepted it.
As I’m writing this message whilst currently watching the Tennis action at Wimbledon, I’ll say just one thing on the ‘excellent’ stewarding demonstrated in this case. You can not be serious!
A drop in trip to the same distance, and on the same ground, it was beaten by 50l over on his first outing of the season?
Just how easy is it to pull the wool over racecourse stewarding, and is there any wonder that trainers do it with such gay abandon?I absolutely agree Reet.
I read this post a few hours ago, but I’m still shaking my head in disbelief at 1) the reasons given for the Cumani horse’s improvement, and 2) that the stewards accepted it.
As I’m writing this message whilst currently watching the Tennis action at Wimbledon, I’ll say just one thing on the ‘excellent’ stewarding demonstrated in this case. You can not be serious!
He’d been off 11 months prior to that reappearance One Eye, with an injury.
Timeform Racehorses Of 2010 quote "reported in late-july to have suffered an injury".
The length of time off suggests it was a serious one.
If the jockey felt there was any possibility of a recurrence of the injury, then surely he was quite right to let the horse come home in his own time after his chance was gone?
Value Is EverythingA drop in trip to the same distance, and on the same ground, it was beaten by 50l over on his first outing of the season?
Just how easy is it to pull the wool over racecourse stewarding, and is there any wonder that trainers do it with such gay abandon?I absolutely agree Reet.
I read this post a few hours ago, but I’m still shaking my head in disbelief at 1) the reasons given for the Cumani horse’s improvement, and 2) that the stewards accepted it.
As I’m writing this message whilst currently watching the Tennis action at Wimbledon, I’ll say just one thing on the ‘excellent’ stewarding demonstrated in this case. You can not be serious!
He’d been off 11 months prior to that reappearance One Eye, with an injury.
Timeform Racehorses Of 2010 quote "reported in late-july to have suffered an injury".
The length of time off suggests it was a serious one.
If the jockey felt there was any possibility of a recurrence of the injury, then surely he
was quite right
to let the horse come home in his own time after his chance was gone?
Quite right indeed Ginge.
So why didn’t the connections say to the stewards – when questioned – that they’ve always felt thses conditions were ideal and that the reason it was beaten 50L over the same conditions in said race was because the jockey was, "quite right to let the horse come home in his own time after his chance was was gone"?
Or why didn’t they say that they expected the horse to show improved form after a few runs following an 11 month break through injury?
I’m not questioning (or even remotely bothered about) the horse winning after it’s previous poor form, I’m just amazed – like Reet is – that the stewards accepted the reasons for the improvement in form.
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Truth is, OneEye, that the stewards
never
inquire beyond a horse’s previous run, and Luca Cumani is fully aware of that negligence, so used the 2 runs in higher class to get Kazbow’s mark down to the 84 that enabled the drop in class, and his trainer to pull the trigger.
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Truth is, OneEye, that the stewards
never
inquire beyond a horse’s previous run, and Luca Cumani is fully aware of that negligence, so used the 2 runs in higher class to get Kazbow’s mark down to the 84 that enabled the drop in class, and his trainer to pull the trigger.
The first run in higher class was after an 11 month lay off, and resulted in a 2 pound drop. The class of race had no provable bearing on the way the horse ran.
The second run in "higher class" was only academically so, as the horse carried top weight and ran extremely well under it. He also didn’t see out the longer trip (see my exhaustive post!).
A drop in the weights even after that was not inevitable, but justifiable. And in neither case (nor the third run, his win) was any enquiry remotely called for by the facts of the case, or the horse’s running. The drop in weights enabled the horse – just – to win. This was no astounding coup: handicappers are paid to give every horse a chance to win, not Cumani’s horses to lose.
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Nay Pinza: the stewards clearly thought there
was a case for an enquiry
, and the stable’s own explanation for the improvement bears little resemblance to your own.
I’d also lay a decent bet that the horse will be running over "the distance he didn’t stay" before too long, either.
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