Nick Luck – "Great news, sectional times returning"

[Gingertipster]

Most of the racing pundits just talk the talk when it comes to sectional timing, because between them they haven’t got a scooby on how the days going allowance is effecting the fractions.

For an example, how would they compare the two day Newmarket meeting.

Newmarket Friday going allowance

-0.43s/f

(good to soft)
Newmarket Saturday going allowance

-0.25s/f

(good to soft)

As you can see, trying to compare sectionals wouldn’t be of much use
unless you knew what the going was, mind you this is only my opinion…

Going changes during the day may not be ideal TBB, but…

Unlike

Over All Times

which compare one race with

another

race (usually on the same day) –

Sectional Times

are more about comparing one

part

of a race with another

part

of the

same

race. Therefore, going changes during the day don’t matter so much to

Sectional Times

.

Even with changes in ground conditions you can still judge which horses were favoured or unfavoured by the particular pace of a race. Horses that might represent value to back next time because they’ve done better than their finishing position suggests (likely to be a value price). Or take on/lay next time something that has been flattered by its finishing position (unlikely to have as good a chance as the betting indicates).

Value Is Everything

[TheBluesBrother]

I have just finished compiling the speed figures for yesterday’s mixed meeting at

Killarney

, where you had 3 flat races, 2 chases, 1 hurdle and a NHF race thrown in for good measure.

I was thinking about whether or not sectional timings for this meeting could be achieved, after I stopped laughing, I realised you would have to be on drugs to even believe this.

There was a possibility that you could have had up to 4 going allowances for this meeting, but luckily I ended up with only 2, the flat, hurdle and NHF races I had at

+0.30s/f

(Good to firm), and the chase course was super quick at

+0.60s/f

(firm).

[Gingertipster]

I was thinking about whether or not sectional timings for this meeting could be achieved, after I stopped laughing, I realised you would have to be on drugs to even believe this.

What is your definition of "Sectional Times" TBB and how would you want to use them? Because you seem to be writing about something completely different to the way I use them.

Sectional Times can be used to tell the punter how a race was run, what horses made up ground when the pace was at its fastest (or opposite) and therefore did better/worse than their finishing position suggests and therefore likely to be value given optimum conditions…

The quickest way to get from A to B is with even fractions. Those horses trying to come from behind off slow early fractions are disadvantaged, those racing prominently advantaged. Those making the running off overly fast early fractions are disadvantaged, those coming from rear advantaged. (All stamina requirements allowing)…

This can be found by splitting a race in to even fractions (eg furlongs or two furlong segments). Comparing each segment as a percentage of Over All Time.

Because they are used primarily to compare one part of a race with another part of the

same

race (all horses running on the same going) – knowing the precise going does not matter anywhere near as much as it does when comparing one

race

with another

race

.

Value Is Everything

[yeats]

Don’t know how you manage to get a bet on anymore Gingertipster, bookies are on a hiding to nothing with you.

Another one today to add to the list of pundits who talk the talk but know bugger all about sectionals, interestingly they are all employed by RUK.

Paul Morrison after the 3.45 at Hamilton, "if only we had sectionals" The guy can’t even read a form book nevermind analyse sectionals, he must have a hotline to Willo.

[Ghost of Rob V]

Pity that sectionals weren’t used during Frankel’s 2000 Guineas. Would’ve loved to have seen the first 5 furlongs.

[TheBluesBrother]

How could you have sectional times in

Ireland

when you have racecourses like

Tramore

where you have to take with a pinch of salt that any of the races are run over the correct distances.

If you look at the 3 x

2m1f

hurdles races, plus the NHF race that were run yesterday at

Killarney

, where you had times that were fast by

11.60s

, fast by

15.70s

, fast by

13.60s

and fast by

1.60s

, straight away I can see that the possible distance they actually ran over was closer to

2m110y

than the advertised distances of

2m1f

.

For the record, to correct the 2m1f hurdle anomalies yesterday at

Killarney

you would need a going allowance up around

+1.40s/f

[Gingertipster]

Don’t know how you manage to get a bet on anymore Gingertipster, bookies are on a hiding to nothing with you.

Another one today to add to the list of pundits who talk the talk but know bugger all about sectionals, interestingly they are all employed by RUK.

