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Crikey you are a fragile one. I’m sorry you’ve wasted so much time on worthless hypotheticals. Whatever conclusions your science may have reached over the years there is one thing for certain – No evidence can or will ever prove that a horse on any given day would have run a faster time ridden a different way. You have no way of proving your point and the exercise would be relatively futile anyway.
Horses have off days, jar up, lose a shoe, slip on wet patches mid race and refuse to strech out, etc, etc, etc. Simply too many variables to consider and not all the necessary evidence would ever come to hand unless you have a talking horse. Ifs, buts and maybes are all you can consider and the aim of such is?
Are you makeing an arguement just for the sake of it Chiswickian?
Of course there is no ABSOLUTE proof. But the probability is significantly in favour.
It is recognised by most (if not all) form experts that a horse coming from behind in a slowly run race, is LIKELY to be disadvantaged in the sprint for home. One up with the pace has an advantage.
Conversely, one held up in rear in an overly strong pace (TOO FAST) will be advantaged. A prominent runner disadvantaged. Even if a front runner has stamina for further, it is against his chance to go an overly strong pace early. His best result likely to come by keeping up the same optimum pace throughout. So the hold up horses with a turn of foot or more speed can’t use it. Or if they do use it, unlikely to "get home" when stamina comes in to play.
In an overly strongly run race the best place to be for a stamina laden horse is still out the back, because he is likely to be going the optimum pace. Keeping up his gallop better than those who are unable to sustain the pace; weakening from a prominent position.
Occasionally a slow pace does help the hold up horse, when it has more speed for the sprint for home (e.g. one with 6f form running at a mile). That’s if (not used to going so slowly) it does not pull too hard early. Being advantaged because they’ve ALL gone slowly and played in to his hands. However, even this type of horse will not produce a better TIME in a slow early pace than he would a TRULY (note truly, not overly strong) run race.
Therefore, when a horse is finishing as well as Workforce in the Derby (not weakening and running on strongly); it can be said with some certainty (not ABSOLUTE), with a faster early pace he could have produced an even better time.
Value Is EverythingI agree with most of that, Gingertipster, but you can never be sure to what extent the extra effort required to go a faster earlier pace would impact on any individual horse’s finishing kick.
I’d classify a 7-length Derby win as achievement rather than potential.
The greater potential than normal comes from the fact he’s so inexperienced (only third run of his life), yet put up such a good performance.
Value Is EverythingOn his Derby performance alone, Workforce (terrible name !
) has the potential to become the best middle distance horse Sir Michael Stoute has ever trained. Yes, even better than Shergar.Gambling Only Pays When You're Winning
I agree with most of that, Gingertipster, but you can never be sure to what extent the extra effort required to go a faster earlier pace would impact on any individual horse’s finishing kick.
We can never be sure about anything, just deal in probabilities.
Value Is EverythingHis time from the tried-and-trusted end-of-path sectional about 3.33f from the finish was 38.6 sec, which is behind only Galileo and Sea The Stars among the Derby winners I have recorded (the majority since the mid-1960s), and that is despite him running the race up until that point much faster than those other two horses.
The optimum finishing speed (as a % of overall race speed) from this point appears to be about 105.8 (Fame And Glory posted 106). Workforce’s finishing speed was 108.3%. He was finishing strongly, in other words, and could – theoretically – have run an even faster overall time kept a bit closer to the pace.
Thank you for that alternative slant on time and speed Prufrock
New to me at any rate, hence very interesting
Without wishing you to divulge the nuts and bolts, is % above or below "optimum finshing speed" one of the inputs Timeform use to arrive at their Timefigures?
Without wishing you to divulge the nuts and bolts, is % above or below "optimum finishing speed" one of the inputs Timeform use to arrive at their Timefigures?
No it isn’t, though it should be a factor – possibly a prominent one – in the US racing product when it is launched.
Sectionals are widely available in the US, which obviously helps.
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Are you makeing an arguement just for the sake of it Chiswickian?
Stating my opinion just as you have. Am I not entitled to? I took issue with a very well highlighted quote and gave my clear reasons. The original poster then got precious and I responded clearly again.
Probability is in the favour of who exactly? Actuaries? Computer punting squads in the far east? Bookmakers? Or simply the creation of a product that someone is trying to add a value to? Your probability statement is simply vague.
"It is recognised by most (if not all) form experts that a horse coming from behind in a slowly run race, is LIKELY to be disadvantaged in the sprint for home. One up with the pace has an advantage etc etc etc etc"
You have done nothing but try to tell me how to suck lemons. ABC primary school punting lessons are not required. Your final point was easily and accurately dismissed.
