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I’m making the assumption that punters might rely on the RP race analysis to form a view as to whether a horse should or should nor be followed fror betting purposes.
My experience of the race analyses – speaking from the point of view of an owner who knows how the horse has really run – is that the RP comments are very variable in accuracy, on the flat, not so much with NH. Other owners I know are of the same view and I know trainers who despair about some of the comments.
Now, I do understand that it ain’t possible to get it right all the time, but some of the flat analysis comments are so wide of how a horse actually ran in a race and why it ran that way that they are in reality giving punters wrong information.
So my question is to any RP journo who might know, is there any editorial control over this information? For example is there a formal editorial method of reviewing these analysis comments before they are printed or retrospectively, or are they just printed as they are received without any review at the time or afterwards?
I would add that from a personal point of view I couldn’t care less what the RP says about a gelding I’m connected with -I’d be more concened about a filly/mare who was going to be sold for breeding – but my central point is the accuracy of the RP analyses from a punter point of view.
Anyone from the RP care to respond?
richard
Probably not the reply you are after, but im sure anyone of note takes no notice of the analysis anyway.
After all, it is just someones opinion. People buying, and backing, horses should be well informed enough to be able to decide for themselves.
Its just like the RP Spotlights, you can tell whos written a particular load of nonsense without checking.For example is there a formal editorial method of reviewing these analysis comments before they are printed or retrospectively, or are they just printed as they are received without any review at the time or afterwards?
Latter appears to be the case, and therein lies the problem with trying to incorporate something that should be considered at length into editorial timescales that do not allow that.
Analysis on 5:20 at Fairyhouse on Saturday gives a thumbs-up to Difiya, who had finished 13th of 18. The horse seems to have been mistaken for Lilanda (similar colours), who finished second. The mistake wasn’t picked up at the time and is likely to stay into eternity unless someone points it out to them.
Couldn’t agree more with Prufrock – this requirement to comment on races in indecent haste is the main negative of post-analysis, post-race punditry, etc as a whole.
It may not be the more widely held view, but I would suggest that it is to the credit of those who perform such jobs that the mistake / howler count isn’t actually greater than it is.
The factual errors in post-race analysis that are maybe just a little bit harder to excuse are those pertaining to facts which have not been altered by the race that has just taken place. Both the Post, and the Sportsman before it, will have dropped clangers like sexing the odd horse incorrectly, for example, calling mares "he" or "him", although to date nobody has committed the cardinal sin of doing that with all the runners in a mares’ only race.
Errors in editorial copy, columns, Spotlight analysis, etc. with a lesser time constraint are the ones that really rankle. Recent whoppers I saw in the Post included College City being emphatically declared as Jos Saville’s first ever winner outside of hunters’ chases over the August Bank Holiday, whereas he’d got off the mark at Hexham in April; and of Kahlil Burke being mixed up with Karl Burke in relation to the former’s chaser Mange Tout.
I suppose anyone involved in whatever aspect of racing media has to be mindful of the fact that there’s hundreds of poeple out there who’d give their eye teeth to have their job, and are going to do their nut – and curse why that plonker has the job and them not – every time they see some mistake being made that they’d never have made in a million years. Post-analysis would be one of those disciplines in which the errors, when they occur, are among their most conspicuous.
Jeremy
(graysonscolumn)Adoptive father of two. The patron saint of lower-grade fare. A gently critical friend of point-to-pointing. Kindness is a political act.
I like the Racing Post analysis and hope that other people continue to use it to form conclusions and place bets accordingly.
I like it too. I’m very happy to take its readers money from them on the exchanges.
I use the RP analysis fairly extensively actually and I think people dismiss the analyses too easily. Ratings and pounds and lengths don’t tell the full story of ANY race IMO.
Obviously, ideally you would have a first-hand opinion of most horses in a race before you have a bet but I don’t get to watch that much racing so if I was to only bet in races where I had seen all the runners previously, then I would be doing well if I had even one bet per year.
However, given that I only really bet at the top end of the sport, I have a fairly good idea (or think I do!) of the merits or otherwise of most of the main contenders.
Perhaps the analyses at the lower end are much less accurate.
One of my recent favourites is Blushing Light
RP close up reads ‘held up in rear, not clear run over 3f out to over 2f out, driven and stayed on from over 1f out, nearest finish’
RP "Analysis" reads ‘Blushing Light had to prove his ability at the distance and looked short of stamina’
If I ever own a bookies the first things I’ll do is give out complementary copies of the form book and RP.
After that I’ll hire a TV pundit to come into the shop and have him/her recycle verbally what my punters have read in their free paperwork.
This time next year I’ll be a millionaire.
The RP analyses vary greatly depending on the writer. Even the estimable Graham Dench wrote unaccountable claptrap after last year’s Game Spirit chase at Newbury, when he asserted that Voy Por Ustedes’s fall early in the back straight only saved him from a drubbing at the hands of Well Chief – on what basis could he possibly have come up with that opinion? I am sure that the RP being the only next-day analytical tool for the majority of punters means that it drives the agenda of opinion, and consequently led to Voy Por Ustedes’s juicy price when successful in the QM at Cheltenham next time out. And this guy is, in fairness, by far the best they have.
Over the years I’ve learnt the only way of forming a true analysis is to actually watch the race. RP is good but I tend to disagree with them on more occasions than I actually agree.
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