Paul Morrison after the 3.45 at Hamilton, "if only we had sectionals"

The guy can’t even read a form book nevermind analyse sectionals, he must have a hotline to Willo.

You could do so much better than Willo and Morrison, Yeats.

Value Is Everything

[eddie case]

Most incisive piece of analysis I’ve heard so far from a RUK pundit regards sectional times was Steve Mellish following the Cheveley Park who said –

"I’d like to have known what the pace of the race was but without sectional times you just don’t know".

Bluffers United

[Steeplechasing]

You normally do……

Sectionals should be more out there, you should be able to click on the racecard, click on a horse, click on a previous race and be able to see the sectionals.

I only own 1 stopwatch, I’d need at least 16 of them to time a Ascot Gold Cup by myself……

Nathan, simply take one sectional reading and then assume that all the others are the same i.e. Homo Sectionals

Brilliant, Steve. I rarely LOL these days…I did with this.

[Steeplechasing]

I think there is an element of King’s New Clothes about sectionals. I’m certain that speed figures are very useful in selection, especially to those as astute as TBB and others at that level. But how much do sectionals truly add to the armoury of those working with speed figures?

I’ve always viewed it a bit like those fancy lines Glen Hoddle et al draw on the screen to show how the diamond broke up at a critical point to let a striker through etc etc. It looks impressive (it’s data after all, in a world where data rules almost everything), but what is its true worth?

I’ve no doubt, as Ginger says, and as Prufrock has previously highlighted in this forum, that from time to time, sectional analysis will throw up a dark horse. But I’d say that this is far from a weekly occurrence, never mind every day.

What screws things up, imo, is what affects the outcome of more races than any other factor – a horse’s ‘racing character’. Take Tiggy Wiggy’s race yesterday. Hughes is a fine jockey, but there were other fine jockeys in that race, and they had to ride the race to suit their mounts and instructions.

I’d have thought that one of the first things a decent jockey learns is pace judgement. These guys don’t need sectionals when they’re in the midst of a race, they know how things are panning out, and they know they could change the pace of the race, but at what cost?

Returning to Hughes…he claims he won the Nunthorpe on Sole Power by holding the horse up to the very last second in the belief he had to have horses to pass to produce his best.

Listening to Louis Steward after riding Bronze Angel yesterday, he said the horse got bumped and shuttled around but he didn’t mind because that’s what the horse likes (others, of course, would down tools).

Front-runners, hold-up horses, those who love/hate squeezing through gaps, those who need to be kept balanced, the ones who handle a track (Nafaqa never looked comfortable yesterday, to my eye, trying to cope with those troughs).

Aside from all the individualisms (if that is a word!), how is the horse on the day? Nobody can say if the animal is at his/her best. What are the instructions going to be? Is something new to be tried? How was the trip to the track for the horse?

There are an awful lot of ‘Rumsfelds’ to be dealt with before Sectionals could be properly analysed, and that’s just with equine foibles. Don’t get me started on course clerks!

[robert99]

There is absolutely nothing to stop you considering other aspects together with sectionals. Sectionals are just a far better series of "facts" than final times. The proper use of such facts can transform your betting. The facts are the most important facts in racing. Few can use final time type speed ratings properly but would you argue we should not even have final times on the same basis?

USA punters have had sectionals for over a hundred years. They can use them and do so. Are you saying UK punters are too stupid to read about what USA punters do and how?

Mainstream UK and Irish jockeys are not able to ride effectively to a pace unless they have had long stints riding in USA, Hong Kong or Australia. That was proven by trials at Newmarket where they were asked to ride a couple of furlongs at 12 seconds – none could. It is proven time and time again any day on a race course.

The irony is that without sectional data they can look at after each race they have nothing to help them to learn from or tell them exactly what happened pace-wise in a race. That was one of the key points considered by BHA recently on sectionals introduction.

[Steeplechasing]

Robert, I accept that STs are much more useful in the USA where many races are pillar to post affairs and, crucially, where 99% of the tracks share the same layout, and in many cases, the same surface.

I’d struggle to name one track = Chester might be the closest – that resembles a USA track closely enough to bolster your argument.

How many jockeys took part in that trial you mentioned? On what ground, and how many chances did they get to do it? How far out were they?

