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Picture In The Sky was withdrawn from a race at Towcester yesterday morning due to unsuitable going – the official report stated it was ‘soft, heavy in places’.
This afternoon at Hereford, Picture In The Sky was the well backed winner of the final race at a meeting staged on going that was officially – yes, you guessed it, ‘soft, heavy in places’.
I don’t begrudge connections their win, but it’s absolutely obvious that they took a look at the Towcester race, decided they didn’t fancy running against Kilbeggan Blade and Mon Mome and opted to declare for the much less competitive heat at Hereford.
Some sort of rule to prevent this kind of abuse of the system is long overdue.
‘Trainer states horse ‘X’ only runs if going is suitable’ often appears in the Racing Post. A vague waste of time, sadly. Rain advisories….fair enough, but what is ‘suitable ground’?
Don’t think it means much really. If they walked the course it could be they thought the ground would be easy to go through. The day before they could have thought the ground was holding……..horses often win on ground that on paper doesn’t tell you that
Maybe connections felt they didn’t fancy going through that type of going at Towcester, with it’s ‘north-face-of-the-Eiger’ finish, but that the horse could manage same down that easy-peasy right hand bend down to the post at Hereford.
But, as hypotheses go, I prefer AP’s.
Though I appreciate both gentlemen’s general frustration with "unsuitable going"’s propensity to hide a multitude of sins, I’m probably less prepared to conclude that there was anything nefarious going on here.
Heavy at Towcester is like little else on Earth (or in earth, indeed) at the best of times; and if the going was nearer to the cloying, holding sort of heavy a track can produce than the sort a horse can still slosh through to a certain extent, then I’d imagine they’d still ride differently enough to prompt such a decision from some horses’ connections.
It’s not as if Picture In The Sky was the only defector on the card by any means – there were 13 non-runners on the card, by my maths, mostly on account of the going.
In any event, with Kilbeggan Blade penalised for Sunday’s race, and Mon Mome with fitness to prove (in the sense of whether this would come too soon after two bloody hard races and a Welsh National capitulation inside the previous eight weeks), I really didn’t see that race as a done deal for either animal and therefore a closed shop for Picture In The Sky.
Jeremy
(graysonscolumn)Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
I echo GC’s comments – the ground at Towcester yesterday was very sticky indeed.
Nine of the thirteen non-runners were due to the going – the majority of those taken out after racing had started.
I know AP wasn’t impressed with the ground – despite winning the first.
Gentlemen,
Your comments would seem reasonable, but for one thing – the connections of the horse in question never went to Towcester, they took him out without leaving home.
But they did enter and declare for Towcester on Saturday morning – do you think they were expecting a flat course and good to firm ground at that point?
Does seem an unsatisfactory business but if memory serves there was a raceday deterioration in the going at both Towcester and Hereford from that given on declaration day.
So, being uncharacteristically charitable for a moment, there is the alternative scenario of declaring on Friday for Towcester on the forecast soft going only to find ‘heavy’ appear on Sunday morning, taking the horse out and declaring on Sunday for Hereford on the forecast soft only to find once again that ‘heavy’ appears on Monday morning.
A disappointment too many, so connections decide ‘nothing ventured…sod it we’ll run anyway’
At best I find going a very difficult thing to judge from a far and trainers who know their horses a lot better than any of us have the right to do what they think is for the best.
I’m not saying AP is wrong when he says they opted for the easier task/race but it could have been a combination of the two…who knows?.
As an example of the difference in what we might think is the same ground, here’s what trainer John Quinn had to say about Blythe Knight "He really wants better ground (Good with a little bit of cut) unless it is drying out" "He wouldn’t want that"
So the horse wants good ground after it has rained and not good to soft that is drying out. We as punters might think both ground ride the same but simply they don’t,at lest not for Blythe Knight.
Soft to heavy is the same. You can go through soft ground much easier if it’s raining at the time of racing than you will if it was raining the night before when it becomes more holding.
If you look back the form of Jonjo’s Alberta’s Run you will find he won a couple of bad races on heavy (was pissing down) and and one on soft yet Jonjo reckons he hates anything worse than good to soft…and so it goes on.
So unless a punter knew that beforehand the chances are he might have backed the horse at Calrlisle against Tidal Bay, when the horse in real terms had little chance of success………..which seems unfair but that’s racing as they say.
