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I for one was happy to see Baracouda forced to battle for a victory for once and all things considered I was pretty impressed and fancy him strongly for the race now. He was giving weight away and does tend to idle in front a little but even then he was still going away right to the line.
Mary Reveley touted the idea of running Sleeping Night over hurdles before his first run due to what she saw as his unfavourable chase rating. The horse undoubtedly has a reasonable amountof class and Kates Charm is a good yardstick with some good staying victories in the form.
I rate this win as easily the best staying hurdle performance so far this season.
I can’t really pass accurate comment on Bannow Bay but his last win didn’t impress me and although I won’t be betting on the day I wouldn’t really want to lay Baracouda at evs.
Must disagree with you here Esc. Istabraq was cantering all over the field in the 2000 CH and won with bags in hand plus remember this was a championship race run at breakneck speed. Imagine if it had been a 5 runner affair run slowly in the initial stages Istabraq would have destroyed the field every bit as impressivley as Valiramix did this season. The question is how much has Isty gone down hill since that day.
Pipe and O’Brien operate in totally different worlds. Of course MP races his horses more, remember he is operating on behalf of an owner and in the vast majority of cases the only way to get any sort of return on your investment in an average NH horse is to send it to MP and watch it win 6 in a row !!
O’Brien is training horses to enhance their value at stud not win races because that is what his owners require sometimes of course they are the same thing but not always
One Man did indeed win the Henessey but under only 10-1 a I remember so he was pretty much a shoo in regardless of the conditions considering his class.
Desert Orchid was indeed a better horse right handed but a record of one win and 2 seconds in 3 runs in the Gold Cup is hardly to be sniffed at. In his 2nd GC won by Nortons Coin I still beleive he would have run the race with a better ride he came up the stands side as NC and Toby Tobias went up the rail denying Dessie the chance to show the amazing battling qualitites he possesed.
RM I’m afraid I can’t let you get away with bracketing Desert Orchid with One Man and Florida Pearl although he did have a better record in the King George than the Gold Cup.He did win one Gold Cup on Heavy ground and was also third when in my opinion with a more enterprising ride he would have won again. DO also won the Irish GN over 3m5f so to label him a non stayer would be rather unfair.
As to the general comparison between the two courses I would maintain that they are very different the King George and Gold Cup are the two top staying chases of the year and it is hardly surprising that the same horses have been prominent in them both on some occassions. I would very much like to hear Mick Fitzgerald explain why he thinks One Man could land the King George in a canter and patently not stay the Gold Cup trip.
(Edited by jjimps at 4:29 pm on Feb. 17, 2002)
Well said Rob form is so complicated if it was a simple case of !lb = 1 length and work out the numbers I would be sending this e-mail from my Carribbean villa not my office !!!
Rodocks easy cantering win over TFF and subsequent defeat by Bilboa show the danger for me of Valiramix’s similar win ie What will happen when he has to stop cantering and actually battle for a victory ?? The 5/1 on betfair is a much more realistc price than the 11/4
He certainly won well but that may have been due more to his fitness level than ability. His jumping was simply nowhere near good enough to win a Gold Cup and he would have to improve significantly in this department to have a chance. I would expect definately marlborough and maybe Shotgun Willy to finish in front of him at Cheltenham. I imagine Fitz will make his mind up according to the ground Bacchanal on softer than Good Marlborough on Good or better. I can’t see either of them troubling LLT if he can repeat the form of his 2000 win but that is a big if.
I have given the stats on the age of the CH winner some thought and now believe they do not lean against Istabraq at all.
As I said on another thread the secret with stats is understanding them it is only then that they become really usefull. Firstly we have to consider the race the CH is in essence a race to be won by the best hurdler in that season. Think about that carefully and the reason for the lack of 10 year old winners is fairly obvious. In essence hurdlers are likely to be aimed at this race from age 6 or 7 onwards any horse who is still hurdling at 10 years old and has still not won the CH or revealed itself as a top class multi GRADE 1 winner is not going to win the CH. So when we come to consider this stat in relation to Istabraq the flaw is obvious he has already won 3 CH’s which could arguably have been 4 so the lack of 10 year old winners does not really weigh too heavily against him.
Thanks for the stats update Steve very interesting 6 year olds obviously have the age on those figures but 8 year olds fare better than 7 so to say older is worse does not really hold water.
The other thing I note is should Istabraq win this year 10 year olds suddenly go from having the worst record to the best in one race !!
Steve with respect your age stats are irrelevant the key stat is the % winners to runners from each age group not the number of winners. I illustrate this with an example of a 5f course with no draw advantage and 10 stalls. When I look at the bare number of winners I see Draws one and two have the highest number of winners but this is simply because they of course provide the highest number of runners.
For me Landing Light is the horse with the form in the book this year who will be best suited by the conditions of the race. If Istabraq is there on the day thought I am sure he will not be easy to beat.
This story doesn’t ring true 11 days in his box then out for a Gallop !!! I don’t think so 7/2 on the day !!!!! If Istabraq is there 6/4 absolute max. His current slide in the market is all based on the chances of him not making the race NOT an assessment of his chances if he does
The thing about statistics is they are rally only usefull once you understand the reason for them. Just blindy backing on stats alone is a road to nowhere but if you can uncover the underlying reason that has lead to the figures you are on a winning trail.
I will illustrate with a question :<br>Imagine a race track where<br>1) There is a 5f straight course on which the draw produces no advantage<br>2) there are 10 stalls<br>3) races are run fairly and the winner wins on merit every time
When I study the results of 100 races run over this course what do I see with regard to winners from each of the 10 draw positions ?
Yep makes sense Nore I agree with the maths.
Is the premise that the handicapper gets it right a good one ?? When was the last time you saw an Eight horse photo finish ?
One thing to remember is that Pipe often has multiple runners especially at the festivals
Interesting post Nore the problem I see with this system is that once you make an error eg in your choice of horse to be a 6/1 shot middle marker then the mistake is compounded into the odds for all the other runners. One error and the whole book is wrong.
I would say for the vast majority of bettors Escorials methods are more likely to suceed simply because they are easier. (by success I simply mean do better than they did before).
Esc I find your statement that you cannot consider betting against the horse you think will win interesting. Are you saying that if on your ratings the top rated is say 95 and the next 90 but the top one is evs and the next 33/1 you would not consider backing your second rated ??
Escorial
Your method in effect is pricing up the race. If you produce ratings for each runner they are directly convertable to odds by simple maths. Of course you don’t need to actually do this the bet is generally obvious from your ratings if you rate something well clear of the rest then it is a bet for you, you say virtually regardless of price but of course if you converted your ratings to prices you would come up with a short price for a clear top rated selection anyhow. I guess you are also happy to bet possibly ew on your second or third rated horses if they are big prices so you are considering price to some extent.
As Escorial says there is more than one way to bet and bet well it is not necessary to price up every event yourself to find value. If esc says he wins money by simply picking winners then I for one am prepared to take him at his word and if this continues over time then he is certainly finding value by his method.
The essential difference between the coin toss analogy and a horse race is this if I toss a coin and it comes down heads we still know tails was an evens chance. In a two horse race with both horses at evens if A beats B by 2l the chances are that B was never an evens chance in the first place. The vast majority of winners in horse racing were value before the off .Plenty of big priced winners win fair and square on merit on the day and in truth should have been that evs shot it is just generally very very difficult to tell beforehand unfortunately !!