Sorry Ginger but you just seem to have taken offense without really reading what I’ve said in full.
Stating my opinion just as you have. Am I not entitled to? I took issue with a very well highlighted quote and gave my clear reasons. The original poster then got precious and I responded clearly again.
Ah, I see. When you respond it is just "stating my opinion". When others respond it is getting "precious".
ABC primary school punting lessons are not required.
Thank you for clarifying that point, and for not being at all precious. Not even a little bit.
Let us all know when you progress to "D".
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And, with such a sweeping comment, you manage to dismiss decades of research into sectionals, bioenergetics and physics. Nice one.
That’s a precious comment and you now seem to want to get even more personal. Well done. You simply cannot accept that you cannot prove what you claimed. Your sarcasm is now dribbling from the chin. Would you like a Kleenex love?
For the final time I will say it quite clearly in response to your original claim of –
He was finishing strongly, in other words, and could – theoretically – have run an even faster overall time kept a bit closer to the pace
There is no way you can prove that Workforce would have clocked a faster time by being "kept a bit closer to the pace".
If my response offends you so much ignore it. If this is intelligent debate then I’m Robert Sangster reincarnated.
Come on Chiswickian, Prufrock used the word ‘theoretically’ in his quote and he is absolutely correct.
He was finishing strongly, in other words, and could – theoretically – have run an even faster overall time kept a bit closer to the pace
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Of course,conversely and also theoretically, the pace up front may have been such that Workforce may have exhausted certain energy reserves had he tried to keep up and might consequently have been unable to produce those quick final sectionals.
However, are you dimsissing the notion of the importance of pace on race times? I’d have thought it was blindingly logical that fast early = slow late and slow early = fast late (as better, and more fully, described by Gingertipster above). Somewhere in between is an optimum, the pace profile most conducive to the fastest time and best ‘performance’. I think what Prufrock is suggesting is that there is a possibility that a different pace profile might have enabled Workforce to produce an even better time.
Of course we’ll never know, but Prufrock is entirely correct in raising it as a theoretical possibility. Just because he can never prove it doesn’t render him wrong. There are masses of sectional timings available as evidence to support Prufrock’s point.
Of course I cannot "prove" that the horse would have run faster. That is why I said "theoretically". If you want ultimate proof you are in the wrong game.
Nonetheless, there is a vast body of evidence with sectionals – not to mention in the fields of bioenergetics and basic physics – that the manner in which a horse arrives at a final time affects that final time.
"Good" final times over 1½m at Epsom are usually achieved by running a bit faster early and a bit slower later – in terms of the horse’s average speed – than Workforce ran his race. This was something I pointed out only after a request for such input from another.
Why is that so difficult for a professed master of the punting lexicon to comprehend?
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What are you both on? Of course the word "theoretically" was used. There is no misunderstanding. Simply a case of semantics in defense.
Again Pru you stoop lowly.
As for the involvement of the site boss MrC are you just making up what I do and don’t understand? Everyone knows basic speed theory. I have never, ever in any post denied its relevance. Many have implied wrongly that I have.
I have simply stated that something CANNOT be proven "theoretically" or otherwise in the single instance of Timeforce in the Derby on Saturday. Are we all daft today or just putting words into the mouths of others for effect?
Crikey!!!
It seems the level of comprehension here is in decline.
I’m not ‘on’ anything, although I wish I was!
You said – "Such a theory is worthless I’m afraid. There has never been any proof that a horse will run faster time simply by being kept closer to the leader pace."
I happen to disagree (strongly) with that and have put my points forward. There is plenty evidence (proof if you like) that horses can attain faster times by being kept close to the lead under certain circumstances and that, in my view, refutes your argument (above).
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The time of the race doesn’t alter that fact Workforce beat a big fat zero.
The gound was extremely fast and an AOB pacemker would have won the Derby but for the fact one true 1m4f horse made easy work of cutting down a horse that stopped dead.
IMO it should be noted the 3rd who looks more of a staying type never got going until the race was over. When you watch him it was noticabe he was travelling over the ground faster than the winner was.
Very easy to get carried away when a horse wins a big race like that but the performances are only repeated by real superstars and despite having backed him I doubt if Workforce is any fantastic superstar.
Getting back to the time it really is meaningless. If the 2nd had weakened a couple of furlongs earlier, like most would expect him to do, it would only have taken tactice to come into play, a couple of jockeys to take a pull and before you know it the whole field would have slowed and the time look ordinary.
Not the first time an AOB has created a fast time and as long as he keeps running these pacemakers to bring stamina into play track records will be broken.
In short I think it’s the way these races are being run that creates fast time and it’s not because the animals are exceptional.
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