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Some people put too much emphasis on Timeform ratings!
Cape Blanco looks a solid horse but got stuffed in France and the likes of Carraiglawn, At First Sight and Monterosso weren’t that far behind at the Curragh. Youmzain always get’s smashed at Ascot and could possibly be past his best.
It was a marvellous performance, but one that’s thrown up far more questions than answers!
If Harbinger did that as a 3yo he wouldn’t be within 100 miles of a racecourse this year. And he certainly wont be as a 5yo, now he has a 142 beside his name.
142…seems a crazy rating considering what he’s beaten, but I suppose he has to get it using a lbs per length working out.
What would a standardisation handicapper make of it Prufrock?
I would argue that the 142 should be 142
+
in that he wasn’t hard pressed by Peslier at all. One tap of the whip, other than that hands and heels.
Unfortunately you are right on the bold text. The only way is down if he wins the Arc well, apart from a possible tilt at the BC. The owners will know that, they are not stupid.Hats off to the Timeform scientists and the rest of the Harbinger crew. Won well. I’m still not convinced. He’s beaten a bunch who were very average today and I’ll get him at a short price before the season is over. Tail between the legs until then though.
Im not too sure there is anything around to beat him????
Fame and Glory, Sariska???? Perhaps but given how close Youmzain finished to that pair in the Coronation (3 lengths back in fourth) and what Harbinger did to him today (gave him 12 length beating) surely its hard to imagine those two giving him a race???
Obviously its hard to use Youmzain as a yardstick given his ideal racing conditions but very hard to see what horse out there can beat Harbinger????
Well it looked fantastic but I suppose people want to judge a horse over several runs and there is nothing to suggest in them that he was 11 lengths better than a dual Arc runner up. Either he has improved out of all recognition or this is one of those isolated days when his stars were aligned. One thing I would add for those out to get Harbinger at a short price. The really great horses that consistently win group 1s though the season dont tend to win by much. I think Harbinger could bounce badly if we see him anytime soon.
SHL
What would a standardisation handicapper make of it Prufrock?
First-5 standards (which have proved to be the best guide in the majority of races) 142, race standards slightly lower. My own interpretation of the time is of a figure of 139 and that that is some sort of absolute minimum.
All this without a single horse behind the winner running right up to its best previous rating.
Obviously it would be good (in so many different ways) to see Harbinger do this again. And again. But by every credible handicapping approach I know of that was truly exceptional as a one-off performance.
If a G1 is won by 11 lengths, surely it is massive odds-on that all the other credible contenders have run below form?
We are all guessing as to the merit of this performance to an extent, but it seems obvious that a rating of 142 is much more credible if the horse has run somewhere near that level before. I don’t have his previous best TMF rating to hand, but I’m guessing it was around 128/129?
If something looks too good to be true, it normally is (cf Workforce, 2010 Derby) – and 142 definitely looks an overreaction from the Halifax boys. However, I very much hope they are proved to be right by subsequent events….
What follows may well be nonsense as I can only formulate an opinion on the KG in isolation with only my eyes as a guide, not being privy to the ratings – form or otherwise – that the participants have achieved in their races to date but I would be most surprised if Harbinger has run to anything remotely approaching 140
Firstly, no horse could ask for a nicer run of the race: infront was a pacemaker and two – Cape Blanco and Workforce – not only being kept up to their work in keeping tabs on the pacemaker but also enjoying their own private duel. Whether that was down to the jockeys or due to the eye-to-eyeing of two inexperienced 3yo colts I don’t know. So two ‘races’ going on in front of Harbinger who appeared not to have a care in the world behind all this dash and hoo-haa, and who could be surprised
Secondly, despite the fact that Workforce could be to some extent forgiven for not running to his (supposed) Derby form due to his fisticuffs with Cape Blanco his run was sufficiently bad for that not to be the sole cause. Forget him as a ‘yardstick’
Thirdly, once Harbinger was produced Workforce folded, Cape Blanco’s stride went and wandered, and the two ‘rags’ Youmzain (also hung) and Daryakana closed on CB from well off the pace and then more or less maintained the gap all the way to the line
So for Harbinger to be awarded a stratospheric 140+ one would have to assume on the jolly old ‘pounds per length’ rubric that CB ran to 130 with Y and D not far behind due to the aforementioned maintenance of distance behind CB
Now, like I said I don’t know what any of these horses have run to in the past, neither their median nor their best but it seems evident to me that CB didn’t run to best, it’s probable Y didn’t and possible that D did. So you pound-per-lengthers rating Harbinger using Daryakana as the yardstick would seem the least shaky route to go down
To be clear: that was a very good, impressive run from Harbinger and, providing the race was up to its usual standard, likely to be well into the 130s, but 140? Noooo…IMO
I find it a worthwhile exercise to rate a race ‘cold’ i.e have no knowledge of the horses, their ability, nor their collateral form
An uncoloured appraisal
Bollocks? That’s for you to decide
Don’t think it is bollocks at all Drone – some excellent points there.