Doubtless some would benefit from a stint at these foreign tracks, but I believe most of the guys earning a living riding here are pretty good at judging the pace of a race while they’re involved in it.

[Kenh]

Robert, I accept that STs are much more useful in the USA where many races are pillar to post affairs and, crucially, where 99% of the tracks share the same layout, and in many cases, the same surface.

The fact that our races our run at a varying pace and are not ‘pillar to post ‘ affairs makes sectionals even more useful. The fact that our courses are different is no argument against them. This shows a misunderstanding of sectionals. We’ve been here before I think.

Saw this quote by Irish senior handicapper Garry O’Gorman who says we are being left behind by not having them. "We have a distinctly third-world attitude to things like this. We are pissing in the wind when we try to distil certain things from the time of a race."

[Woolf121]

You just don’t get it do you? it’s very sad when people believe the best horse will win. It’s pure ignorance.

[robert99]

Robert, I accept that STs are much more useful in the USA where many races are pillar to post affairs and, crucially, where 99% of the tracks share the same layout, and in many cases, the same surface.

I’d struggle to name one track = Chester might be the closest – that resembles a USA track closely enough to bolster your argument.

How many jockeys took part in that trial you mentioned? On what ground, and how many chances did they get to do it? How far out were they?

Doubtless some would benefit from a stint at these foreign tracks, but I believe most of the guys earning a living riding here are pretty good at judging the pace of a race while they’re involved in it.

You may be missing the point. I have only said USA has had sectionals for over a century and they have worked out how to use them. Sectionals are far less use in USA because races are run wire to wire. Sectionals are far more informative where the tracks have different layouts and gradients. If you only have one number – a final time – all tracks in effect become the same.

My memory of the trials was about 16 took part.
It was at Newmarket so the ground was not an issue.
They were asked to do 12’s so 12’s must have been possible.
Don’t recall how many chances – but you only get one chance in a real race. I think the worst was 15 seconds – not one achieved close to 12.

You have no evidence that UK and Ireland riders in general are good at judging pace unless you have sectionals to prove it. I have been taking sectionals since racing was first televised and base my conclusions on that.

[stevecaution]

You may be missing the point. I have only said USA has had sectionals for over a century and they have worked out how to use them. Sectionals are far less use in USA because races are run wire to wire.

Why would you bother to work out how to use them if they are of little use?

The best way to evince the effectiveness of sectionals would be to put some selections over on Daily Lays and Plays, based on situations where you believe the data gives a horse an edge over its rivals.

Nothing like a few winners to convert the doubters.

Thanks for the good crack. Time for me to move on. Be lucky.

[Steeplechasing]

Robert, the only evidence I have is that when watching a race I – like thousands of punters – can tell from pretty early what sort of pace they’re going for the trip. To suggest then that those riding in the race cannot do that, well, I think we must agree to disagree on it.

Here’s an extract from a Timeform blog from a few weeks ago:

Another school of thought is that, through analysis by experts such as our very own Simon Rowlands and Racing UK’s James Willoughby, jockeys are now becoming much more aware of pace judgement. Spencer was a master of taking advantage of pace collapses, gaining victories on horses that sometimes had little right to do so. Is this window of opportunity starting to close, perhaps?

I can find nothing via google about the Newmarket trials you mentioned. I’d be grateful for a link to the story. I don’t doubt that it took place, but even if nobody could hit that 12 seconds, in one trial, on one track, it doesn’t prove that all UK & Ireland jockeys are no good at pace judgement. The sample and conditions were far too small.

Even if we accept that jockeys who can ride with a very accurate ‘clock in the head’, and accept too – which I do – that the horse who runs the most even fractions throughout a race is the one who uses his energy to best effect, what is a rider to do if he is instructed to ride, say each furlong at 16 seconds on a hold-up horse? Or on a front runner who gets disheartened when taken on and another jock decides to try and ride 15-second furlongs?

As I said, I believe that sectionals can be of some (limited) use when applied after the event, and that they can throw up the occasional dark horse. But (and this might be intellectual failure on my part) I do not understand how they can be used reliably prior to a race when you do not know how all the other factors in a race are going to pan out.

I can certainly see the attraction for in-running punting for those who know the optimum pace for each horse in a race, but I think that sort of betting rules out 99% of punters, which, as was mentioned earlier, is no bad thing, I suppose for you specialists.

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