For me the going is probably the most important singular factor in any horse race and it’s a shame there isn’t more accurate information on individual horses needs.
As it stands it’s up to the individual to do his homework and keep notes on
what the gound was really like when so and so won. In reality that would involve knowing how the ground got to it’s present state and how it was riding on the day…..so unless you know Tony McCoy or someone like him who rode at the meeting it is unlikely you will know.That is unless it comes up in a newspaper article or on TV like when Ruby said the ground was really sticky in the 2008 Gold Cup……damned if I would have known without someone telling me.
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IMO some horses need certain goings, I think we’d all accept that, however in the modern age this constant bullshiting about a horse “prefering a tiny bit softer” or prefering it “a tiny bit harder” is dementing for me as a racing fan. I hear this stuff perpetuated by pundits, especially one ex jockey, who constantly uses past ground references (very slight in relation to the actual race they’re trying to relate it to), I find it a complete turn off. All of this is just a rough opinion based on my estimation of what i’m hearing from trainer, jockeys, pundits and alike – I certainly don’t pride myself on being a expect on the subject, but the cases that AP highlights just goes to show what i’m saying.
Really, some of what I hear is the equivalent of a politician saying he/she made up a particular policy because they didn’t have their ideal breakfast or because they was in a bad mood. Just my opinion of course. If pundits can’t make any sort of a case for a horse winning other than to go on about what given horse did on 4th career start out of 16 on one type of ground (that was probably a false going description anyway lol), then I suggest they all go on a crash course about form anaylisis or listen to Fister, on how to put across really significant information in a applicable manner to punters. IMO soft going might stop a horse from winning, but why people seem to think every horse in this instance will be automatically be tailed off last is beyond me – it defies logic.
Sentry Duty in the Ladbroke was a classic case of the know it alls getting it wrong, but of course the know it alls would say we wasn’t given the correct going description – all very off putting for a novice looking in on racing.
Marb
You are so predictable; I knew exactly where you were going before I had finished reading your opening sentence.
Whatever you may think, the going is a vital piece of information for any serious form student, as it affects not only how a horse runs, but also how it jumps, and the amount of stamina it requires. It might not matter to you, but it does to the horse and, when racing at the peak of its class, can make a substantial difference to any horse’s performance. Horses can, and do, win on adverse ground, much as they do over wrong distances and unsuitable courses but – all other things being equal – will be found wanting when asked to race against horses of the same class in the wrong circumstances.
As Fists points out, predicting the going is far from an exact science, and even soft or heavy ground can vary dramatically depending on how much the ground is drying out, but it is widely accepted that race timing is one of the better guides, and used by most pundits and form-book compilers. The times of both 2m hurdles on Ladbroke Day clearly show that the ground was definitely no worse than good on the day, and would have needed a number of horses to produce runs of Arkle-like proportions to produce otherwise. I did point out to you the danger of this before the race, but you choose to ignore that, as it doesn’t fit with your own misguided thinking.
Sentry Duty’s record clearly shows, for those prepared to actually study the results rather than accept official going descriptions, that he is not the same horse on proper soft ground, a view borne out by the following quotations from connections:I’m sure he’s better on better ground but we know now that he wants a really good break between his races. N Henderson, trainer.
As in most of the other main events yesterday, Henderson was doubly represented and he admitted he considered his main hope in the Ladbroke was Aigle D'Or, also owned by McManus, because the soft ground was to his advantage.
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Indeed, it was concern over the ground that encouraged Barry Geraghty to take Sentry Duty wide for much of the way.As we now know, the ground on that day was anything but soft, times tell us that,despite what was thought before the race. By all means don’t accept that, argue till the cows come home, but don’t waste your money supporting SD for the Tote Gold Trophy unless or until you are aware of the likely ground – he has no chance on proper soft, or worse.
I’m not objecting to your overall point Reet, what i’m saying is I think some pundits talk real hardcore shite, perhaps because of what the trainers said or otherwise, and they’re consequently relaying these half truths/assumptions to punters.
Isn’t it great to hear a trainer say "he/she goes on any ground"?
What a [expletive] load of bother that saves punters.
Surely your argument isn’t connected to going descriptions at all (and nor is the original post here, btw) but bad punditry. Name and shame I say ~ it’s hardly libellous to say, for example, that Jason Weaver has the powers of analysis of a mongolian goatherd.
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