Key horse for me is Youmzain – I think he absolutely hates Ascot and has never run any sort of race there – Timeform have him running 10lb below form – that is being very, very generous to the beast imo…
Don’t think it is bollocks at all Drone – some excellent points there.
Key horse for me is Youmzain – I think he absolutely hates Ascot and has never run any sort of race there – Timeform have him running 10lb below form – that is being very, very generous to the beast imo…
Youmzain has only ever ran at Ascot 4 times in his career,3 of them in the King George and on all 3 occasions he has finished in the 1st 3,it was his run when chasing home Dylan Thomas that put him on the map as he was swinging along 2 out and looked very dangerous! The Arc of the same year proved that!
Still beaten 4l that year by Dylan, but fair enough it was a creditable effort.
But – if someone had told you the beast had been beaten 14.5l this year, I would be a massive buyer at a 10lb underperformance….
135/136 feels about right for Harbinger given what he had done previously and what he achieved on the day imo.
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You have to draw the line somewhere when trying to solve Harbinger’s superiority and some reality has to be shown.
I’d expect a 11l win in the Hardwick and a 3l win in the King George rather than the other way around, Barshiba played the same role as Confront are you’re going to tell me that Cape Blanco would of come 4th in the Hardwick too?
The ground for me quicked considerably after the 4th race,
1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th – 1.35
4th, 5th, 6th – 3.60
Ascot is renouned for seeing superb performanes and its a real masterpiece, a stage for visual excellence.
How many course records have been broken at Ascot of late? just have to be a little cautious.
How does 140 the winner make the 2nd 130? Did I miss the fences they were jumping.
Sorry about that, leaping plodders engrained in the brain. Adjust as you think appropriate.An easy-peasy length per pound, assuming the veracity of WFA, not too far off the mark over a Flat 12f is it?
The early pace in the last race over course and distance was distinctly slow, t.k.h formbook comments for 4 of the runners and Missionaire having an uncontested lead until the 2 pole,first 5 within 3 lengths. Now just suppose they hadn’t lost lets say 2 seconds over the first 2 furlongs with the slow pace, that would have brought an 82 rated handicapper carrying identical weight to within 3.4 seconds or lets say about 18 lengths of Harbinger, which might put things into a bit more perspective.
142 seems high imo.
Could incur the wrath of a couple of posters on here, but are Timeform developing a little bit of a habit for getting carried away with these wide margin, big race winners?
Last year at around this time we were being told that Fame And Glory was a superstar (135 was it?) for beating Golden Sword by 5 lengths…
…just as well they weren’t around in Arkle’s time. They would probably be telling us he was a 212 horse or something silly
I am getting extremely bored with myself on this subject, so heaven only knows what the rest of you think of it, but "yardstick handicapping" is seriously flawed due to a thing called extrapolation error. This phenomenon can be illustrated pretty easily by taking almost any race as an example and assigning yardstick status randomly, or it can be illustrated by noting anything that issues from Phil Smith’s mouth.
By contrast, deducing information about an individual (a horse) from its performance within a population (a race, or races) is far more robust. Race standardisation, which is an example of the latter approach, has been tested over decades and found to apply well in a significant majority of cases. It is not perfect, but that is because the information which feeds into it can never be perfect. It is baffling that people want to chuck out its principles only when it suits them.
As has been pointed out, Youmzain has run creditably at Ascot, even if he did not do so yesterday.
As has also been pointed out, no handicapper alive would surely use 1 lb per length at 1½m, let alone when the runners are averaging the speed they did yesterday.
A further point is that time analysts do not get excited about a horse’s performance simply because it breaks a course record (and the course records at Ascot go back only a few years) but because the time merit of that performance is good in the context of what could be expected of a horse with a given ability, under given circumstances. Again, there is a shortage of information which sometimes compromises those conclusions, but anyone doing the job properly will be mindful of that fact.
Sorry about that, leaping plodders engrained in the brain. Adjust as you think appropriate.
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