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Any views on the pace of this race? I think it might be quite fast initially as it looks quite competitive and many riders will want to be near the front. This might turn out to be stamina-sapping, lead to more fallers and ultimately favour the stayers like Silver by Nature and Pandorama.
(Apparently this happens at Cheltenham sometimes according to P Veitch in his book Enemy Number One.)
Does anyone know why the two outsiders, Bygones and Orsippus, are 100-1? Why were they entered if they had no hope? If the pace of the race is slow surely they would have some sort of chance?
There is free ebook by Peter May on his website pjmracing.co.uk which has quite a lot on weights e.g.
"The evidence published in Betting For A Living, based on tests undertaken in the 19th century, indicated that weight only slowed horses to an appreciable degree when the amount reached 14 stone. From the above tables it appears that this argument could still apply today, over one hundred years later.
In summary, the horses which carry more weight win more often.
Furthermore, we found that using the weight allotted as an ability rating is as accurate as the tested independent ratings service. The
advantage afforded to the top weights does not appear to be
reduced when the going turns soft, but can be further enhanced by
the configuration of the racecourse."This is surely the conventional wisdom now. There is still an incentive to keep a horse’s handicap down because it can then run against lower quality opposition.
Mr Potts in his book Inside Track also agrees, with the exception of top class races where horses are running close to the limits of their ability. So maybe that is the key. It’s only in the big races that we discuss here that weight matters. But I suppose the Denman supporters would say weight is of little consequence for him.
