Wetherby (Hurdles distances have been changed)?

[TheBluesBrother]

Before Timeform pointed out in the press that the Wetherbys national hunt race distances were incorrect, I had already mentioned on the forum that several of the race distances distances were out by 0.5f.

Looking at yesterdays times returned for the Hurdles course, the advertised race distances are now out by at least 1f, you only have to look at the 5:20(H) won by two horses DHT rated 78 & 98, they managed to run a standard time fast by (-18.8s), just compare this against the 4:50 3m1f(C) won by Sedgemore Express OR 120, they managed a time 9.2s quicker.

Backward engineering the times using linear regression model, I combined the hurdles and chase standard times to produce a trend line to predict a slope of 14.796 (time per furlong), and a constant of -13.587.

I found the 2m4½f hurdle distance to be 2m3½f and the 3m1f hurdle distance to be 3m.

If you ever wanted an answer why Top Speed stopped compiling speed figures for Wetherby, here is the reason.

Mike.

[phil walker]

I wonder if the hurdles have been moved so the course can retain the rails for when they race on the flat again?

I question if the powers at be will ever begin remeasuring race distances as they promised, or is this something else they will sweep under the carpet, a trick they are good at doing.

[TheBluesBrother]

I have just had confirmation that the BHA have re-measured all the national hunt racecourses, and the race distance changes will be introduced in June.

Surely Kirkland Tellwright at Haydock will have special dispensation to what course he uses, for example, using the flat course for the chases and the car park for the hurdles.

For years he has been sticking it to the man, why change now.

Mike.

[TheBluesBrother]

I was just looking at the re-measured national hunt distance carried out by the BHA.

https://web.cloud.virginmedia.com/?shareObject=3ec96820-b9ed-22ef-76c2-bbdc9fd2dc13

The highlight for me was the the Grand National course of 4m3½f, it was re-measured at 4m2f74y.

[apracing]

Stone cold certainty that this is going to cause uproar next week. Here’s an example of what the cards will look like, from Fontwell next week:

2:10 Topper Novices´ Hurdle Cl4 2m5f139y
2:40 Sharpie Novices´ Chase Cl4 2m1f96y
3:10 Laser Conditional Jockeys´ Mares´ Handicap Hurdle Cl5 2m5f139y
3:40 Wayfarer Handicap Chase Cl4 2m5f31y
4:10 Mirror Handicap Hurdle Cl5 3m1f142y
4:40 Optimist Novices´ Handicap Chase Cl4 3m1f106y
5:10 Fireball Standard Open National Hunt Flat Cl6 2m1f145y

What’s the point of working to the nearest yard when a) rail movements and bypassed obstacles will alter the distances and b) under the ‘modern’ starting procedures, the horses set off anything up to 100 yards away from the actual start line.

[apracing]

Racing Post appear to have amended past results to reflect these altered official distances. Just as one example, 2M hurdle races at Wincanton are now shown in the results as having been run over 1m 7.5f, or 15.5f in the individual horse records.

[TheBluesBrother]

I just spent an hour looking at the winning hurdle times from yesterday meeting at Wetherby, and the anomaly with the advertised hurdles distances popped up again.

The .pdf file provided by the BHA doesn’t have the Wetherby re-measured distances, as they have already been completed, and everything is rosy in the garden again, the problem we have now is they are using the racecourse for flat racing, so what have they changed now.

Things like this make me frustrated, there is nobody I can asked to take a look at the problem, as the majority of the racing hacks wouldn’t know what a standard time was.

I sent an email to Ballinrobe yesterday asking a question about their advertised race distances, as the correlation between the winning times and the race distances don’t add up.

You might ask the question, does anybody care and why do I bother…

Mike.

[Cav]

Hi Mike

Regarding the distances at Ballinrobe….

If you look through their Twitter timeline, https://twitter.com/BallinrobeRaces and scroll down to a tweet from them on Jan 30th last, they mention a “new track extension”. Perhaps that’s the problem. They never bothered to remeasure and publish the new distances. I did tweet them back about it, but they never replied.

If that’s the case, it would be par for the course when it comes to the garbage served up as data provision from Irish racecourses.

[TheBluesBrother]

Thanks Cav,

If you take the original 2m hurdle distance at Ballinrobe, with the new course extension the race distance was changed to 2m110y, although the race distance increased, the winning times returned are very similar.

When you have the official going description given as good, and I find I have to adjust incorrect race distances with a going allowance adjustment of +0.60s/f (hard), and you see that “Top speed” has used +0.50s/f, the alarm bells go off.

As the Irish Jockey club has no immediate plans to measure the race distances at their racecourses, I find I am up the creek without a paddle, I am not expecting a reply from Ballinrobe racecourse to my email query.

Mike.

[TheBluesBrother]

I fixed the correlation between the winning times and race distances for Ballinrobe (IRE).

The solution to the problem in the end, was as I first suspected, the advertised 2m110y hurdle distance you will find is 2m.

I changed the standard time from 239.0s to 232.0s and the speed figures and going allowances looked somewhere handy for both days.

Mike.

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